Joan Hayes

Joan Hayes leaves us after over fourteen years as Head of I.C.T., or I.T. as it was for most of her time. She joined the School in 1979 as a laboratory technician, after an early career in computing and a break to raise her son and daughter. She is justly proud of the photographs of her operating an early Elliott computer, the size of a classroom!

Joan's abilities and dedication are illustrated by the way in which she obtained an Open University B.A. degree in December 1984 while working at the School. After this, she taught in Further Education, studying for her P.G.C.E. on day release. She took up her I.T. role here in January 1988 as Head of Computing within the Mathematics Department, and Computing became a department in its own right in September 1989. At this time the computers in the School consisted of one room of B.B.C. machines, six Apple Macintosh computers and an Alpha Micra mainframe with ten bulky terminals! It was Joan's dedication that built up the department to the level we see today, so that the computing system operates to commercial levels of service.

Joan has always striven to keep I.T.'s profile high both internally and externally, something which was noted and reported by the Daily Telegraph reporter who visited the School in the mid-1990s and described Joan's style (very aptly) as 'missionary zeal'. This was published in the Daily Telegraph Independent Schools Year Book, and Joan took a long time to live this down.

Outside school Joan's interests are varied, but her pride shows in her quilting and embroidering activities, displayed at school on many occasions. The upholstery of the chairs in the foyer of Aldenham House and the chapel altar frontal were the result of her direction for the School's 300th anniversary in 1990. For many years she has held a passion for dogs: one of Joan's party pieces for visitors departing from her home was to line up her three Border Collies on the staircase, where they demonstrated training and behaviour that would put some pupils here to shame.