Helen Haran
09-02 2021 21:54
schreef:
I knew Jean from teaching with her for 17 years at Queens’ School, Bushey. I joined the Staff there in January 1973 and Jean had started the term before.
Our roles at Queens’ were very different: Jean was Head of R.E. and I was initially Head of Girls PE. Our previous teaching experiences were also very different although we had both been teaching overseas prior to Queens. I had taught boys and girls in mixed schools in Australia whereas Jean had come from a Girls’ Grammar School in Ghana and would be the first to admit she found the change to a mixed Comprehensive School understandably somewhat overwhelming at times.
In spite of this we got on really well from our first meeting: both single we enjoyed each others company a great deal, sharing occasional meals at each other’s homes and weekend walks. Jean was a good sportswoman and an asset to more than one Staff sports team when we played the 6th Form. Seeing her wielding a rounders bat and hockey stick made me relieved she was on my team not the opponents!!
When I later became one of the Heads of House at Queens’, Jean was one of my Form tutors and as such we worked closely together. She was a very caring and supportive Form Tutor getting to know her students well though several of them could never be classed as “angels” – not even by their parents!
Every year the 1st year students in our House visited the Yorkshire Dales for an “adventure week” with myself and their Form Tutors. Settle was always on the itinerary for the first day and I can’t tell you how grateful I was that Jean was with us one year. We had just reached a halt on the way up to Victoria Cave when I received a shout from one of the group leaders that a certain young man wasn’t with us! Immediately a member of staff set off back along the route we had taken only to see, approaching us, the missing youngster together with a lady. She had seen him in Settle and, when he told her which school he was with, she knew exactly where we would be and brought him to us. How? Because she just happened to be a close friend of Jeans and knew exactly which route we were taking!
Jean even trusted me to join the RE Department for a while. Not because I had studied R.E at College but because the two 3rd Year Forms in my House were a rather difficult mixed group (academically and behavior wise) and she came to me undecided about which lucky member of her Department should have the pleasure of teaching them. We chatted about it and suddenly without me realising how she had managed it, I had been subtly persuaded to teach both forms myself for the year!! So with Jean guiding me I was introduced to the R.E. curriculum: I thoroughly enjoyed the experience – and was delighted when she asked if I would continue the following year with the new 3rd year pupils in my House. Perhaps it was the fact that my Grandfather had been a missionary in the West Indies in the 1930s that gave her confidence I would rise to the occasion!!
When I left Queens and returned to my native Yorkshire we stayed in touch – by phone and mail - and when Jean moved up to Settle to join her friends we met up at least once a year, in the Dales or Ilkley, initially taking in a walk but in later years just for lunch - often with her friend Barbara as well. These lunches usually lasted for hours as we never ran out of things to talk about!
I have very fond memories of Jean, both as an ex colleague, and more importantly as a friend. I particularly think of her whenever my husband and I visit the Yorkshire Dales.
Ann Poyner (nee Burrow)
Helen Haran
09-02 2021 21:54
schreef:
I knew Jean from teaching with her for 17 years at Queens’ School, Bushey. I joined the Staff there in January 1973 and Jean had started the term before.
Our roles at Queens’ were very different: Jean was Head of R.E. and I was initially Head of Girls PE. Our previous teaching experiences were also very different although we had both been teaching overseas prior to Queens. I had taught boys and girls in mixed schools in Australia whereas Jean had come from a Girls’ Grammar School in Ghana and would be the first to admit she found the change to a mixed Comprehensive School understandably somewhat overwhelming at times.
In spite of this we got on really well from our first meeting: both single we enjoyed each others company a great deal, sharing occasional meals at each other’s homes and weekend walks. Jean was a good sportswoman and an asset to more than one Staff sports team when we played the 6th Form. Seeing her wielding a rounders bat and hockey stick made me relieved she was on my team not the opponents!!
When I later became one of the Heads of House at Queens’, Jean was one of my Form tutors and as such we worked closely together. She was a very caring and supportive Form Tutor getting to know her students well though several of them could never be classed as “angels” – not even by their parents!
Every year the 1st year students in our House visited the Yorkshire Dales for an “adventure week” with myself and their Form Tutors. Settle was always on the itinerary for the first day and I can’t tell you how grateful I was that Jean was with us one year. We had just reached a halt on the way up to Victoria Cave when I received a shout from one of the group leaders that a certain young man wasn’t with us! Immediately a member of staff set off back along the route we had taken only to see, approaching us, the missing youngster together with a lady. She had seen him in Settle and, when he told her which school he was with, she knew exactly where we would be and brought him to us. How? Because she just happened to be a close friend of Jeans and knew exactly which route we were taking!
Jean even trusted me to join the RE Department for a while. Not because I had studied R.E at College but because the two 3rd Year Forms in my House were a rather difficult mixed group (academically and behavior wise) and she came to me undecided about which lucky member of her Department should have the pleasure of teaching them. We chatted about it and suddenly without me realising how she had managed it, I had been subtly persuaded to teach both forms myself for the year!! So with Jean guiding me I was introduced to the R.E. curriculum: I thoroughly enjoyed the experience – and was delighted when she asked if I would continue the following year with the new 3rd year pupils in my House. Perhaps it was the fact that my Grandfather had been a missionary in the West Indies in the 1930s that gave her confidence I would rise to the occasion!!
When I left Queens and returned to my native Yorkshire we stayed in touch – by phone and mail - and when Jean moved up to Settle to join her friends we met up at least once a year, in the Dales or Ilkley, initially taking in a walk but in later years just for lunch - often with her friend Barbara as well. These lunches usually lasted for hours as we never ran out of things to talk about!
I have very fond memories of Jean, both as an ex colleague, and more importantly as a friend. I particularly think of her whenever my husband and I visit the Yorkshire Dales.
Ann Poyner (nee Burrow)
