From First to Last - Magdalen waves farewell to its first J1s
Eleven years ago, Magdalen College School opened its doors to the first seven-year-olds, welcoming them into the newly formed J1. Their teacher was Elizabeth Stapleton, still the teacher who looks after the littlest boys in the school when they join us. This summer those first boys took their A-levels and will be moving on from MCS to begin the next stages of their lives. This seemed a good opportunity to look back and see how far they have come.
What was J1 like for these boys? Back then they wrote:
"My new class is excellent. We have seventeen boys and no girls... Everything we do together is really good fun... In my old class we had an old grey and black tape player that was nearly always going to the workshop to be fixed. Now we have a brand new geto blaster and it hasn't yet been to the workshop and I hope it never will... Our new classroom is completely new; our teacher is new, the pupils are new... We have a new tv in our classroom... My new class is called J1... In history we are learning about the Tudors. In science we are learning about light. In geography we are learning to draw maps. We also play a lot of games. J1 is cool!!"
Staff too were enthusiastic about their young charges, in spite of some initial trepidation. Back in 2000 they wrote:
"Your 'little chaps' have found the key to open the hearts of so many staff and visitors... They will maybe realise when they are older what a responsibility it was to have been the very first J1s in the history of Magdalen College Junior School... Their enthusiasm and potential is boundless and it is a privilege to be their teacher. I look forward to watching them grow."
On a final visit back to their very first classroom here last week, the boys found things were surprisingly familiar. One remembered reading "The Lion Book" - Michael Morpurgo's Butterfly Lion, a classic still enjoyed by boys in J1 today. Another commented that Mrs Stapleton took a dim view of reading Thomas the Tank Engine - it seems it was not stretching enough for an MCS boy, even at seven!
Other memories were of endless stairs (the J1s are still on the top floor of the Junior School), the miles they had to walk to lunch (just up the road to the canteen). Second formers were terrifying - a comment that induced hilarity in all these young men. They remembered Mrs Stapleton as being very strict, and when the boys really misbehaved they were sent to the naughty table - their worst misdemeanours seem to have been shouting out or yawning without covering their mouths. They all laughed as they recalled Mrs Stapleton telling them to "cover your mouth - I don't want to see your breakfast!"
When asked for their fondest memories of J1, they remembered being allowed to watch England play Brazil on tv, dressing up for book day, eating potato smiley faces, making a wooden truck in DT (a tradition that continues and is as loved now as it was then). Mrs Stapleton says the best trip was camping out at Bicester Garrison, with fires, feathery sleeping bags and spaghetti hoops. Meeting the Queen in Oriel Square was a highlight of their first year here. Yet almost as much excitement was generated by the memory of kicking a football that (accidentally) broke the Master's bedroom window, and being covered for by the "gappy"!
So what next? Of the original seventeen, twelve boys have been right through the school. A-levels loom and, grades permitting, two are destined for Oxford (to read English and Chemistry), four for Cambridge (Natural Sciences, Philosophy and Mathematics), two for Durham (Medicine and Politics), one for UCL (Biology), one for Brighton (Medicine), one for Queen Mary's, London (English) and one for St Andrews (PPE).
Before they left, the boys enjoyed a tea party (with jelly and ice cream!) with their former teachers. The gappy-toothed little boys are now charming young men, with great futures ahead of them - though not above enjoying jelly and ice cream, clearly.