Old boy gives prizes

President of old boys officiates

By TERRY SUTTON

    COMPUTER expert Roger Gabriel - who is playing a major part in setting up Dover's new Discovery Centre - returned to his old school where he was student and teacher.

    Mr Gabriel, regional curriculum manager for Kent Adult Education, presented the prizes at Dover Grammar School for Boys' guest night on Friday.

SUCCESS: Roger Gabriel with the prize winners

    This weekend Mr Gabriel is due to be elected president of the school's old boys' association. the Old Pharosians.
    He was a boy at the school from 1966-73 and on the teaching staff from 1979-1990 before taking up a post at St Edmund's Catholic School in Dover.
    He explained he switched from mainstream education after 20 years as a teacher to adult education because he did not agree - and still did not agree - with the imposition of the national curriculum. It was a decision he had never regretted.

    He recalled that when he joined the grammar School staff it was easy to catch boys "skiving" off morning assembly because he knew from experience where the skivers congregated!
    Most of the young men receiving prizes and certificates were off to universities and he gave advice to them: "Don't drink too much - and watch the girls."

    Mr Gabriel explained that Dover's now closed White Cliffs Experience was being converted into the Discovery Centre where various educational elements, including more than 1,000 adult education students, would be accommodated.
    He spoke of the enjoyment of teaching adults, many of whom had left school with no qualifications. Their ages ranged from 15 to 92, the latter a lady trained on the Internet and is now taking a digital photographic course so she can be in contact with her grandchildren.
    Headmaster Neil Slater told those attending - who included Wendy Hansell (chairman of Dover District Council), Dover mayor Diane Smallwood, and Kent deputy lieutenant Bill Newman - of the increasing success of the school.
    He revealed that 16 of the high-flyers now leaving had failed the Kent test for selective education but came to the school after passing the school's own selective test.
    More than 60 of the 67 receiving prizes and certificates are joining universities at some stage with several off on a gap year in Australia.
    New prizes this year included two in the names of former teachers Gordon King (economics) and Ken Ruffell (geography), as a result of an endowment by Old Pharosian Brian Newman.