As our 2021/22 school year came to an end, we bid farewell to our Head of Maths Dr. Simon Burrows, after 24 years of teaching at Adams.

Dr. Burrows has led the Maths department to ever-increasing levels of success at Adams, and he leaves a department that is consistently one of the most successful year on year. His successor, Mr. Sam Fletcher shared his gratitude for Simon’s leadership during a special farewell gathering, although luckily for us Dr. Burrows will be returning in September on a temporary basis to cover a member of the team who is currently on maternity leave. We wish Dr. Burrows a very happy, albeit slightly delayed, retirement and thank him for sharing the following with us.

A few words from Dr. Burrows

After completing my PhD back in 1990, I decided to move on from academia into a profession where I hoped to earn decent money but still be able to use my mathematical skills (actuarial work within a pensions consultancy) but, within a couple of years it was perfectly clear to me that, although I could have continued with that career, learnt lots of interesting things (at least, initially) and earned plenty of money, I would simply not have been happy in the long term; thus, after quite a long period of reflection about what it was that I truly enjoyed, I decided to move into teaching - I have always had a knack for and gained real pleasure from explaining things to friends, got on well with people (well, I think that, at least!) and enjoyed presenting (which I learnt about myself particularly during tutorials I gave to electronics students at the University of York and at conferences in various parts of the world during my PhD days); additionally, I thought it would make me very happy (and it does) to know that, at least in part, I might be helping others to reach their true potential in life (and, hopefully, some of you reading this might agree – I certainly remember a couple of teachers from my days at school that really inspired me – a particular shout out to Mr. Heslop who inspired me to play hockey and is, himself, still playing even though he is well past 70 now).

I was not educated at a grammar school (there were simply none in my area) and so I was a little wary when a job opportunity arose at Adams, but once I was here for interview it was so obviously a great place, I would have been devastated not to be offered the job. I have always been a bit of an all-rounder and so some of you might remember that, in my early years at Adams, in addition to teaching maths, I also took Y10 and then Senior Games hockey.

Some say your school days are the best days of your lives (and I have had plenty of those here at Adams) but having now completed 25 years in the profession (24 of them at Adams) and experienced the effects of the Covid pandemic both personally and within school, I reflected very hard once again; I subsequently decided I really needed a change of direction and, particularly, to live a less hectic and more simple life (and thus “tend to zero” a little more slowly than I have been in recent years). I therefore find myself retiring at the end of this academic year.

Finally, Adams has developed and changed tremendously whilst I have been here and it has been such an interesting and amazing community always full of inspirational characters (staff and pupils alike), plus it has been a privilege for me to be a small part of it all; this is such a good school that creates so many opportunities for great memories to be formed and is one which we all hope trains you to explore yourself, not be afraid to take your chances nor to try new things – this is something you are all remembering to do, even now, right?