Thread: DOYRMS

Like all my previous posts and Wedge35, I am a very proud Dukie who looks back with pride at my time there. I am sure your son will enjoy himself. I went to Haig first. Loved it.

Sons Of The Brave.

I am a current student at Dukies, and to be perfectly honest, it's been an up and down ride. I don't like to name names (for the fact that I don't want very angry teachers on my back) but this school really shouldn't be going through with this 'Academy status' thing.

I have learnt some very important life lessons from my time here, but the negatives very much outweigh the positives, I have found.
My year is very sexually active, (as are others), and I know that quite a few students suffer from depression or near enough without being diagnosed. The respect system (the older you are = more respect) is slowly falling apart, and 6th formers are getting too big for their boots. Last year there was a huge drug and alcohol bust, and many people from my year and above were kicked out.

Thankfully I am leaving at the end of this year, and I don't think I will regret it. As my year and myself say often, the only thing good about this school is the friends; they don't care who you are, as long as you don't stab them in the back too often. Everything else is below standard; the living areas are pitiful and the classrooms are tatty and falling apart. The weather (which cannot be controlled, I know) is getting worse every year and henceforth the buildings are suffering. The maths block is a mobile building that was meant to be temporary but ended up permanent.
In these windy months many classrooms are freezing cold, so much so we cannot do much but sit there and shiver.

As for sending your child here, it depends on the child. I had never been to a boarding school before I was sent here, and I have changed into a different person. Thankfully my year took me in and befriended me and my past few years have sailed by (very) quickly. I know many people who cannot stand it here and are taken home quite regularly because they cannot stand it. I also know of a person who developed an eating disorder (actually, I know many) and left the school one day and just never came back.

So for some advice for you parents who are contemplating sending your child(ren) here...just ask yourself, or even your children, can they survive in this environment? Like I said, it's not for everyone and if you do send your innocent child off to this boarding school...don't expect them to come back the same.

Originally Posted by the_field_mouse

Like all my previous posts and Wedge35, I am a very proud Dukie who looks back with pride at my time there. I am sure your son will enjoy himself. I went to Haig first. Loved it.

Fair play to you mate and I'm glad that you had a good time there but I feel quite the opposite to you. I'm not proud of the place in the slightest - in fact I detest it and don't have any intention of going anywhere near there again. The school takes ordinary pads brats from army estates and treats them like public schoolboys from day one. Some thrive in that kind of environment, others hate it and rebel. Like the majority of kids there, I wasn't born to be a boarding-school boy. I came from a working-class family with a Dad who was a Warrant Officer and, looking back, I would far rather my life had been 'normal' and I'd carried on with my childhood without being sent away to an environment where half the adults think their teaching in a public school and some of the others take the military ethos far too seriously. I went from being a happy, normal little kid growing up on a pads estate in Germany to having my childhood deformed by a completely alien world. Kids don't need to be having short-back-and-sides and bulling shoes, isolated from the real world for 5 to 7 years.

As I said before, I feel so strongly about how I and others who didn't fit-in were treated that if I had been killed on ops, my mother had specific instructions not to let them chisel my name into the wall of their fcuking chapel.

I left DOYRMS nearly 2 years ago now. Thrown into the school as a worthless 3rd former amongst 13 other boys who had already had the time to bond was not hard. It certainly was a challenging time, but once you get through the harder parts (sometimes so hard you feel you cannot stay there anymore) you realise exactly how good it is. Yes, many of the staff are born pedants, but those are the types of people we need in schools like this in order to assert modern day values. We don't want young children drinking in the dorms or people taking drugs so taking these issues as seriously as they do is a good thing. Whilst I understand recent and if not current pupils say the 'school is failing' becuase of the SMT it is not so much a case of it failing, it's more that of it succeeding. If they wern't to do their jobs as stated then the school would spiral down into anarchy. I do believe dorm life can be difficult too, but it's a great life skill to have from a young age when you live with other people and people of all ages. It prepares you for the rest of your life. Being away from home and being in an unfamiliar environment helps you later on. Promise. Since I've left I've managed to travel unimaginable parts of the world and start a promising degree at university. Not to mention passing the AOSB ready for a career in the armed forces. If I wasn't given positions of responsibility then I would never be the person I am today. You learn things about yourself from being at this school, from making decissions every day to finding ways to interract with a vast range of other people.

However, the time I was there seems to be the last years of that age. It is evident the school has moved into a new era since Charles Johnson has taken over. We need to ensure that the military and Christian values are reasserted and that the school retains its hierachial structure. Without this structure people will not learn many of the lessons previous students have learnt. You should grow confidence with age. If a 4th former was to ignore a 6th former it would be a sad day which would take us back to the downward spiral of anarchy once more. If the young ones feel they can have dominance over the older pupils, what's to say they wont later feel they can have dominance over teachers too?

Take a look at your local state school and then take a look at The Duke Of York's.

*was hard

Dear Cairen,

I read your post which great interest, particularly the part where you claim that the gerontocracy (the 'respect' system as you call it- an ironic term if ever there were one) which pervaded the DOYRMS is 'slowly falling apart'. What are your grounds for this claim? And how exactly is it 'falling apart'?

I myself am an 'Old Boy' and left shortly before entering the Sixth Form (thus avoiding becoming 'one of us, one of us, one of us'). I found that the collusion between the Sixth Form and several members of staff led to the emergence of a monstrous conspiracy in which all kinds of despicable acts were perpetrated against the younger elements of the student body. Such bullying and frankly, criminal activity, was alluded to in the school's most recent Ofsted report. The younger generations were totally disenfranchised and had to suffer the humiliations heaped upon them by their elders. There was no outlet through which these dispossessed could make representations so that their grievances could be addressed. They had to put up, shut up and suffer in silence. This was a lamentable stain against the school's character and casts a long shadow over the institution's many redeeming features. But hold on! I get ahead of myself- I speak as though it were history rather than a matter for today's pupils. 'The beast', it would appear, continues to lumber-on and prey on the defenceless. Disgusting. My sympathies to you and your comrades, Cairen.

Naturally therefore, I am pleased to hear that the oppressed are divesting themselves of their oppressor's shackles.

Many thanks,

C.o.

To the others (who can tolerate any more of my arrant babble): the school was, without question, the single greatest transformative experience of my life; one which I am eternally grateful for. It provided the structure sadly lacking in mainstream education today: one which stimulated children intellectually both in- and outside-of the classroom. The emphasis placed on physical exercise (along with attendant social pressures which further accentuated and encouraged such emphasis) meant that my own fitness far outstripped that of my peers outside of the DOYRMS. But above all, the lesson it taught in terms of the importance of community; the absolutely fundamental role played in an individual's life by his friends- his brothers, is one I will never forget. Fraternity is everything: we are only as good as the people we find ourselves surrounded by. For that, I will always be indebted to the DOYRMS. For that, I will always be a Dukie.

Play up, play up...

Dear Wedge35,

Thank you for your post. I understand the resentment you harbour towards the DOYRMS; I too feel that way about certain aspects of my experience. I trust that it didn't distort your life prospects too much and that you are at least heeding the former part of the school's motto: 'Looking forward with confidence', because I know you can't be 'looking back with pride.'

Best,

C.o.

May I begin in saying that DOYRMS is an academy. However it will only accept civvie students with a letter of disability, the same as any other school.

The school gives you many opportunities that some kids can only dream of. How many school children can say they were part of the countries largest military band? Or that they marched on the pitch at Twickenham to entertain the crowd. My personal favorite is that the England cricket team came out of the pavilion at Lord's to see our drum display.

The school introduces the idea of camaraderie with the dorms sticking together and strong friendships being built, these friendships often go on throughout life. Dorm life is great the only downside to this is the privacy, curtains replace doors and the cubicles are not high enough to stop others from looking over. It is true that the school sees 'colorful' language but I can assure you it is the same if not better than most other schools, but if you are naive enough to believe that your child does not swear just think about it. The education in the school is also excellent because of its emphasis on the core subjects and the hour to two hour 'prep' sessions a night. This work load at times may seem excessive but it sees the public exam years achieving their potential and the leavers in the main going to their first choice of university.

It is true that the SMT do run the school as though they are army officers; however it is the tradition that they used to be. They are doing a good job of moulding young men out of the school boys there. You may argue they are too strict but put it in perspective, you are a father, your son has been brought home by the police for drinking underage or he has been caught getting a blow job in a public place, what will your reaction be?

The school does create young men through the distribution of responsibility and making the child independent to a certain degree, they must monitor their washing etc and change their beds.

The position of school RSM is held by a cracking man who does the best possible job, of which within the school he has many. through his links with PWRR has seen Johnson Beharry VC visit the school, as well as the grandson of Winston Churchill and Baroness Thatcher.

Overall I have a positive out look on the school as it has moulded both me and my brother into gentlemen with moral values; however boarding school is not for everyone, you must think carefully before sending your child there.

Can I start by saying thank you to all of you who have written here it was great Reading all of tour stories. I -which you can probably tell from my user name-am currently attending DYRMS and am just about to start 5th form, and am hoping dearly to stay on for 6th form.
Some of your comments about academy status are very interesting, and though they are negative, are too true. After one year there are "civies" at the school and though it looks like they have settled in well, they have been singled out and been also called name, my favourite being "mudblood"!!
SMT also seems to be a popular topic, and seem to be turning to petty diversions from the rules such as a boy with his belt buckle undone next to his girl friend being suspended on the week of grand day.
Obviously, am just a 15yo Kitchener boy- or "Gentlemen" as my housemasterkeeps saying- but from time to time I do think would I bring my kids here? YES!! For me, I would love to see my kids have the opprtunities I had. In the first four full years of being at the school I have played at twickenham, been a poppy bearer on Rememberance Sunday, played hockey for the school, completed the Duke of Edinborough Award, and trecked across Dartmoor twice. Also I have ha a week away in France
and this coming November I go to America to play at Valleey Forge.
So any brave soldier wondering whether or not to send your kid there or not, please do, and let them be one of the schools Son's (or daughters!!) of the Brave, as when I join the Army in around four years, I certainly want my kids to be a Dukie.

Son's of the Brave.
Always