Adam Williams

Ian Allsop talks to Adam Williams, headmaster at Lord Wandsworth College in Long Sutton, Hampshire

On its website, Lord Wandsworth College (LWC) proudly highlights the amount of space it enjoys. A banner stating “1,200 acres of” (in turn) “character, dedication, ambition, learning, discovery” flashes on screen.

LWC is a co-educational HMC private school for day and boarding pupils aged between 11 and 18, known for its charitable foundation. It is named after Baron Sydney Stern, a Liberal MP and the second son of a prosperous banker. Granted a peerage less than four years after winning the seat of Stowmarket in 1891, Stern took the title of Lord Wandsworth in reflection of his many links with the London suburb.

When he died in 1912, he left a generous bequest to educate the children of agricultural workers – children who had lost one or both parents and needed the support of a boarding environment. Lord Wandsworth’s trustees purchased the site on which the college now stands and the first ‘foundationers’ arrived in 1922, followed by fee-paying pupils in 1946.

Today, the site houses the college buildings, considerable facilities and Stern Farm. This arable farm provides a timely reminder of those early students and of the college’s agricultural heritage, as well as generating profit for the school. It provided enough wheat for a leading bread manufacturer to produce 2.1 million loaves last year.

Adam Williams, who has been headmaster since 2015, says that this sense of history is really important to the culture of the school. “Since our start as a foundation orphanage for agricultural children, 2,500 have passed through. We still have 50 such children now. While we are not a slave to heritage, and wear it lightly on our sleeve, connecting back is exciting to do. We have renamed parts of our campus after some old pupils and place ourselves in the landscape. Long Sutton has Anglo-Saxon links, for example.”

In terms of what makes the school special, Williams cites the space to breathe, which helps pupils develop a “passion for outdoors and fresh air”. He explains: “We are a strong academic all-round school, holistic, and you can’t get away from the importance of that. But we want to widen he world of those involved, especially for some whose world has shrunk overnight. We want to be inspiring, and value success. We want students to be characterful and have curiosity, to take the broadest view, but with a twinkle in their eyes.”

Engagement with parents is important to this vision. “I urge parents to not go to the same place on holiday every year, with mixed results, but I want to encourage them to be fresh and open-minded in approach. We try to connect into the whole school community. Parents, staff and alumni do things together. For example, we had a group of 36 trekking in Iceland in February. We organise stargazing sessions and morning chorus walks.”

Sport is a strong focus for the school and Williams is proud of “really going hard on girls’ sports, especially cricket”. They stopped doing rounders over 10 years ago.

The school is also somewhat of a pioneer in speedgolf and Williams is one of two current speedgolf champions at LWC. While he won the ‘Senior British champion’ title at Sunningdale Heath Golf Club in September, having previously been ‘British amateur speedgolf champion’ in 2022 and 2023, fifth former Harry McCarthy was crowned ‘Junior British champion’ in his first time competing at a speedgolf tournament.

“We try to find spaces that are slightly different and explode into them,” summarises Williams.

A business approach

While at the time of writing the school had not publicly articulated its position on the VAT on school fees issue, Williams says it strengthens his belief that schools have to behave more like businesses.

“Our roles as teachers and educators is clearly important but with around 300 overall staff we are one of the biggest employers in the local area. HR, training and professional development is crucial, but all schools are brilliant at it, so we have to improve in this area.

Acknowledging that a model where 95% of income comes from fees is not sustainable Williams thinks schools need to be better at telling stories. “We are good at the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, but we do too much of that rather than highlight the ‘why’. For parents, their child’s education is a transactional experience so we have to be comfortable with that. They say that when their children are between 13 and 18, parents age 20 years, so we need to support them and make life fun.”

The other challenge he highlights, particularly for the farm, is climate change.

Relationship with the bursar

Williams points out that the traditional bursar role is evolving into one of a chief operating officer with finance support, and LWC employs Baz Bennett in that position. “One of the first things we were told in head training was get on well with your bursar, or their equivalent, or else one of you is going. It is mission critical. We speak all of the time, and even walk our dogs together. He has a military background, which is not unusual, so is brilliant at planning and strategy. And the relationship requires transparency and honesty. As chief executive I have to be comfortable with understanding the finances, as well as helping staff understand we are a business, so a strong bursar relationship is everything.”

Governors

Williams is a strong believer in the role of the board of governors as critical friends. “It helps if the school is on a rising tide, and you can more easily avoid them being too operational or ‘long-screwdrivery’. As a senior leadership team, we set strategy for the school and provide the board with the information and data they require to scrutinise and challenge. The governors are outstanding in their own worlds so we lean on them for things like finance, legal, regulatory, and safeguarding expertise.”

He concludes arguing for having paid governors, especially for the roles of chair, and chair of the finance sub-committee. “The time commitment and expectation is growing, so this seems a logical step”. It is something that there will be an increasingly louder voice for, especially as schools move into the VAT era.

Ian Allsop