Why I Became a Teacher
Tomorrow is National Thank a Teacher Day and so I want to reflect on my own experience and inspirations and to urge you to do the same.
I had some wonderful teachers; Mrs Guy, my primary school teacher in Hong Kong (still going strong, and still in touch with me via my mother, half a century later); Mr McLaurin at prep school – he taught me English, History and Scripture as we then called it – and it was no coincidence that they were my best three subjects at Common Entrance; a whole series of great teachers at Repton including Martin Amherst-Lock, James Billington and Michael Charlesworth – all of them were wonderful. But funnily enough I want to talk today not about someone who taught me as a pupil but a teacher who inspired and mentored me as a colleague, when I was starting out on my own teaching career – pretty much straight out of university, unqualified, and working not in a school like this or one in the state sector, but rather at a London tutorial college; a place for people who needed a second chance, having messed up their A Levels.
It was there that I met a man called Frank Turnbull. You won’t have heard of Frank. He died twenty years ago, in 2005 – ridiculously young (probably in his early-to-mid 60s, maybe five to ten years older than I am now, though he looked at least twenty years older than that), the victim of his own intemperate lifestyle.
I remember the day I first met him. I was at the tutorial college for my interview and, the Principal and I passed this scruffy individual, self-rolled cigarette in hand, ripped jeans and T-shirt – the Head nodded and said to me: “That’s Frank – if you get the job, you’ll be teaching with him.”
I did get the job, and Frank and I became – despite an age gap of at least twenty-five years –the very best of friends. He used to joke that I had mistaken him for the school caretaker that first morning. I have to admit, he wasn’t far wrong.
Frank had started out as a miner, with little formal education but a fierce intelligence and an instinctive opposition to any form of authority. He worked his way up the union ladder: I can imagine him as a bolshy but skilled negotiator – a Mick Lynch, for those of you who know who he is.
Eventually, well into his forties, a light bulb went on Frank’s head: he wanted to stretch himself academically. Via a degree at Ruskin College, Oxford, which specialises in providing opportunities for adults with few qualifications, Frank ended up as a teacher of Politics. Ruskin gave him his second chance, and how he took advantage of it.
As a teacher he was brilliant: every lesson was a performance, but one of real substance. Passionate and committed, he didn’t even try to hide his left-wing views, or temper his language. Every lesson must have felt like a trial of nerve for his pupils, any of whose half-baked or unsubstantiated arguments he would destroy with a mixture of scalpel and sledgehammer. But then he would put the pieces back together again, synthesising his own arguments with those which were lurking, half-formed, in the essays before him, and something strong and rigorous would emerge clearly for all his fortunate pupils to understand. And they absolutely loved him for it.
At the end of each day, the adrenaline of performance would fade and he would slope off, exhausted, to the “Sun in Splendour” pub at the top of Portobello Road, to continue punishing his body.
As a colleague he was brilliant – he took me under his wing and I think I learned more by teaching Politics with him for a year than I learnt in three years as an undergraduate at Oxford. As an employee, he must have been a nightmare, forever defying the smoking ban, puffing his cigarette mischievously out of the classroom window, and often sneaking off to the pub in his lunch-break as well. But Frank, really, is the reason I became a teacher. I may have been employed to teach before I met him – but it was Frank who made me into a teacher.
After I left London and moved into the world of independent boarding schools, we lost touch somewhat – mainly because he didn’t have a phone and wouldn’t answer letters. But I thought about him a lot – I still do. Some ten years after I had left London, I bumped into him again. I saw this stooped old man shuffling along Portobello Road and called out, almost unbelievingly: “Frank, is that you?” To my horror, it was. We stopped and chatted, had a drink for old times’ sake, and I walked him back to his pretty squalid digs, which were much as I remembered them. As I left, he lifted a painting of a canal-boat off a nail in his wall and gave it to me. I have it to this day. It was a farewell gift: he knew he would not be seeing me again. Within a year, he was dead.
I am sure that each of my colleagues here could, as I have today, point to a teacher or colleague, past or present, who has served as an inspiration to them. I hope each of you can, too – indeed, I can already sense how much inspiration some of you have found in my colleagues.
So, value your teachers – and tomorrow is National Thank a Teacher Day – so it is a great opportunity for me to say thank you to all my colleagues here at The Leys; it has been such an honour to work with them these last twelve years. More importantly, if you have found them inspiring, make sure you tell them – today, tomorrow, any time! But don’t just tell them: tell your children and grandchildren about them. Because, by so doing, and by passing on the stories of how you gained inspiration from them, they in turn gain a form of immortality.
And finally, I am delighted to announce our school prefect announcements for the coming year and to present them with their badges.
Starting with our Senior Prefects for 2025-26; and they will be Sofi P and Archie N.
Many congratulations to them both.
And today I am also going to announce the rest of the School Prefect team – that’s the Heads of the individual Houses, and those with school-wide responsibility for things like Culture, Wellbeing, Academic, Chapel and so on:
Head of House
Barker: Camille N
Barrett: Alfie R
Bisseker: Ella T
Dale: Rose E
East: Michael S
Fen: Tess W
Granta: Darcey G
North A: Harry C
School: Archie W
West: Noah N
We will make a point of awarding the Deputies their badges either before the end of this term or my successor will do so at the start of next academic year.
As well as the House roles, I am delighted to announce the following school-wide positions of responsibility on the Prefect Team:
Academic Prefect: Somi M
Chapel Prefect: Jonathan S
Community Prefect: Oliver E
Culture Prefect: Hermione H
Moulton Prefects: David L and Ella C
Sport Prefect: Reuben T
Wellbeing Prefect: Keira H
As ever it was very hard to make these decisions because there were so many excellent candidates. I did rely quite heavily on the pupil and staff votes, but some of you will naturally be feeling disappointed, I understand that – and I am sorry, but a team can only have so many members, and wherever we draw the line, inevitably some have to miss out. Please bounce back – there will be other opportunities to display leadership and to contribute to the school community – and we also have School Colours as a way of recognising people of distinction in the Upper Sixth, who haven’t been appointed as School Prefects – so please don’t despair.
I also wanted, as I do every year, to flag something up to those Prefects whom we have just congratulated.
There is a danger that one thinks of this moment as a pinnacle moment. It is and it isn’t. This is just the start. Your role, be it a House role or a School-wide role, is much more important than this one moment of recognition. Leadership isn’t about lording it over others; it is about service to the community. Three attributes I think will help you deliver on that model of leadership: humility, hard work, and commitment to the team.
It’s the job that counts, not the personal glory. Congratulations to those individuals – and I know my successor, Dr Ives, will look forward to working with you next year to make this School the best that it can be.