Half a century ago this week I started my teaching career at a comprehensive school in Tottenham. I have before me, as I write this blog, the actual letter, dated 4th December 1970 from the Chief Education Officer’s representative, appointing me to the unestablished staff of Haringey Council, as an assistant teacher at Tottenham School for the spring term of 1971. Interestingly, it was during the only period of the Council’s history when it was under Conservative control (1968-1972).
The letter from the council also contained the phrase ‘or such other school maintained by the Council to which you may be called upon to serve’. In practice, I remained at the school until December 1977, when my journey to Oxford and a very different future began. I also have the letter detailing my starting salary of £1,325 per year including a London Allowance payment of £85 per year and the grant of one increment for post-18 study! As I marvelled at the level of my father’s starting salary in 1936, so readers of this blog just starting out may wonder at such an apparent paltry sum of little over £100 a month before stoppages.
At least one regular reader of this blog will recall, Tottenham School had a reputation for music and drama that continued from the selective school from which the comprehensive school had emerged. The comprehensive school was a tough baptism for a new and untrained teacher, because many of the staff had never before taught those that had not passed the 11+ examination and had previously been educated in secondary modern schools, where the class teacher model rather than the subject teacher approach had been the norm. Both pupils and teachers found it difficult to adapt to the new situation.
My appointment had come about as a result of a staffing crisis facing schools as pupil numbers were on the increase, as now, and insufficient people were being trained as teachers. I joined as an untrained graduate, expecting to stay until the summer and then to undertake a higher degree course, perhaps at a Canadian university. The departure of the Head of Geography for a deputy headship at the end of May changed all that, especially as the other full-time geography teacher was expecting to emigrate to Australia the following December. Suddenly, I became acting head of department after two terms of teaching. Not a promotion that I would now encourage, but one that I was happy to take at the time.
The highlight of my six years at the school was seeing the first comprehensive sixth from students win a prestigious adult drama festival with a production of The Bald Prima Donna by Eugene Ionesco. The low point, probably the classroom stabbing in January 1977.
There were many great colleagues and pupils that I came into contact with during those years. Some, sadly no longer with us. There were many things that happened that would be more than frowned upon today, but a happy accident of chance set me on a road I still enjoy travelling.
John Howson 