A Blast from the Past

It's amazing what you can find when you rummage around in your parents' old files! For example, here's an edition of the school's old newsletter, The Tallis, from December 1989. Laura Crocker, teacher of Languages and former Tallis student, recently discovered this historical document and has kindly shared it with us here. It contains some fascinating details.

1. The Sixth Form Centre began its life (in a consortium with Eltham Hill and Eltham Green Schools) in September 1989
2. Carol Concerts were routinely held at St. James Church, Kidbrooke; standing room only and mince pies to follow
3. The school was contemplating the construction of a cycling shed but concerns were raised about local road safety
4. Students had the opportunity to attend a residential visit to Inverliever in Scotland
5. A new faculty was created for combined arts and PE, amusingly titled FRACAS (Faculty of Recreational and Creative Arts)
6. It cost 50p to wear your own clothes on non school uniform day
7. Teachers' training days (when school was closed to students) were referred to as Baker Days (after the Secretary of Sate for Education who invented them)
8. Students could study German
9. The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) still existed and all London state schools belonged to it. However, plans were afoot to transfer responsibility to local authorities and there were concerns about cross-boundary schooling. "At present 40% of parents of children at Thomas Tallis live in the Borough of Lewisham."
10. 21.4% of students achieved grade C or above in their GCSE English qualifications, significantly more than other other schools in Greenwich or across the whole of London!

Laura tells us:

At my mother's house, hidden at the bottom of a huge pile of papers, I found this gem. My parents must have been given this during my first year as a pupil at Thomas Tallis. It was 1988. It evoked so many memories of my time at school in the late 80s/early 90s. The Christmas Carol concerts in St James' Church, the end of ILEA, Baker days, Inverliever!!!!!!!, Mr Lark... In 2002 I returned to Thomas Tallis as a teacher. It is lovely to remember the staff named in the letter (who were my teachers and who became my colleagues), the beginning of FRACAs, the launch of the Sixth Form Centre, the big Congratulations for the 'superb' GCSE results!...... Tallis, and indeed education, has changed so much, but the spirit remains.

And here it is, I imagine carefully cut and pasted by Brian Macmillan, the school's media resources officer at the time. You can almost smell the fumes from the banda machine!

Click here to view an interactive version of the newsletter, allowing you to easily zoom in on items of interest. Thanks to Laura for sharing this fascinating document with us. Do you have any old Tallis related ephemera in your collections? If so, please consider sending a copy of them to us for publication here.