Derrick SWANN (retired in 1998)

Derrick Swann arrived at Haberdashers' Aske's School in 1968, and has thus completed thirty years' continuous service here. Before arriving here, he taught Biology for eight years at Welwyn Garden City Grammar School.

Derrick has a deep and abiding interest in the natural world, possibly a result of his rural childhood in Suffolk; and he has introduced many an urbanite pupil to the delights of bird-watching and flower appreciation, both within the School's grounds and as part of the many field trips and courses he has been responsible for organising. Generations of Sixth Form Biologists have measured their lengths in estuarine mud, whilst obeying his orders.

Derrick's long service to the Biology Department and School has meant that he has had the pleasure (?) of teaching the children of some of his former pupils! He is worried that staying might involve teaching their grandchildren... Over the years, he has helped to develop the Biology Department from a 'quiet backwater' with three teachers, to a busy one with five full-time teachers plus two part-timers; and we are delighted that Derrick has agreed to continue to help the department, in a part-time capacity, in the coming academic year.

His philosophy of teaching is student-centred and he has been keen to get his students to understand the subject, rather than simply note-learning; he has been equally popular with the most junior and most senior pupils. He has also been adventurous, combining the best classical teaching techniques with some of the newest; he is one of the first to try out each new technical aid as it is introduced to the department, including computers. He combines a love and enthusiasm for the subject he teaches with a lively sense of what it takes to be a professional schoolmaster.

He is a keen and able tennis player, playing club tennis outside school and running the School team for the past thirty years, notching up some remarkable successes. The frustrations of getting the team together during the hot summer term have not made him a bitter man!

Derrick has a dry, yet wicked, sense of humour, and we are glad that he is not retiring completely; he is still needed for wise counsel and for the odd good laugh.