17 Features The RGS Gazette Issue 12 July 2024 Are You My Teacher? 1. What made you choose a career in teaching French? I was inspired by my paternal grandmother, who taught me to read at a very early age I think I was about three years old. She grew up in great poverty but loved books. She loved reading and school. I think school was a bit of a haven for her. I really enjoyed the schools that I went to and felt that it was a gift to be able to pass on knowledge and care for young people in the classroom all that sort of thing really appealed to me. In terms of subjects, History, English, and Languages were my favourite. However, I was absolutely fascinated by the sounds and spellings of new languages, and no one in my extended family had ever learned a foreign language. My parents grew up during the Second World War so they left school quite young and went to work, and none of my older cousins had bothered continuing school beyond ALevel so none of them had been to university. It was very exciting for me to learn French and German, and I also did Latin, so it was a very obvious choice, because they were my strong subjects, to teach those. 2. Why did you choose to teach at the RGS? One of my boys attended the RGS and from day one absolutely loved it, so we immediately felt at home with the school as parents. I always quite fancied working here actually, so when the opportunity came up and it was the right time for me in life I grabbed it with both hands. I think that it is a quirky place in some ways, as it merges the tradition with the modern, and has got a very nice level of both fun and discipline, I just think it is a very comfortable place to be, and intellectually an amazing environment for teachers and students. 3. If someone asked you to describe RGS to them, what would you say? First of all, I would say that it is an amazing school, a very comfortable place to be. I think that it is a bit of a home away from home for a lot of the boys. There is an enormous range of activities, some of them like Warhammer club are quite quirky, and the school overall has a quite disciplined but kind vibe. I would say that the modesty of manner, which is one of the school messages, is very appealing, and you will not usually find that kind of mission statement in many schools. 4. What is something that students may be surprised to know about you? Students may be surprised to know that I love sewing, and I used to do a lot of needlework when I was young. I am always looking for different projects to do, and I really enjoy craftwork and creating things. I have even tried my hand at painting, but I am an absolutely terrible painter so I do not think I will be pursuing that one further! 5. If you won the lottery and had to give up teaching, what would you do instead? I do not believe that money is the root of happiness, so I am not sure that I would worry about the lottery. If I wanted to do something different, I think I would just try and do it. I have already worked before teaching; I worked in international marketing for a big bluechip company back in the day, graduated training there, and spent five years with the management of that company. I feel that I have been quite lucky to have decided to go into teaching later on, as it fits well with my lifestyle with a family of three children. I am never going to regret that I gave up a company car and expense account if you can call that glamourous, as I am not sure it always is, to go into teaching. The only thing I might decide to do is to travel a little bit more to further flung places outside Europe. I might decide to go on a sailing holiday for example. I would not be the person driving the boat as my brother is very good at that, but I would like to go sailing, perhaps somewhere like the Caribbean. Krish Siddhartha (Year 8) interviews Mrs McFadyen Mrs McFadyen's grandmother's medal and book, awarded for honourable service in the 1880s, as part of the Sunday Companion Roll of Honour
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