Valete

in Psychology.

Before coming to St Peter’s Mrs Loftus worked at the University of York, running a project for over 2,000 young people to support them in making informed choices about their future. Before that she did a number of interesting things – the more unusual of those having been selling wedding dresses to wedding dress shops, and managing a snow sports store (during her three gap years before university). Now that she works in careers, she says that she can see the important things that her varied experiences taught her, and how they led her to what she is doing now.

Mrs Loftus says that she very much wanted to work in a school setting where she could give support and help pupils on a one-to-one basis, and that the school’s fantastic reputation was an important part of choosing St Peter’s. So far, she says, ‘I’ve really enjoyed my first year: it’s a welcoming, positive and energetic place that wants the best for everyone who studies and works here.’

Away from school, Mrs Loftus ‘absolutely loves’ yoga and would like to encourage as many people as possible to give it a try! She also surfs with her husband (whom she says is much, much better than her!): you’ll find them in Devon every summer with a collection of surfboards and wetsuits. She is from a really musical family, so in the school holidays you might find her in the recording studio with her brother, working on some very cool music!

The Editor

Mr David Morris

David was a member of staff at St Peter’s for 28 years, having been appointed Head of Physics in 1989. He started his career in 1979 at Bristol Grammar School, where he remained

for four years before moving to King’s School Rochester as second in department. At a recent meal honouring David’s retirement, some comments regarding David’s appointment to St Peter’s were shared with us. At interview, David had impressed the then Head Master with his smart appearance and motivation to concentrate on Physics. David’s smart appearance, in no small part, was a result of the large trench coat that he was wearing. David had not been to Yorkshire before and his only information about the county was gained by watching The Last of the Summer Wine – and in all honesty, according to him, this was what he thought all of Yorkshire was like. David is still very pleased that this coat only cost £1. To complete the look David had bought himself the flat cap that many of us remembering seeing him wear at rugby matches. He was quite surprised to find that the lower sixth, in the first lesson he taught, didn’t speak like Compo, Foggy or Clegg.

David certainly had a challenge as a new head of department. His predecessor had a reputation as a formidable teacher and had stepped down to become Deputy Head of the school but still taught some Physics. However, David’s comments about wanting to concentrate on Physics were earnestly meant: when I joined him in the department it was immediately obvious just how hard David worked and how much he strove for

excellence. I also remember, on many occasions, staying up all night with him moderating coursework. David pushed the pupils to take part in national competitions and successes were soon reported in The Peterite. The Oxford and Cambridge examination board used to produce certificates for the top three marks in A-level Physics each year. Invariably the department gained one of these certificates and one year we achieved all three. On his watch we have had a pupil come top in the country in Theoretical Physics in the Olympiad competition and then go on to represent the nation in the worldwide competition in South Korea. We have also had a pupil come second in the world in a research competition with the finals taking place in Indonesia. On top of that for many years David ran the second XV rugby team, was heavily involved in senior cricket, and coached the under-16 Colts hockey team. I helped David with the hockey and remember the practice sessions in almost total darkness when all the other games sessions had long finished. David’s enthusiasm was infectious, making boys who had never played hockey before into a really good side, and many of these pupils are still in touch with him to this day. After one year in The Manor, David served as a tutor in The Grove, under nine housemasters and housemistresses. He took five sets of pupils all the way from the third form to the upper sixth. This is probably unique at St Peter’s and it is typical of David and our pupils that he says that there was never anyone in his tutor

groups that he didn’t get on with in all those years.

In recent times, perhaps the main contact that pupils had with David outside the classroom was a result of his ubiquitous presence both on and off campus with his cameras. Being a physicist, I feel obliged to put some of the numbers associated with David’s photography into context. During his last three years in the school David took 135,357 photos, and since 1996 the total comes to over a million. I was very proud of the first computer I had when I came here; however, I would need 10,000 of these computers to store just those last three years of David’s photos. Often with three cameras around his neck, David was seen climbing the heights in the Minster, before running around with his kitchen stool to get to the next vantage point, or dashing outside to take photos of people leaving after a school service. He spent many a Sunday or evening at school events, and was a welcome sight at the end of the Beverley run where runners knew that the end was in sight and they could compare before-and-after photos. The way David could appear anywhere with his cameras and the trust that pupils had in him to enable him to do that was nothing short of inspiring. We will not truly appreciate the contribution that David made in this area until it is no longer there. The vibrant ethos of the school is amplified through his dedication and he deserves an awful lot of our thanks.

After his children had moved beyond school, David’s formidable drive was focused on outreach work, for which he received an Institute of Physics teacher of the year award. 2007 saw our first Physics Olympics for year-eight pupils – a competition that has grown and become renowned over a very wide region, with other events for other age-groups being introduced by teachers who were inspired by what we do here. 1,270 pupils have attended these at St Peter’s, and some of these pupils have then come to this school as a direct result of attending the competition. On top of this, David’s organisational output produced an annual timetable of a stargazing evening, the National Technicians’ conference with delegates coming from as far away as the Isle of Man and Warwick, the York Schools’ Science Quiz and eleven public lectures.

A colleague from another school was recently scratching her head as to how David managed to get so many things off the ground. Sheer persistence is the answer. The potential for this was certainly evident in his early career where David set up a staff cricket team in Rochester – a venture that lasted for at least 25 years after David left. In order to get this going, David went round all of Rochester including the banks and the police stations offering them cricket matches and getting them to play, a behaviour mirrored when David went round all the local houses in York in 2010 posting leaflets advertising his first public lecture. Over 300 people came to that first lecture and some have come ever since. David has received many comments about how his work has changed their lives. In his outreach work, David forged links with the Institute of Physics, York Rotary Club, Nestlé and Taylor’s of Harrogate; he is a Teaching Fellow of the Ogden Trust, and a member of the external advisory board for York University, from which he has helped develop the Nuffield Research Placement Scheme which in turn has benefited many of our pupils.

The impact that David had on St Peter’s, the local area and further afield is tremendous and his legacy will be felt for many years ahead, for which many people have enormous gratitude. He had an extraordinary career and I am sure that there are many adventures still to be had in the future. We wish him and Liz a very happy retirement.

Mr Mark Edwards

Mrs Joanna Appleby

Jo joined the Music School in 2009 and since that time she has become a highly valued member of the music team. Starting as a part-time role, Jo’s post has for the past few years been given the full-time status that it deserves and this is a direct result of the breadth of Jo’s skills and her ability to manage a complex and varied number of tasks from financial administration for over 40 staff to designing posters and programmes for our events that have been widely admired, to name but two of the many elements of her role.

Jo has had two children through the department and both of them have made a significant contribution to our music with Alice singing in the School and Chapel Choirs and Sam in an excellent Guitar Group. Jo decided to accept my invitation to join us on our music tour to Paris with Alice in the Summer of 2015 and she looked after a group of lower-sixth girls with her strong sense of pastoral care shining through.

Jo has been a particular help in looking after the visiting teacher team and many of my staff will be indebted to her in terms of dealing with practical issues such as timetabling or timesheets but perhaps more important has been her willingness to be available whenever we have wanted to talk to her. Her door has always been open and she has become more than just our administrator and is considered a friend by many of the music team.

With Sam leaving the school this summer, Jo felt that it was a natural time to move on. We will miss Jo, and we wish her every happiness and success in the future.

Mr Paul Miles-Kingston

Mr Harry Vann

A valedictory address given by the Chaplain

Harry, I was hugely touched that you asked me to put together some thoughts to summarise your time here with us. I realise what an enormous challenge you have laid down: to write something that does you justice in just a few words. What I shall say here will inevitably fail in the task of fully saying who you are and what you have been to this place, but I shall at least try to put together something which is, entirely legitimately, part eulogy and part character assassination.

Harry, my first memory of you is on your interview day when a little group of fresh-faced classics teachers turned up to look around the school. Then I realised that you weren’t one. I don’t know what you were feeling that day, or indeed what you thought you were doing, you were every inch a barrister and we knew as well as you did that your only experience of being in school was of having been at St Paul’s, an institution down south belonging to the wrong one of Jesus’ apostles. Leaving the bar must indeed have been a scaly decision but it very quickly became obvious that St Peter’s made the right one in appointing you.

Having sat through the Buckingham teacher training course, you quickly realised that teaching isn’t about lesson plans and marking and target setting and report writing (of course, it is, just in case anyone else is still listening in) and, rather pleasingly, teacher training annoyed you, just like it would annoy any truly great schoolmaster: for that is what you have become, never forget that.

In the Classics department you have played a central role in the popularity of the subject. The pupils enjoy your lessons, and I suspect this has probably rekindled your love of your subject too. You have also been impressive as a tutor and assistant in School house. The pupils will really, really miss you and I know that the staff will too … because the people who run classics and School house have told me so. They have valued your support and, as right as it may be to go back to the legal profession, never be afraid to admit that the choice to do so is a great loss to the teaching profession.

I will miss the sound of your voice echoing down the main corridor … and through the chapel … and around the common room … across the sports fields … over the hills and far away. We love you for it. And so do the children. No longer will they hear ‘COME ON, SCHOOL’ being bellowed on the touchline, or get generally told to ‘BUCK UP’.

You have been involved in so many areas in school life – many of them unseen – that a large number of our pupils will know and remember your care and attention. You have been an assiduous supporter of our sports teams and drama productions and music concerts – on occasion even singing in one or two yourself. You have joined in with rowing and debating with the staff against the pupils, coached rugby in those wonderful pink socks, and taught Latin as part of the ISSP. And I want to say a particular thankyou from me for the way that you have shared in chapel: what you have said has been honest and I suspect sometimes costly. By being like that, though, you have garnered the respect of our pupils and their parents by taking a genuine interest in them and what’s important to them. The children here know what you stand for, Harry, not because you say things but because you do them.

And that even goes for the littlest of our community. You don’t pick and choose or only do the things that you have to, you are willing to look after those who are smallest, really engage with issues of mental health and look after the underdog – nothing is too much trouble. And because you have done that, don’t be surprised when, in twenty years’ time, the boys and girls that you have taught come up you and say ‘sir, you’re the reason why I am where I am today.’

Over the last few weeks, it has gradually felt like you are transitioning back from the tweed-jacket of a schoolmaster and into the three piece pinstripe of a barrister again. Thank you for the way in which you have shared of yourself over the last four years. Your time here as a schoolmaster may have only been four years, Harry, but in that time you have accomplished things many teachers never achieve in the whole of their careers. Please never think of your time here as a career break because you are now every inch a schoolmaster: you have the Latin, the Tweed, the cricket …

Having you around has been a breath of fresh air, so you know that there will always be friends waiting you welcome you back to visit. I hope that you will take away many happy memories of this place. Please don’t lose touch: it has been a pleasure and a privilege teaching alongside you.

The Rev Daniel Jones