83 November 2004 - The Best Yet!! - Greenhead College

News of People and Events
The Best Ball To Date: Pictured below are some of the
students who attended the Leavers’ Ball on June 4 th 2004. This
very successful event was attended by 370 students who were
provided with a very enjoyable meal. Two jazz bands, three
magicians, a caricaturist and a performance artist provided a
diverse programme of entertainment, alongside a disco. Thanks
and appreciation should be extended to The Ball Committee.
Photograph
courtesy of
John Woods
Photography
“What’s Ahead?” A seminar for A1 students
“What’s Ahead?” was a question posed to Greenhead A1
students on Friday 18 th June, 2004. Fortunately, answers were
offered by a range of speakers. Seminar choices were diverse,
ranging from Looking For A Job led by Tony Sturdy from
Huddersfield New College to Taking A Year Out in which Will
Moolman focused on the Eco Africa Experience. Students were
offered a choice of three different sessions in which they could
ponder how to develop their training and academic careers
beyond Greenhead. The editor sat in on the Leadership &
Management Skills seminar led by Lieutenant Steve Coneely
from the Royal Navy. This was a lively dynamic session in
which students discussed what constituted great leadership and
debated the merits of historical and contemporary leaders. The
tutorial follow up session allowed students to reflect on and
evaluate the seminar. Highlights included Surviving Group
Interviews delivered by Hazel Manley from IBM which was
dubbed as being an “excellent” experience. Similarly, John
Garside from the University of Engineering offered a
stimulating session: “The engineering speaker was brilliant, a
thoroughly entertaining chap.”
A Student View by Munaza Rafiq: The “What’s Ahead?” day
was a great opportunity for people to get a feel of what skills
and experiences could be gained from going to university.
Conferences such as Leadership Skills, presented by two Navy
officers allowed people to think quickly and work with groups
of people they had only just met. Most conferences throughout
the day were equipped with useful information to help A2’s
smoothly on their way through university interviews or even
consider wider options available to them.
Trip to Alton Towers:
At 7.00am on Thursday
2nd September 2004, 14
coaches set off for Alton
Towers with
approximately two-thirds
of the new A1 students
for a fun-packed day of
thrills and spills! On
Day 3 of the academic
year, this was a great way for the new students to get to know
each other. The trip was a great success and thanks must go to
the Senior Students for organising this event.
New Faces
Not like Jail:
by Vicky Broughton and Danielle Boothroyd
Peter Edwards, a Liverpool-born Modern
History teacher, has had his temporary
contract with Greenhead College renewed
for another year. Previously the Deputy
Education Manager at Wakefield Prison,
where he worked for nine years, Peter
decided he wanted a change of scene. He
explains it was a positive “culture shock”
when he began to teach at Greenhead in
that the college is “a more liberal” environment. Growing up
in a family with a keen awareness of History, his interest in
it was sparked at an early age, inspiring him to study it at
Leeds University. Here he gained an impressive set of qualifications—a
BA, an MA, a PHD and a PGCE. He pursues a
wide variety of other interests outside of work including
running, climbing, walking and listening to a broad range of
music as well as playing bass guitar in a jazz duet himself.
Peter has no specific professional ambitions beyond his wish
to “harness his potential for professional development”. Life
at Greenhead must be almost perfect then, if driving here in
a company car is the only thing Peter thinks it lacks!
Organic Lessons on the Timetable?
by Michael Greenfield and Tasbiah Akhtar
From the other side of the Pennines
comes the Geography department’s
(nearly) new signing, Michaela Barraclough,
a face some students may recognise
from last year. The Manchester University
Geography graduate, who grew up
in Liverpool, previously taught at North
Chadderton School and is with us for only
a year teaching part-time due to the demands
of her three young children. She feels that she can
make more of a difference as a teacher than she did previously
as a social worker engaging the “injustices and inequalities
in the world.” When not canoeing in Canada with
her partner, Michaela enjoys growing her own organic food
and is about to become (in her words) “an allotment lady!”
With an admiration for Nelson Mandela, she also remarks
that if she could change today’s society in any way, she
would “make people recycle and care more about the environment.”
Maths is Fun with Mr Lumb!
by Stephanie Stephenson
Stephen Lumb may be a new teacher, but
I already knew this name, and so chose to
interview him. This isn’t because I have
maths lessons with him, (I can’t do maths,
and never will be able to), but because I’d
heard friends tell of their incredibly funny
maths teacher—Mr Lumb. Is this possible—a
teacher who can make maths fun?
Mr Lumb has a degree in Maths and has
been Head of Maths at two other schools. He says that he is
loving Greenhead as “the staff and students are great”,
which is always good to hear. Mr Lumb should be popular
with the students too; his favourite kind of music is fast and
noisy—including Offspring. He also enjoys playing football,
cycling and skiing. The hobbies don’t stop there though: he
used to be in a male choir and likes acting in musicals. In
the future Mr Lumb would like to “stay healthy and ski a
lot”, and—not forgetting the important stuff—not to frighten
the kids away from maths.