Within the offices of school, there is a running theme in the responsibilities of Dr Peter Pack. Since becoming Deputy Head in charge of Curriculum, various other responsibilities beginning with the letter “C” have been added to his role: chairs, computers, carparking, complaints, calendars (842 of them!), clocks, coordination, climate control, communications…

His lifestyle, and calendar commitments, are about to become a lot simpler as he takes a well-deserved retirement after 29 years at Haberdashers’ Adams.

A ceremony was held in the Headmaster’s Garden for all the staff who are leaving us this summer. Thank you to all those ONs who took time to leave a message for Peter. He was presented with a “Haberdashers’ Adams Mug of History” and an ON tie (available to buy in the shop!) as well as a card filled with four sides of an A4 spreadsheet containing your messages.

Peter has written some words to reflect on his time here:

“In September 1995, I arrived as head of maths and remained in that role for 13 years until I became acting deputy head – curriculum for the academic year 2008-9. After that, I had six years as assistant headteacher – data & curriculum before I took on my current role as deputy headteacher – curriculum in January 2015.

When I arrived, Adams was a much smaller and more limited school than it is today. Over the last three decades we have acquired the current English block, humanities block, music centre (including Hamilton Hall), sports hall, Paddock block (art and maths), swimming pool roof and toilets, Sixth Form centre, and Longford pavilion, plus the current science and DT block completely replacing a previous, old science block. Also, of course, senior boarding has moved from the High Street to Beaumaris Court. Some of these new buildings were the result of school expansion, others a result of the need to replace facilities well past their best-by dates or simply far too small: what is now the Sixth Form centre was the school gym at the end of the 20th century, and we continued to cram hundreds of students (plus staff) into it for full school assemblies well after it was sensible to do so!

In 1995, the school had only just expanded from three to four houses, with Webb being the newest house, and in the Sixth Form, we had six rather than ten forms in each year group. In total, the school had about 700-750 students, considerably fewer than today’s total of around 1,060. The Sixth Form had gone co-educational a couple of years before I arrived, but the number of girls in each Sixth Form year was still rather modest, certainly under two dozen.

As well as the improved physical facilities at school, we have also improved the breadth of education on offer at the school by adding a number of new subjects. The growth of the Sixth Form has enabled us to nurture minority subjects (art, music, foreign languages, geology) while adding new ones (accounting, classical civilization, drama, philosophy) as well as major ones (psychology, sociology, EPQ). So, for a relatively small school, we offer an excellent range of subjects.

Sadly, we have not been entirely immune to funding cuts affecting what we do, so we had to discontinue Spanish teaching a few years ago. Similarly, economic stringencies at exam boards meant that post-lockdown they stopped offering accounting and philosophy AS-levels.

In terms of management, most of the challenges over the years have related to trying to make our relatively modest facilities go further and in dealing with some of the vagaries of government policies – does anyone else remember the National Curriculum tests in Year 9 that were once deemed essential and then abandoned? Or the “Curriculum 2000” with its six-module A-levels and opportunities to sit the same module up to four times until you finally got 100%? Fortunately, we have, over the years, managed to avoid many of the fads that have come and gone in education (does anyone remember the dubious “science” of learning styles, for example? Or the over-zealous use of “flight paths” to predict student progress?) and instead been able to concentrate on doing what we believe in.

I will take two strong memories of the school with me into retirement. One is simply the steady stream of remarkable pupils – capable, enthusiastic, optimistic, adventurous – who have passed through our gates and classrooms. It has been my extraordinary good fortune to spend nearly three decades surrounded by students who overwhelmingly want to make the best of their educational opportunities. The second is the remarkably positive and cooperate attitude of staff at this school – I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with support staff and teachers at all levels of responsibility who unfailingly give their best, look to take initiatives, and keep pushing for improvement in all aspects of school life.”