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These remarkable pictures represent a small sample of an archive that I inherited from the 'old school'. I've had them for about 11 years, carefully stored at the back of a filing cabinet in my office. The celebrations this year have prompted me to get some of them scanned and this is the result. As a photography teacher, I'm impressed by the quality of many of these pictures. Some of them have a surreal charm. Some are hilarious - the children rolling around in the snow, for example. Some have a purely documentary interest. One or two of the portraits are striking. They capture a variety of activities - school trips to Scotland and the Alps, cooking and eating, DT projects, sports days. They remind us that the school used to have cherry trees on the concourse and the Ferrier Estate once loomed over us.
Many of the individuals in these pictures must now be grandparents. As I'm never tired of telling my students, (mis-quoting Roland Barthes) photographs remind us of things lost. My favourite image is of a young boy wearing flared jeans and Doctor Marten boots gently extracting something hot from a school oven with the aid of a tea towel. He doesn't yet know whether what he's cooked is beautiful or edible. I can't help thinking that this is the perfect visual metaphor for education. -- Jon Nicholls
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 In January, it will be thirty years since I started teaching at Thomas Tallis. I had had an unhappy time at my first school, under a head unsympathetic to my request to return part time after the birth of my first daughter. But walking through the gates on the day of my interview, I have never looked back. This is the place where I immediately felt I belonged, and it has remained a home from home ever since.
I have thrived in the English faculty, where under many different leaders I have been given autonomy as well as guidance and support. I have seen so many great teachers and great people come and go – Siobhan McCauley, Soren Hawes, Maureen Housden, Di Broughton, and the wonderful Cameron Sayers, who died so suddenly a couple of years ago – and working with such committed individuals has been a joy. Together with their clear-sighted intelligence, compassion and humanity, their sharp and often mischievous humour has seen us through some dark times. I joined the sixth form team in 1999 after taking my first tutor group through from year 8 to year 11. (I campaigned hard as a part time teacher to be allowed to have a tutor group – imagine that state of affairs now). Under the exceptional leadership of Cath Barton, who had taken over from Tallis legend Stuart Turpie, the sixth form was a wonderful team to be a part of. Under Cath, the sixth from grew in size, and now there are over 700 students, coming from all over southeast London and beyond, from a vast range of diverse backgrounds, benefiting from an outstanding sixth from experience, as we benefit from their energy, wisdom and style. I began to get involved in progression as soon as I joined the sixth from team, supporting the small number of students who were making applications to Oxford and Cambridge. Working with the great Brian Jones was a delight: if there’s one key attribute a teacher needs that I struggle with it’s patience, and I would give anything to be able to maintain the calm, gentle composure he showed. When Brian left, I took over the role of UCAS coordinator, in those days dealing with about 60 applicants a year. This year we have well over 300 applicants. This is certainly one of my favourite parts of the job - seeing students leave the school excited for futures that offer them so many choices and opportunities. My eldest daughter joined the sixth form in 2010 and went on to study history at Oxford and is now a primary school teacher in Southwark. My middle daughter teaches maths at Greycoats and my youngest is finishing an apprenticeship at Invicta Deptford, and although I have never tried to influence their career choices, I’m sure their decision to join the profession is due in large part to the enthusiasm which they saw in me for teaching and life at Tallis. There have been times of great upheaval and huge stress, and soon after the move to the new school I saw many of my close friends and colleagues forced out, but Tallis remains Tallis and resists any attempts to circumscribe or change it. That Tallis ethos and spirit is a powerful and enduring thing. I’ll finish with perhaps one of my favourite anecdotes. When my youngest daughter was in year 9, I remember talking about the upcoming Community Day. Her response – “that’s so Tallis. At my school we’d have Conformity Day.” Community and non-conformity – that’s so Tallis. -- Oonagh McGowan 
 This is a story about loyalty, from my first year of teaching at Tallis. '96 or '97, I forget now. In the dreadful old building, but with the same fantastic South London children. I think about the cast concerned, M and N, and W, from time to time. They are of an age for their children to come here now, and I think that some do.
Inspections from OFSTED back then were multi-day affairs for which a number of weeks’ notice was supplied, generating large amounts of paperwork in response. A school lived or died by the aggregate score of lesson observations as the main measure of teaching quality, together with the proportion of GCSE students awarded 5 A-C grades including English and Maths. Both measures since utterly discredited, although they ruined many a teaching career. Schools stank of new paint and desperation when the Inspectors came calling, as they did to Tallis that summer. The English department was under the cosh over the exam results from the year before. I can still recall the (feigned, we felt) surprise of the Lead Inspector, his face pursed like a man sucking a Werther's Original on the top deck of the 286 whilst taking himself to Queen Mary’s for treatment for his prostate difficulties. The Year 9 class I had that year were sufficient to generate a measure of anxiety about the likely findings of the Inspectorate. I was a newcomer in these matters and Year 9 students, delightfully, are on the cusp of late adolescence and early young adulthood - 13 going on 14, or rather older (it might appear) in some cases. There had been a number of trials to face over my successful delivery of the curriculum and relationships with some of the students had been rocky. One girl, N, had just taken violent exception to my contacting her parent to express distress at her forthright manner in class. Mum had not been entirely supportive on the phone and it was clear that full and frank discussions of the neophyte taking English lessons had occurred at home. Even shaving my head and bulking up by going to the gym six days a week so that I resembled, vaguely, N's scary older brother - the lad had been removed from Tallis by mutual agreement just after the start of the year - was no longer cutting it and resentments were reaching a rolling boil amongst N's crew, all of whom sat, pallid but with striking maquillage, along the back row. “Why,” N had yelled the week before, fixing me with a gimlet eye, “d’you got to bring my FAMILY into it?”. Subsequent pique kept her at home for a period and I was hoping that there’d be a continuing series of no-shows for the inspection. And then there was M, out of school more than in. He was a slight lad with an extraordinarily loud voice for someone with his frame. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered the like in the 25 years since. His family all had very significant hearing impairments but I don’t believe they signed, so M communicated with them simply by raising his voice. Schooled in this from early childhood, he knew no other way of speaking than by doing so at the most remarkable volume. He had a diaphragm like a blacksmith’s bellows and great autonomy at home because his parents deferred to him in all worldly matters, such were their communication difficulties. He was self-made, it appeared, in most ways. Writing was challenging for him and so it was a thing he refused to do, although on occasion I wrote at his dictation whilst the rest of the class grudgingly got on with something. The endpapers of his book were full of scurrilous neon felt-tip illustrations and although they were torn out with rigour on my part wherever I came across them I was in a double-bind about it as the only way of preventing them recrudescing was if he did not take his book home - making him therefore unable to complete any homework. The wry humour of my predicament both over this and over his conduct in lessons was not lost on him as M was a keen observer of my many failings as a classroom practitioner, even liking to end lessons with exit-interview comments: “I DIDN’T GET ANY OF THAT.” or “S**T LESSON SIR. JOKE.” - even though it clearly wasn’t. (A joke, I mean. The lesson I can’t speak for now, actually.) Death in Terry Pratchett speaks only in majuscules, and so did M, and both were equally fatal to a calm state of mind. His views on any matter tended to the extreme and this and the volume with which they were presented usually instantly derailed orderly learning. Remonstrating with him was utterly without point, as was setting a detention, as he just stayed at home until the dust had settled. Calling his parents was useless for obvious reasons. During lessons M drew smut in his book, whilst occasionally putting his hand up to chip in, a hand I was usually too craven to pick for fear of what might be said. Not that it made much difference: even M’s sub-rosa mutterings of discontent were quite audible as his whisper was at normal conversational volume for a mortal. Now terror was abroad. Some lessons across the school earlier that week had failed to make the grade and that and the statistics showing us up meant it was coming down to the wire. The final lessons that Friday needed to be decent or the school was for it. I was hoping the Key Players would be out but honesty has always been our leitmotif at Tallis and we resolutely refused (as other schools did, and do, one hears) to send the naughty kids home on gardening leave any time we were inspected. And the week of the inspection both N and M were in every day. I didn’t quite understand why. My heart was in my boots - I hadn’t yet been seen but knew I would be. N bore grudges I was certain and was sure to play up; M was quite simply indifferent to what anyone else thought. He liked to call a spade a shovel and had previously shown that he was almost entirely indifferent to authority, for to him no power was legitimate but his own. Luckily, though, the inspectors knew enough not to appear in the classroom of a Newly Qualified Teacher it seemed, and I’d been spared a visit, perhaps also for reasons to do with the way that class’s timetable worked. During Monday morning’s lesson the inspection team had been setting up their workroom, and the midweek lessons were last thing in the day, when Findings were being Written Up. The school only had to make it through to Friday lunchtime without terminal mishap, as the final debriefing session with the inspection team occupied Friday's graveyard slot. I had the Year 9 class period four, the last possible time for a visit, and of course the door opened after the first ten minutes of the lesson and the Lead Inspector came in with the Clipboard Of Doom and took a seat at the back, began flipping through the lesson plan. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, and the lesson was potentially a cup of lumpy cold sick with a spoon shoved into it. If N or M wished to show me up and take the school down too, this was their time. I can’t now remember what the topic was - something from Blair's National Literacy Strategy probably - Writing to Focus Group, a thing of that sort. Well now. I didn’t fancy my chances but of course I didn’t know then that the students here might hate the teachers, or say they do, in normal circumstances, yet the agio pneuma descends when interlopers come calling. The comitatus was everything: the tribe fought off Tacitus's men at the gates to the hilI-fort in the Downs, piled up the breach with their English dead at Agincourt, and played up and played the game at Wadi Rum in the Age of Empire until the sand of the desert was sodden red. Honour is more than a word, I now know, and loyalty was the thing. As far as N and M were concerned, the honour of the school was at stake and they wished to play their part. I had taken the advice of the wily Head of Faculty when preparing for the ordeal - we all had - and the steer was to get something set up and then get the kids to knock on with it, on the basis that OFSTED's judgement allegedly hung solely on the charisma of the performer plus a bit of vox pop with the kids. (OFSTED were obsessed with lesson ‘pace’ as well - ‘Mush! Mush, children! We have life-changing exams to prepare for!’). To this the counter was: twenty minutes setup, give out the resources, twenty-five minutes of writing, wrap things up, done. It might throw the inspectors off the scent: if the Sage On The Stage wasn’t performing, it tilted them into a Book Look - and I had diligently been marking the kids’ work, when not tearing it out - or they had to talk to the students. Ranks might close up - that was the hope, anyway. A high-risk strategy with my lot, I felt. So as long as M’s book was free of pornographic depictions, it might be fine. And that particular kindergarten had been weeded of things rank and gross that possess’d it merely the week before. More, I'd called in a favour with his Head of Year, the only person M rated in the whole school, who'd instructed him not to say a single word if the Inspectors visited. The fix was in, probably one involving fags. N was fond of incorrect verb agreements - we was always doing this that and the other in her biographic writing from earlier in the term - but she was caught up in the drama of her own life with rare intensity and her book was voluminously if inaccurately scripted. As long as no-one wound her up, she might do. The other kids were smashers and the weakest in the class, W, loved WWF. His piece about Wrestlemania 13 was a terse masterpiece of action description, which even though it sometimes lacked even spaces between words (sample: 'TheUndertakerwasdonein') could not but impress even the hardest heart via its innovative use of scriptio continua to convey the feverish excitement of the mash-up being described, one circulating at the time in school on dodgy VHS tapes bought from Lewisham Market. I finished the set-up, and set them to it. Chop chop. Andiamo. M seemed to be keeping to his word, and N and her henchwomen were getting on with the task: they had strong opinions to defend. I toured the room widdershins speaking to children as, clockwise, did the Inspector. How would things turn out? At first, N stared him down, but then showed her book. Nods of engagement. All the students had a ‘Writing Frame’, a Wizard Wheeze that I had picked up during teacher training the year before. It was writing-as-colour-by-numbers, but also at the bleeding edge of pedagogical refinement. If a child was stuck, they could dip in to help themselves craft a sentence, that was the theory. Or copy out verbatim, that was the reality. Pens were moving, matters were going along. I was beginning to feel a rising confidence, until I saw that the endpapers of M's English book were being scrawled in with his felt-tips, the lad doing this with an oddly stilted body language, leaning in over the desk whilst his pen moved frantically, the leaves of the book not opened fully, hiding what was being produced, yet working at blistering pace. Shading in, not writing, was happening. What was going on? The Inspector worked his way round to him whilst a sense of creeping dread began to grow in me. Christ, what was the boy doing? But the pages were flipped back before the Inspector could get to them, and M wasn’t for sharing. A headshake. Would he say something, kill the mood of fragile scholarship? I tried to make eye contact with M to warn him off. Nothing doing. Nada. Zip. Nowt. Studied avoidance of interaction. So: on. Select a few students: oral feedback to individuals, then read the best bits aloud to the class. Take volunteers. Dole out grudging praise. Sing for your supper you buggers. Studiously ignore M and N, praise the behaviour you want to see more of, just like in the teaching manuals. The clock was ticking down and we were nearly there. Then we were. The Inspector came to the front to thank the class for being so helpful to him in his deliberations. This brief farewell from the Man From The Ministry and then the students were dismissed and began to filter out. N and her shipmates departed. A loud shriek from one as they left, a scuffle. M remained. He had found a Thing To Do. He began to beckon from his seat in the gloom at the back. His gestures, at first shy, intensified. He began to smile. A rictus developed. His wiry hand scooped the air. Yes, you, you there - come and see. Enter freely and leave something of the happiness you bring behind. Like Jonathan Harker at the threshold, the Inspector knew something was up, but could not prevent himself from approaching M for the Big Reveal. And there it was. With a flourish the book was flipped open on M’s desk, and the Inspector flipped off: M had spent the entire lesson crafting in garish capitals the instruction F**K OFF, neatly laid out across an entire double A4 spread. An illustrative finger indicated the imperative and M made eye contact, nodding excitedly as he did so. Yeah? Yeah? He seemed mute with delight; the inspector was mute for other reasons I think. No-one spoke, a relief. The tableau unfroze and the parties departed. I packed up my things and left for the English Office, inwardly composing my letter of application to the Audit Commission, a public body my mother, a former headteacher herself, had always favoured over education work. Office stuff, away from the general public. Yes, that was it. Secluded back rooms. Yes. She knew best. Later the Head sought me out. The Inspection team had turned out to be one of the good ones - they weren’t, always - and the Lead Inspector was a HMI appointed in the days when that actually meant something. My lesson hadn’t saved the day - the other, vastly more experienced English teachers had done that - but I had been mentioned in dispatches for a brave job in trying circumstances. M hadn’t even needed to speak, at the end, because his single contribution said all. No exit interview required. Loyal to a fault, our lot. Loyal to (a) T. -- Jon Bradshaw  Down stage left huddled in the wing. Submerged in darkness as the house lights reverberate with a resounding clunk! The light melts away. Only the sound of gentle, slightly heightened, breathing and the palpable blend of excitement and fear, laced with a tinge of adrenaline, fills that cocooned space. A cast waits in the wings ready to make their entrance into the performance space. All the work here is now done. Characters developed, lines learnt, staging blocked, set and costumes designed and made, lighting and sound set. Months of rehearsals in preparation. At this moment I am redundant. It is now totally theirs as they get ready to step into the space and shine ... and so many have shone so very brightly . So many plays devised and scripted have begun life from that womb-like corner. From the legendary Cabaret, Romeo & Juliet, Abigail's Party to the magically chaotic and anarchic year 7-9 showcase evenings when improvised pieces were selected from Drama lessons and performed in front of huge audiences. Not for the faint-hearted or those who hoped for an early night! From that corner I remember hanging onto Leeroy’s (cast Threepenny Opera) pots and pans strapped around him, so they would not jangle. He whispered in my ear, "I’m scared!" I whispered back, "So am I!" Gently sprinkling water on Emily’s (Sally Bowles, Cabaret) face and hair to give her that ravaged streaky mascara look, while simultaneously doing a ten second full costume change. Trapped with the head of Drama, Ginny Lester and a ginormous chair donated from Emma Jeff’s parents' front room in the Life and works of Oscar Wilde, our response to Clause 28. Telling Colin Yardley (the then headteacher), who had agreed to take on the role the prince in Romeo and Juliet in full doublet and hose, to under no circumstances break a leg as we would all be in the quagmire! This was after he had gamely taken part every night in the full cast warm-ups, which included saluting the sun, in said full costume with a dodgy leg. Many students from Tallis have had interesting and successful careers in the performing Arts - Sam Spruell, Kat Joyce, Dominic Cooper, Ezra Godden, Hannah Chiswick, Marney Godden, Lisa Cowan, Hannah Gittos, Liam Mayasaki-Lane, Will Beer, Ihsan Rustem, Chenai Takundwa, Graham Rinaldi, Kae Tempest, Max Key ,Joe Kerridge, Kemi Nzerem, Nathan Cooper - as actors, directors, designers, writers, musicians, dancers, community arts facilitators, journalists, presenters and artists of the spoken word. These are to mention just a few. Apologies if you are not listed here. You are not forgotten!
Drama should promote confidence, teamwork, empathy, the ability to listen, critique and negotiate, an appreciation of aesthetics, voice projection, discipline and belief. It should be a safe space in which to take risks, make mistakes, play, experience that "Wooohoo" feeling, be challenging whilst also having fun. I think that Drama has impacted on many students outside of the industry and in so many different walks of life. Tallis has always invested in the arts in its broadest sense. I believe this central focus and its rippling effect is one of the many ingredients that attracted interesting members of staff. It was one of the key reasons I stayed for so long. Arriving on supply, to pay an electricity bill, I hung around for 31 years. Drama is just the best subject to teach and I was honoured and privileged to have taught such talented, intelligent, creative, witty, fine young people .
I have many warm, funny and occasional tough memories of Tallis. Many tales could be told in my role as a tutor, Head of Year and head of the Sixth Form. But the place that I always zoom back to when thinking of Tallis, and the feelings that have never been recaptured and that are still missed, is always being squashed up in that darkened corner downstage left, huddled in the wing.
-- Cath Barton May 1995 … I was in the last two months of my teacher training, in my second placement at, what was then, Kidbrooke School. I had a verbal offer of a teacher role there but also been for interview at another local school – Thomas Tallis. I received the “You have been successful …” phone call and a couple of days later the official letter, the letter that started it all, arrived.  I began my first teaching year in September 1995, as a Newly Qualified Teacher, joining the maths department led by Trish Dooley. The team, as I remember, consisted of Trish, Dave Ellis, Jenny Ward-Ure, Tony Antonioni, Marilyn Clare, Angela Taylor, Cress Senkus and Allen Skuse. A much smaller department in a smaller school then. It was a great place to work and learn how to be a teacher, with really good people around me. They all made teaching look so easy and I couldn’t not learn from them and they were always ready to support the newbie!
I was also a Year 7 tutor and the first 7SF tutor group was formed. Head of Year was the great Stuart Turpie and I can certainly say some of his ways were unique! Come the Spring, I experienced my first school journey to Inverliever in Scotland with a number of 7SF making the trip. A real highlight of the school year for all involved. Horse riding was one of the activities available and I was encouraged to have a go by some of the students. This would be the first, and last, time I got on a horse and spent what seemed like hours quite un-nerved by the experience. So much so that I did not correct the instructor when she continually called me George. Something the students with me found most amusing! Back then, when I was first starting out on my teaching journey, did I know that Tallis would be the only school I would ever work in? Probably not, but I like to think a part of me hoped so. And here I am, 27 years later, still loving working at Tallis. Over half my life now spent at Tallis. That in itself tells you what a great place Tallis is and has been over the past 25+ years. -- Steve Fyfe  I have always believed that school trips should be at the heart of a good education. Education is about memories and friendships and shared experiences. During my 22 years at Thomas Tallis I've had the privilege to organise a large number of trips, probably about 50 odd to UCL and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich during my time teaching A-level chemistry and GCSE Astronomy.
However, my personal favourite was a residential trip that I ran every year for sixth form students to the Margaret Macmillan centre in Wrotham, Kent. Located in the North Kent Downs we always used to take all of Year 13 in Feb/March to consolidate their A-level science subjects. The students worked so hard over 3 days, typically 12 hour shifts, but we had loads of fun too! There would often be snow on the fields and bluebells in the woods. One year we built igloos and, most years, the students enjoyed the climbing walls as a break from their science education. Every year we had loads of fun in the evenings! The staff who visited Wrotham over the years included Mr Wardell, Mr Lederer, Ms Karim, Ms Stenhouse, Ms Edmond and many many more. In the evenings we would light a campfire and pass the guitar, or have a science quiz or get out the school telescope. Striking the celestial jackpot would mean finding Jupiter and its moons or just about making out the polar icecaps on Mars. Making Year 13 astrophysics real! Sing-songs would always include the Beatles (sorry kids but you came away to be properly educated)! It was like stepping back in time, built in the 1950's with no wi-fi reception (so no mobile phone time - shock horror!) we all had to go back to basics. The food was old-fashioned crumble with lots of custard and no fried chicken in site. In many ways, it always reminded me of visiting Macca's childhood home in Liverpool: basic, simple, family values. We all had to talk to each other and make up our own entertainment. One deputy head was very dubious about the educational value of the trip. However, when I was short-staffed I invited him and he was quickly converted. He saw how hard the students worked and he let himself enjoy the magic atmosphere of the trip, even letting his hair down to pick up the guitar. The moment he bumped into a student revising at 5 o'clock in the kitchen convinced him! One thing about such trips is you learn that the students never sleep. A teenager's clock keeps strange time! I must admit, it used to take me a week to recover. On the way home there would be some very sleepy students on the bus. It was also a chance to build genuine friendships with staff and see the students thrive outside a formal school atmosphere. I hope that all of the students remember the trips fondly and look back at all the fun we had! -- Andy Smythe  “At Tallis, everyone dances.”
When Jon Nicholls reached out to me on Facebook to ask if I'd like to contribute to the Tallis Tales, he wrote that he often says this to visitors. This not only brought a smile to my face, but took me very much back to 1993 and the first time I danced at Tallis... Reading many of these Tales, what truly comes out is the spirit and heart centre of the school, often naming individual teachers who, quite literally, changed lives. There were many during my time in which I can say truly impacted my life - our year head Tim Joyce, who led with compassion, laughter, music and the best kind of tough love. Our Head Teacher Colin Yardley, who 'quietly' offered a safe space for the LGBTQ+ kids at the school to meet one another under the guidance and supervision of the school counselor (in the 90's, there were still a few dusty and very dangerous Thatcher laws in place, Section 28 being one of them, which 'forbid' the 'promotion of homosexuality' by local authorities). That 'safe space', which we named 'The Library Club', was our saviour. Around 10 of us would meet up once per week, and a bond and support network was created that I'm sure must have saved lives. We remained friends for years (reunion time??). The teacher which planted the seed for what would end up becoming my career, was Deborah Khan. ‘Boys Dance’, read the flyer for an after-school activity. Ms Khan wanted to remove the stigma surrounding boys who dance. There I found my love of movement and creativity, and I also choreographed my first work here, at the grand old age of 12. In addition to the Boys group, we often had dance for PE (I hope this still continues... it was quite rare back in the day!) and professional companies that were performing locally at Greenwich Dance Agency would be invited to come to Tallis and give workshops. I was so inspired. Ms Khan was a bit of a rebel pioneer (that's how I remember her!) with her plans for the performing arts at Tallis, and in 1995 she staged a school production of Cabaret. I remember it being so brilliant, with a touch of scandalous excitement! I played a bisexual dancer in the Kit Kat Club. At 13. In the 90's. Brilliant 🙂 I was not the only one that Deb Khan encouraged and saw potential in. That same tiny school production of Cabaret included Dominic Cooper and Sam Spruell, who are both Hollywood stars today. That same year, she took a few of us to Sadler's Wells Theatre to see the inaugural premiere season of Matthew Bourne's all male Swan Lake. Deb had trained at Laban Centre with Bourne, so she pulled a few strings. This performance changed my life. I never knew you could fly like that. The feelings I had when I left the theatre I shall never forget. I thought to myself, 'That's what I want to do'. Five years later, in 2000, Matthew Bourne invited me to join the cast of Swan Lake. I was an original cast member his production of The Car Man. In 2010, I was awarded the Sadler's Wells Global Dance Prize, given to one choreographer per year. These two moments, and the career I continue to enjoy today, were only possible because of Tallis. -- Ihsan Rustem  In the December of 1999 I came to Thomas Tallis school for the first time. I was visiting for the day to have an induction, ahead of my PGCE placement due to start in January.
I arrived dressed in a suit and was asked to sit in reception and wait for my mentor, Mr Steve Fyfe. Over the next 5 minutes or so people came in and out at the start of a busy day of school life. One man was wearing jeans and a Ferrari polo shirt and carrying a clipboard. I remember thinking he must be delivering something as he was clearly looking around for someone. It turns out he was looking for me - this was Mr Fyfe! Those informal dress days are distant memory now. He introduced himself and led me up to the maths department. We got on straight away, discussing my first teaching placement in Hackney, maths, teaching and within no time at all, football. He gave me my timetable, which I still have. I was very lucky to spend those first few weeks learning from the best. Ward-Ure, Senkus, Dooley, Clare and the late Tony Antonio. Oh, and Steve. As you can see from the photo, my timetable was written on a student report. They have not changed much! You can also see that we had week A and B, an early close on a Wednesday week B and the structure of the day wasn’t too different either. I learnt so much from them all (including SF). Not least Tony. He was a lovely man and I recall 2 distinct things about him. Firstly, how he would come in EVERY Friday with the TES jobs section. He would slam it down on his desk and announce how many maths teacher jobs there were that week. The second thing was he would announce, on an almost daily basis, how many teaching days there were left until the next holiday or the end of the year. He did this more than ever as he approached his well-deserved retirement. He very sadly passed away within months of his retirement. So many teachers count away their lives, myself included. We must remember to live life and enjoy every day. As well as the staff mentioned above, I also met others on that first day, including Ms Taylor who is still here and shares an A-level group with me. There were also other staff around the school who I probably passed on that first day and would go on to work with for the next 2 decades. Over the last 22.5 years, there have been many constants and many variables. Very fitting for a maths teacher. -- Chris Hordern  I was reminded why Tallis is a precious place this winter, by a group of students I met when I came in to give a guest lesson on the Benin bronzes. It was 30 years since I'd been a Tallis student myself. I confess I wasn't the best behaved student in the school. But I did have a hell of a lot of fun. I was invited back in to talk to year 8s about a film I made recently for Channel 4 News about whether the world famous looted artefacts should be returned to Nigeria. Many of the Tallis students I met were inquisitive, bold, and irreverent. They certainly didn't just accept what they were told at face value. They asked questions. Challenging ones. And they had energy. It made me reflect on my own time at Tallis, and in particular as a 6th former, in 1991. Tallis at that time had formed an ultimately short lived triumvirate with two other local schools, which was meant to allow them to offer a wider range of subjects, and make the most of scant resources. One of the challenges was the educational culture between the schools and their teachers was vastly different, and the coalition was dissolved after a few years. Tallis has always tried to do things differently - and it's very special and deeply rooted educational culture of dialogue, challenge and exploration showed up for me and my friends in our A level Geography lessons. Spoiler alert - this story does have a very happy ending - but it started very badly. One of our two Geography A level teachers was from Tallis - our much loved and respected Mr Shurwin. Mr Shurwin was pretty quiet, but he was funny and kind. He commanded our respect and attention largely because he was a really lovely bloke, and he treated his students as grown ups, who had every right to ask questions and challenge ideas. I remember him treating us like this even when we were in the lower school. He got the best out of us by letting us explore our imaginations, while gently guiding us to the knowledge he knew we needed to absorb for the boring stuff - like exams! But things got off to a very bad start with our other A level teacher, Ms Holland, who was from one of the other schools. She evidently found us to be querulous and obstructive. The lessons were conducted at Tallis, and I suspect we were somewhat territorial and snooty. We thought she was impatient and disinterested. We argued incessantly - the class was not going well. After a few weeks things blew up and we had a massive row. I think it may have even involved us locking her out of the classroom (sorry - but I promise this story does end well!) When she eventually made it into the classroom she was understandably furious. "What's wrong with you people?" she yelled at us. "Why do you keep on going off on tangents all the time and asking random questions?" she wanted to know. "Well that's how we've always learned" we replied. "We just want to talk a bit more!" Ms Holland was understandably exasperated - but nuff respek to her - she said "OK. we're gonna try it your way. Because my way clearly isn't working". It was transformative. Ms Holland was brilliant - she was funny, engaging, and exciting. One of the best teachers I've ever had. She met our energy with her own - and her lessons were great. Somehow - despite my head at 17 being thoroughly turned as a young man discovering the delights of London town - Mr Shurwin and Ms Holland helped me get an A in my Geography A level. A very belated thanks to you both! I ended up reading a Geography degree, at Sussex, where I had the immense privilege of being able to continue asking questions and challenging received wisdoms - sometimes for the hell of it, but always in pursuit of knowledge, however obscure.
And in the faces and questions of the year 8s I met during my guest lesson about the Benin bronzes, I saw, heard and felt some of that same energy that I experienced when I was a student at Tallis many many many years ago.
It was a pleasure to be back! -- Keme Nzerem |
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