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At the monthly meeting held on Wednesday 2 July 2003, the Course Organiser Mary Smith reminded everyone that course applications must be received by 6 July; the course allocations will be posted in August.
The 16th Anniversary lunch will take the place of the normal meeting. It will be at St Francis Church Hall, Castle Road, on 20 November, and each person attending should bring a plate of food for the buffet. Soft drinks, wine and mince pies will be provided, and the charge will be £2.
Rosemary Nicholls has organised outings to Brighton and the Royal Pavilion on 3 July, to Chichester for a performance of Chekhov's The Seagull on 7 August, and to Stratford upon Avon for the RSC's production of Richard III on 4 September. There will be a Garden Group outing to Hestercombe Gardens on 14 July. The Family History Group is paying a visit to the National Archives in Kew on 11 September, and others are invited to join this trip.
Mr Joe Newman, a former teacher of chemistry and Deputy Head of Bishop's Wordsworths School, gave an interesting and entertaining talk entitled "Those who can, or the Little Crook by his Side." He was an expert on teachers' assessment and exams, and expanded Shaw's adage of "Those who can, do, Those who can't teach", with "Those who can't teach, teach teachers", and then disproved it to the satisfaction of his audience. He explained how the teaching of chemistry has changed from his initiation in 1961, when pupils were fed a large bulk of unnecessary knowledge with few experiments, to the revolutionary Nuffield Science with its emphasis on experimentation and problem solving.
As Deputy Head ("the Headmaster is the shepherd of his sheep and the Deputy the little crook by his side") he had to devote less time to teaching chemistry and become fully involved in the organisation of the school including timetables, staffing and the curriculum. After some fluctuations in its fortunes, Bishop Wordsworths School reached its centenary and is now flourishing with a greatly expanded catchment area.
The next meeting will be held on 6 August and the speaker will be Colonel Tony Pinder on the history and restoration of the Fovant Badges. |
