More ABOUT ME

I came late to teaching. After graduating from Oxford University in 1986 with a 2.1 in Experimental Psychology, I joined Chase Manhattan Bank on a year-long financial training scheme akin to a mini-MBA that has served me well ever since. I moved from there to work in financial derivative products for James Capel in London and latterly for its associate firm in Dublin. 

 

In 1992 I joined Hereward House Prep School, Belsize Park as a year 5 form teacher – a year that made it very clear to me that while teaching was the way forward, prep school teaching wasn’t! I gained my PGCE in 1994 at the Institute of Education and joined Abingdon School as a biology teacher in September 1994, shortly after my thirtieth birthday. In 1996 I was invited to be head of biology and in 1998 a boarding housemaster. In 2002 I was appointed Vice Master of Bedford School and from September 2005 I became Headmaster of Eastbourne College, where I served until 2016 when I retired through ill health just before my second kidney transplant. Eleven years until I became a head; eleven years as a head.

 

I have a long, complex medical history and while I remain vigorous of mind and full of energy, the collapse of the bones in my feet and the legacies of neurological as well as renal illness mean that full-time work is not possible. A happy outcome of this is that I am able to involve myself actively in a range of areas where people say they find my skills and experience useful – and this range provides plenty of variety and stimulation.  I am able to continue to enjoy the great things about being a head (people and relationships; strategy, communication and implementation; new ideas; listening to others and enabling them to find their way to solutions; offering alternatives and challenging established thinking from a genuinely disinterested, but well-intentioned viewpoint) without having to endure the less attractive parts (of which, under COVID-19, there have been a very great number).

 

Those I work with tell me that I bring the experienced and enthusiastic eyes of a head who is committed to making schools work well as communities.

 

I have been a governor in the independent and maintained sectors, in junior/prep, secondary/senior and through schools. I am no longer a governor because I no longer wish to sit in meetings. I do work with the sixth formers of my local academy trust to help aspiring medics, Oxbridge candidates, sixth formers in general and their tutors on UCAS personal statements and references.

 

This last is an extension of my work, since 2017, with Causeway Education, a charity that works to widen access to university and apprenticeships.

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