Steve Watkins Retires ONA Magazine catches up with retiring Maths Teacher Steve Watkins (89-18) on 29 years loyal service at RGS and his plans for the future.
Above: Spartans 2016 after the presentation of the Spartan’s helmet Below: Steve Watkins (L) with Dave Smith during a Games Afternoon
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What year did you start at the RGS? January 1989 and was blown away with the academic prowess of the Maths Department and in the early days it was an extremely daunting feeling, as I was working alongside some brilliant Mathematicians, such as Peter Mitchell (8003), John Porritt (79-93), John Douglas (56-94), John Hewitt (78-90), Pauline Perella (82-03), Tom Hall (6798) and of course Bill Gibson (63-69 and 74-15). Saying that, I have learnt a fantastic amount from them all and those early days helped me in my teaching of the subject and laid the foundations to enable to me teach up to Further Maths. I became Head of Middle School taking over from Jim Lawrence (60-94) in September 1994, which coincided with James Miller (94-08) starting as the new Headmaster. As well as being Head of Middle School and teaching Maths, what else have you been involved with at RGS? Typically RGS, I was given various responsibilities before I became Head of Middle School, which were: Master in Charge of the Dining Hall and House Master of Collingwood. When I started at the school, lunchtime was very traditional, in terms of a member of staff sat with and was responsible for a group of boys. This soon changed to a servery-style of lunch, but still nothing like we have now. Another role of being Master in Charge of the Dining Hall was setting up the Dining Hall for Parents Conferences’ which involved shifting all the tables and chairs and putting out table names; how times have changed! My role as House Master was organising teams for House Competitions and in those days there was only the traditional sports such as rugby, Miller Cup, cricket, House Swimming Galas and of course Sports Day; again nothing like the extensive House Competitions in place now. My main involvement throughout my time at the school has been sport, especially rugby and cricket. I have been in charge of the U12, U14 and U15 cricket teams with U14s winning
