Speaking to our new Year 7 parents and pupils at last Saturday’s Parents and Players Morning, I was reminded of just how deeply sport is woven into the life and history of Warwick School.
We are rightly proud of our sporting tradition and of the success Warwick teams have enjoyed at the highest level. Last year, for example, our Under 15 hockey team were once again crowned national champions. We want our pupils to compete wholeheartedly and to try to win. But the value of sport at Warwick cannot be measured only in trophies, results or representative honours.
Most Warwick pupils will not go on to become professional sportsmen. If that is their pathway, we will support them. Our sporting ethos, however, is founded upon both performance and participation. We want every boy to enjoy the benefits that sport can bring.
Why, then is sport such an important part of life at Warwick School?
This week, our Year 7 pupils took part in the first week of our new Open Book initiative, which sees boys reading a book of their choice for ten minutes at the beginning of every afternoon. Regular engagement with longer-form writing develops reading fluency and supports stronger academic outcomes. More importantly, however, reading can be a shortcut to wisdom: it introduces us to new ideas, experiences and perspectives, helping us to understand both the world and ourselves.
It therefore seems appropriate to answer that question with reference to two books I love about sport, each very different, but each capture something important about its value.
The first, Michael Simkins’s ‘The Last Flannelled Fool’, is a warm and entertaining account of amateur cricket. It captures the fun, memories and friendships that grow through sport. These things matter. Schools should be places of purpose and ambition, but also places of happiness, companionship and shared experience.
The second is James Kerr’s ‘Legacy’, which explores the culture behind the extraordinary success of the New Zealand All Blacks. Its central message is captured in the phrase: “Better people make better All Blacks.” The team’s success is presented not simply as the product of talent or tactics, but of a culture built upon character, humility and shared responsibility.
A message that aligns with the Warwick Way.
Education is not only about examination results. It is about preparing young people to thrive and to lead purposeful, fulfilling and happy lives through which they make a positive contribution to the world. We were therefore delighted that our commitment to character education was recognised before the summer through the award of the Association for Character Education’s Kitemark Plus. Our sports programme is central to that commitment because, as a vehicle for developing character, sport is almost without equal.
Sport provides countless opportunities for boys to practise the values of The Warwick Way. It develops curiosity when a player listens carefully to a coach, reviews a performance or asks why a particular tactic succeeded or failed. It requires creativity when a player must think differently in response to an unfamiliar or unexpected challenge. It calls for courage when a boy takes a penalty stroke, stands beneath a high ball, faces a stronger opponent or tries again after making a mistake in front of teammates and spectators. It teaches perseverance when a player returns after being dropped, recovers from injury or continues practising a skill they find difficult. It demands responsibility, because each player’s preparation and conduct affect not only his own performance but that of the whole team. Above all, sport teaches humility. Nobody wins every time, and nobody succeeds alone.
These values are given practical expression in our Player Expectations Agreement, which all pupils representing Warwick are expected to understand and uphold. Playing for the school is a privilege, and with that privilege come responsibilities: to their teammates, coaches, academic work and wider school community. More than a list of rules it describes the kind of player, teammate and person we want every Warwick sportsman to become.
Of course, sport can sometimes appear trivial. Matches are won and lost, seasons end and results are soon overtaken by the next fixture. Yet the experiences formed through sport can remain with us for life. As Matthew Syed has observed;
‘No other branch of human activity more precisely dramatizes the human instinct to win, to measure oneself against others to take on the world and to learn more about oneself in the trying.’
That is why sport occupies such an important place in a Warwick education. We will celebrate victories and strive for excellence, but our greater ambition is that every boy should enjoy taking part, learn to contribute to something larger than himself and develop the character to respond well both when he wins and when he loses.
Because, in the end, better people do not only make better players, they make better teammates, better friends and better citizens.
