Ampleforth headmaster Peter Roberts speaks to Oleńka Hamilton about his new mission
I was looking forward to speaking to Peter Roberts, the new headmaster of Ampleforth. Having left The King’s School, Canterbury, just six years before he took over as headmaster, a position he held from 2011 until his retirement in 2022, I had heard a bit about him already and knew that he had been popular there; I can tell why. Affable, warm and erudite, knowing that I have Polish links, he immediately tells me how interested he is in Polish history and how much he admires the work of one of my favourite writers, Ryszard Kapuściński.
Had he loved King’s as much as I had, I ask. He had. And does it have any similarities to Ampleforth? Both, he says, have a culture which encourages “the sharing of your gifts” between staff and pupils alike. Having benefitted from this myself over five years, I know exactly what he means.
Originally an Anglican, Roberts has since 1990 been married to Marie, a French Catholic with whom he has three daughters. His journey to the Catholic faith has been lifelong, he explains. The family has two bases in France – in the Charente, where they worship with a community of Benedictine sisters, and in Lannion, Brittany, where his wife’s uncle is a priest.
When teaching at Winchester College at the beginning of his career (Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was one of his pupils), he and his family attended St Peter’s Church there, moving on to Douai Abbey when he became headmaster of Bradfield College. While he was headmaster of The King’s School, Canterbury, they attended St Thomas’s in Canterbury, where ultimately Roberts converted to the faith.
“It is important to give you this background,” he explains, “to give you a sense of what it means to us to end up at Ampleforth.” For not only is Ampleforth the most famous Catholic school in Britain, it has also always had, and continues to have, strong European connections, with pupils coming from France, Spain, Poland and other Catholic countries on the continent.
Like previous headmaster Robin Dyer, Roberts was pulled out of retirement to take on the role of headmaster of Ampleforth. “There has been a real sense of mission about it, but it is also a joy,” he says, describing it as the pinnacle of his career, a homecoming.
He joins following a turbulent period for the school which involved a high turnover of headmasters, but Dyer did a stellar job of steadying the ship and Ampleforth is now completely out of the woods as regards any safeguarding concerns.
“I have been hugely impressed by the supportive, positive working relationship which we have with Ofsted and North Yorkshire social services,” he says. “The past is the past. We came here because we don’t see that as part of Ampleforth, not because it didn’t happen – it has been an important thing for the school to come to terms with – but because for us this is a new chapter.”
In fact, Roberts considers the pastoral care to be particularly good. “Outstanding pastoral care is what’s different about Ampleforth on a day-to-day basis,” he explains. “You can see among the support staff that they fundamentally believe each pupil is a God-given gift. It’s inspiring the way the teaching and boarding staff are really dedicated.”
Roberts is passionate about the Benedictine mission, which is “inclusive, welcoming and not selective”, and encourages “a very strong sense of community” among the pupils, staff and monks. “We are so much stronger together on our individual pathways,” he says, adding how much he has enjoyed getting to know the monastic community, all of whom, formed as they have been in the Benedictine tradition, are “full of knowledge and show us a love of learning and the power of education”. In terms of the modern school, while only Fr Ambrose Henley – “a very inspiring figure” – actually teaches, many of the other monks continue to be involved in school life.
Music is another aspect of life at Ampleforth which has impressed Roberts, not just the level of talent and dedication that is apparent, but also how clearly it helps the pupils in their own spiritual development. The school has its own Schola Cantorum, which recently sang in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome during Passiontide.
“It was a wonderful experience for them,” he says. “The people who happened to be there when they were singing were very taken with them, by the standard of their polyphony, and their passion for it. Cardinal Roche came to listen and wrote them a letter afterwards.”
This sense of mission for any headmaster of Ampleforth extends beyond and into the diocese as a whole, where the school is part of a wider network of Catholic schools. “I am working with heads running 3,000-strong schools in the middle of Hull and I have learnt so much from them,” says Roberts, who relishes this element of his job and feels strongly that Ampleforth should play an active role in, and give back to, the local area by, for example, sharing its facilities and expertise with state schools whenever possible. Another community which the school has very close ties to is the Manque movement from Chile, which offers the school an international perspective on Catholic education as well.
I ask how the school gets pupils to focus on the importance of Christian morality when they are inevitably so exposed to a secular world where almost everything goes. There has been much in the press about national RSE programmes which clearly don’t cut it.
He points to the school’s “Christian living” programme, which is compulsory to pupils all the way through the school and is unique to Ampleforth. “The point of it is to explain and help the pupils’ understanding of how to grow up within the Catholic Church and live good, Christian lives,” he says. “We also teach them about the importance of ritual and rhythm, about helping people, and trying to instil in them a sense of service – service to the Lord.” Alongside this programme, pupils participate in the Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina within their houses, each of which has a chapel which pupils can access as well as the abbey itself.
My final question is about school fees and who on earth is going to be able to afford this wonderful-sounding school once Labour gets into power and puts VAT on school fees, which are already rising by about five per cent every year.
“Any prudent school like Ampleforth is looking to see how it can navigate these tricky waters and not pass on everything to the parents,” he explains.
“Any future Labour government will struggle to implement some of their policy documents. A particular issue with taking away charitable status from schools like Ampleforth, for example, is that we are so committed to the other schools in the area. It would be crazy to put an end to that.ˮ
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