Rowlinson School 1976-81

[wolfstalin]

I was thinking since I'd posted on two teachers that I took a sincere dislike for, I'd like to set a balance with a comment on one who I found when I was a pupil to be fare and decent, and in later contact to be probably the best or most rounded and balanced individual it has been my fortune to come across.

 

Keith Ibottson was the senior PE tutor in my days at Rowlinson and as I have already said I found him to be quite reasonable in my eyes at that time.

 

In later years he moved over to the recreation dept and got the job of running the swimming center at Rowlinson and later got promotion to assistant director (one of four new jobs we created in an attempt to create a lateral management structure in the dept). I have to say that he performed in the job very well and I was happy to assist him on occasions when he needed a little support in getting things changed. I did have high hopes for Keith because he was just the sort of down to earth honest chap that was needed in senior management, but unfortunately Keith became seriously ill and died before his time.

 

He was a well liked chap by all of honest natured people that had the good fortune to know him, and I still feel sad at his passing.

[aelfheah]

Sorry to learn that about "Ibbo"...

 

Glad to hear that about that arrogant w****r Seaton

[wolfstalin]

Yes, very sad about Keith he was a really good guy. I took a look at Seaton after reading this thread and found that he had indeed made it to the 99, I guess my instincts were right about him, creepy, very creepy guy.

[Renard]

I've just come to this site and became interested in what several people had to say about Graham Seaton.

I remember him well as he was the one who managed to turn me off learning french. He made the subject so unappetising, so depressing and such a miserable experience with his sarcastic, barbed comments, his nasty streak and his inability to hide his joy for his 'favourites' that I eventually stopped paying attention and even managed to go on and fail my CSE.

I have got my own back as I now have a degree in which my minor was french! and as revenge goes it feels sweet.

I do have one recollection of how staff seemed to dislike him. It was at a 6th form disco (I think or it could have been the last night party of HMS Pinafore) and a few of us, who had smuggled drink in, were adamant that we should leave by the way that we came in via the main doors of the 6th form block. These of course had been locked by staff to prevent anyone else coming in and Seaton was adamant that we should leave by another route. Well, bolstered by alcohol, and an intense hatred of Seaton, I was the most vociferous and insisted that we leave as we came in. Obviously by now the argument had reached such a pitch that a couple of teachers came. They listened to us all and then completely ignored Seaton and let us out. So, either they didn't like him to the extent that they would never take his side no matter what or they didn't want a repeat of him being punched by a pupil again (we'd all heard that one by then).

Anyway that's my halfpence worth. Hope it helps.

[wolfstalin]

For the record Renard I didn't punch him, he was standing over me hitting me over the head with a book, I stood up which sort of pushed the upper half of his torso back, stood on his foot so he couldn't move away and elbowed him to the side of the face. I know there were lots of embellishments added as the story went round but that's what happened, he didn't get knocked out or off his feet as some have been told, but I did 'bruise his cheek bone' and give him a 'mild concussion', I think he spent a couple of weeks off work.

 

For my part I had just had enough everyone reaches a breaking point, the incident was investigated by the police and in later years when I gained access to the schools records I found out that they were leaning more in the direction of prosecuting him and not me, but at the time I was a little worried. However my mother did threaten to sue the school and the compromise was that Seaton would no longer take any of my classes nor engage me in conversation without another teacher being present.

[alex3659]

seaton was terrible i was lucky enough not to cop for him in language class.

the nicest teacher i remember was mrs cutts.

there were two ibbottsons one P.E the other geography.

also roberts P.E he was always in jordo bookies.

i left in 1975.

[wolfstalin]

Mrs Cutts was a member of the governors as a teacher rep for the 12 years or so I was a member (only two teacher reps on board), that was something of a record for a teacher rep at any school so she must have been well thought of by her peers. I thought she was quite sensible and she didn't like Seaton either, come to think of it there was only one person I know of that did like the guy and that was his mate the careers teacher Shipley.

 

Mrs Cutts was also the one who handled my little incident with Seaton and it was only her and Brinn Williams who remembered who I was when I joined the governing board. Brinn was a nice guy as well, it was he who advised me to do a diploma rather than A levels and he fixed my place on the course with a personal recommendation.

[alex3659]

Mrs Cutts was a member of the governors as a teacher rep for the 12 years or so I was a member (only two teacher reps on board), that was something of a record for a teacher rep at any school so she must have been well thought of by her peers. I thought she was quite sensible and she didn't like Seaton either, come to think of it there was only one person I know of that did like the guy and that was his mate the careers teacher Shipley.

 

Mrs Cutts was also the one who handled my little incident with Seaton and it was only her and Brinn Williams who remembered who I was when I joined the governing board. Brinn was a nice guy as well, it was he who advised me to do a diploma rather than A levels and he fixed my place on the course with a personal recommendation.

what form was you in ? i was in E

[wolfstalin]

Did you know that they ranked the intake even though as a new comp that was totally out of order.

 

A&B were for 'special kids', so C was top and then on down, E would have put you in top 15% judging on your primary record at least.

[alex3659]

In a moment of nostalgia I read this thread the other night, not to pick out any one persons post I remember Graham Seaton well and his mate the careers tutor.

 

Seaton was a very distasteful individual, but I'll return to him later. The careers guy told me I had no future, I think he based this on the fact that he had a fetish for the use of "PROPER PENS" ie old fashioned fountain pens, well since I'm dyslexic and write worse than a doctor he marked me down in French every time, nothing to do with my understanding of the language or pronunciation (which people tell me is excellent) just because I didn't fit his writing skills fetish.

 

Well what goes around comes around as they say, I left school at 15, did a one year biz diploma, went to LSE at 16 and finished a four year masters course by 19, came back home, got elected chairman of local labour party and nominated to governing board of Rowlinson school (amongst others).

 

Some time later poor ol' Graham had become head of the language dept and fancied an office of his own, he managed to con people at the school to fund the thing (new build) out of one of the schools budgets but the proposal had to go before the governors for final approval. So I let the debate go ahead without comment until the chair ask for approval, then I stuck my ore in and asked if this here budget had been put before the rest of the school for other possibly more worthy project than someones office. So we threw out the proposal asking the teachers reps to come forward with at least two other proposals for the next meeting, needless to say my tone in the meeting was somewhat negative and everyone there picked up on the fact that I didn't want this to go through, ho hum, Seaton lost his office.

 

The teacher rep came to have a chat after the meeting, it was the chemistry teacher Yoe, apparently he didn't like Seaton either and was keen to take up my suggestion to find something else to spend 20K on.

 

Seaton came up also and asked or should I say groveled for his office, all I said to him was "you don't remember me, do you" and walked off.

 

A few years later when Rowlinson and Jordanthorpe were about to merge he was up for head of language at the new school, I was the only governor of both schools as the senior LEA rep on both boards and was on the interview panel for all senior posts, guest what, poor ol' Graham, knocked back again, ROTFLMFAO!!!

 

if you left in 1975 at fifteen you must have been one of the youngest in the year with a birthday either in july or august.

the last year of official leaving age of fifteen was 1973 .i remember martin williams [wombat] on his last day and we had another 2 years to do. martin by the way has done very well for himself , i still see him often.