Wikipedia:Stephen Borthwick (schoolmaster)

Stephen Robert Borthwick FRSA (23 September 1951 – 15 December 2020) was an English schoolmaster, successively head of Aldenham School and Epsom College, after teaching at Rugby, Bloxham, Marlborough, and Bishop's Stortford College.

He was a Chartered Physicist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and at the time of his death was chairman of the Diocesan Board of Education of Hereford.

Life
Borthwick was born at Windsor on 23 September 1951, the son of Sydney Borthwick. He was educated at a grammar school in Surrey and at the University College of Wales, Bangor, where he took a degree in physics, having also studied the history and philosophy of science. From there, he joined Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1973. In 1974, he married Glynis Francis in Brecknockshire.

After teaching physics at Rugby and Bloxham Schools, Borthwick became head of the physics and technology department at Marlborough College and then deputy head of Bishop's Stortford College. His first headship was at Aldenham, from 1994, and in 2000 he was appointed to head Epsom College.

In September 2002, as a headmaster, Borthwick was highly critical of the standard of marking by the OCR Examinations Board, commenting to The Independent: "We had 170 pupils taking A-levels this year and we've had to put in 236 remark requests. Of those, 183 were with OCR. In March 2005, he challenged an Ofsted inspection of his school, not accepting it as a fair and accurate representation of the facts. Asked by The Sunday Times in October 2007 "Should we support city academies?", Borthwick's reply was "not yet", as establishing a new city academy would be a diversion, and he had to give priority to the children at his own school. In 2008, he doubted the usefulness of school performance league tables published by national newspapers. In 2009, when his school hosted the finals of the National Schools Rugby Tournament, he was interviewed by The Daily Telegraph and commented that school rugby "goes a long way towards supporting grassroots rugby in this country".

While still in post at Epsom, Borthwick championed both co-education and links with state schools, and Epsom College worked closely with Lambeth Academy. He was also influential in the creation of Epsom College in Malaysia. Borthwick announced the project in December 2009, stating that a high calibre project team had been put in place; the new school in Kuala Lumpur would follow a British curriculum and teach about 900 children between the ages of 11 and 18, mostly boarders. In 2010, Borthwick said it was planned to employ teaching staff mostly from the United Kingdom. He thanked the Malaysian government for its support. In June 2012, the new Epsom College was nearing completion on a fifty-acre campus at Bandar Enstek, for its opening in September. Borthwick said there would be "real pollination between the two schools through pupil and staff exchanges". However, the new school did not finally open until September 2014.

In 2010, some universities announced that A-Level grades given to school students resitting exams would be ignored, and Borthwick replied in The Sunday Times that he might now advise pupils against applying to study medicine.

Borthwick was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and as a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. He was also a Chartered Physicist. In 2010, he said in an interview that if he had not had a career in education, he might have been an acoustic engineer.

In June 2011, Borthwick's successor as head at Epsom College was chosen, and in 2012 he retired from the school to the Wye Valley, where he already had a house. There, he joined the Diocesan Board of Education of the Diocese of Hereford, becoming its chairman, and was also a member of the Bishop's Council and a governor of Hereford Cathedral School. Borthwick died suddenly in December 2020, prompting Bishop Richard Jackson to say he was shocked and saddened.