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On leaving University, I spent many years as a Maths
teacher, first at Erith School (in the Kentish suburbs of London) for four
years, and then for eighteen years at Tulse Hill School in South London. For
much of that time I was the school's Director of Studies and Coordinator of a
joint Sixth Form with two neighbouring schools.
Tulse Hill School was an interesting (but not an
easy) place to work -- a boys' comprehensive school on the edge of Brixton:
then, and still largely today, a rather depressed, working-class,
multi-cultural part of London. Our school did some interesting pioneer work on
multi-cultural education during the 70s and 80s.
Click
here to visit the school's alumnus site, which is very informative.
I had always been active in my Trade Union, (now,
after one amalgamation and two name changes, the Association of Teachers and
Lecturers), being a Conference delegate in most years and spending over 10
years on its national Executive Committee. I was for all of those 10 years the
Union's principal spokesperson on multi-cultural and anti-racist education, and
for much of it was on its Defence Committee, whose task was oversight of the
Union's casework, serving five years as Vice-Chairman and one as Chairman of
that Committee. I also served terms as Secretary of the Union's Education and
later Education III (16-19) Committees.
At local level I served in various rôles at
different times, as Branch Secretary, Branch Chairman and Branch Newsletter
Editor. I was a member for about 15 years of our local negotiating team with
the Inner London Education Authority (of blessed memory!) and spent about three
years as a co-opted Teacher Member of ILEA Education Committee. The combination
of this with my work for the Union at national level, at the same time as an
interesting job at Tulse Hill, was one of the most fascinating (if exhausting)
periods of my career.
So when the school was being run-down preparatory to
closure (because of population movement out of Inner London), I took the
opportunity of a good voluntary redundancy scheme to leave (in 1989) and go to
work for the Union (in 1990) to do casework. For some information about my job
with them, click here. The job is nominally
part-time and was genuinely so for the first few years. Then the demands for
casework grew so much that the job became effectively full-time. Later
(September 2000) my bosses were finally able to respond to my often-repeated
requests to reduce the area I covered so that I could again work genuinely
part-time.
Wendy joined the teaching profession on graduating,
first teaching English at a school in Bexleyheath. After some years off to do
research, she resumed teaching as a supply teacher and eventually joined me at
Tulse Hill School, first on supply and later in the Classics Department, as she
was out of sympathy with the recent developments in the teaching of English.
When the demand for Classics diminished she retrained
by taking a year's full-time Diploma course in teaching English as an
Additional Language, which she has done ever since in a number of schools,
latterly at a primary school a few minutes walk from home. She is the local Hon
Secretary of ATL.
We both retired from our jobs at the end of August,
2002. And Wendy hopes to stand down as Branch Secretary at Easter 2003,
My last job
I worked as a Regional Official (until 1 January 2002
titled Field Officer) for ATL, The Association of Teachers and Lecturers. ATL
is a Trade Union for, as its name suggests, teachers and lecturers. For more
more information about the Union click here to visit its web
site
My rôle was, working from home, to assist
individual members of the Union with problems relating to their employment,
and to support local elected officers of the Union in negotiations when
requested. This meant working irregular, but self-managed, hours.
To read a somewhat wry view of this job (written by
my wife, Wendy), click here.
I did this job from September 1990 to August 2002,
after spending 22 years as a teacher.
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