Abingdonian 2018

103 www.abingdon.org.uk Staff Farewells impressed colleagues and boys alike. English is a subject quite unlike others, dealing as it does with very personal and emotional responses to the highs and lows of life, not always through the lens of literature, of course, and I have enormous respect for a man whose instinct was to see his pupils’ writing as a private communication between teacher and boy. Modern teaching practice tells us that classroom walls are showcases for pupils’ work but B11 with Andrew at the helm was adorned with no more than enigmatic Hopper and Magritte prints. For a man who taught me the importance of developing an ironic detachment towards the grinding wheels of power, it seemed fitting somehow. Away from the classroom and all things literary, Andrew’s enthusiasms range from cricket - summer saw him in whites on Upper Field - to football - winter saw him scouring newspapers in the MCR for the latest on Preston North End, and holidays at any time saw him heading to France for time with family and friends, where rumour has it he developed a taste for Haute Medoc and even more of the finer things in life. Long may this continue, Andrew. The whole Abingdon community salutes you in your retirement, and no doubt those who haven’t quite reached this stage in their careers do so with a touch of envy. Sue Wigmore and Jeremy Taylor Carolyn May Writing valete articles for colleagues is never easy but writing one for Carolyn is particularly hard. How best do I sum up Carolyn’s long career at Abingdon? The best place to start would be to state how grateful I will always be for how Carolyn welcomed me into the department when I first started at the school. Before teaching at Abingdon I had been teaching in London, which I had left in order to do an MA and go travelling. At the interview for Abingdon School I got on with Carolyn straightaway and was pleased to start working with her in the History Department here in 2004. Looking back, I thought I was a fairly experienced teacher but in reality, I still had a lot to learn and it was my good fortune that Carolyn was my Head of Department at this stage of my career. Carolyn had just taken over the department after what was generally seen as a slightly chaotic period and had soon sorted it out. Shared resources were created at a fearsome rate, commendations and stickers were flying around, A3 worksheets were being pumped off the printing presses, glue sticks were being parachuted into the department and there was a real buzz about the place. I realised quickly both that I was going to have to up my game but also that I was going to learn a lot and enjoy my new job. Carolyn in fact combines a number of different and sometimes contradictory qualities that ensures that she is a great teacher. Firstly, she has a forensic ability to cut to the heart of the question, whatever question that may be. Whilst I might spend hours pondering how to summarise some alarming new marksheet from OCR, Carolyn will get on with the job, produce a summary document outlining exactly what needs to be done, and get on with teaching it to the pupils. Secondly, she is always generous with her time with her colleagues but more importantly with the pupils. Many university candidates were lucky enough to have her support throughout their application process and her tutees clearly benefitted from her willingness to always spend time with them. Carolyn is also a serious intellectual heavyweight. She has a PhD from Cambridge and was always able to teach to the upper ability range of the pupils at Abingdon, pushing the students to think for themselves and avoid lazy assumptions and easy but facile generalisations in their essays. She has also worked in both the maintained and private sectors and has a wealth of experience to draw on as a teacher. Lastly she is actually a bit of a rebel at heart with a strong iconoclastic tendency. She was never afraid to say what she thought and I valued her sage wisdom on many occasions. After becoming Head of Department in 2008 I was lucky to have her support for the decade that I ran the department. She was always ready to help out and I always enjoyed working with her. She was ever ready to laugh and I often found myself giggling alongside her during History Society talks, inset training, and school trips. I also always enjoyed hearing her setting the world to rights in department meetings or in the office and was able to take advantage of her vast range of teaching and life experience. As we moved to a new Edexcel IGCSE the handy revision guides that Carolyn had produced were rebranded, reissued and cloned by myself as were OCR syllabus outlines, guidance documents and mark schemes. It would be fair to say I leaned on Carolyn for guidance heavily in the first years and she was always more than ready to help me. I really couldn’t have done the job without her. I know plenty of other teachers working in the department felt the same way. Carolyn always had a wide range of interests. She is an active member of the Methodist Church, helping out with youth groups, and is also a keen musician and has helped run the Thames Valley Youth Orchestra. She is fiercely loyal to and proud of her family and it is no surprise that once her husband David decided to give up being a GP she too decided to retire. Summing up Carolyn’s massive contribution to Abingdon and the History Department in a short article like this is basically impossible but hopefully I have given you a sense of the huge amount she has done for me and the rest of my colleagues in the department and the pupils she has taught. As the presents accompanied by long letters from pupils stating their undying appreciation for how amazing her teaching had been stacked up at the end of each academic year I could have been forgiven for feeling slightly jealous. However, if I am going to be jealous of another teacher than I think it is right that I am jealous of Carolyn. We wish her and her husband and family all the best as she retires. David McGill Sue Wigmore Twenty six years ago Sue Wigmore began teaching EFL one-to-one part-time at Abingdon. She then went on to lead the department, making a huge difference to the overseas boys she taught. She not only helped them get to grips with