I have been an active member of the NUT for years now. I never planned to be political. I thought I would get a job as an English teacher, go to work every day, come home, be with the family, mark stuff, plan lessons, go to pubs, watch bands, and my daytime job would be mostly to empower the young people of Seacroft and Gipton [Leeds] to believe in themselves. Then Spooner got in the way. He kept giving me little resposibilities. And a few years later, I had left English teaching, been 2ic this and ic that, and was now in 1992 Head of the Faculty of Expressive Arts. Also, as Head of Music, I already had candidates routinely taking GCSE Music with steelpans as their main instrument, and the Foxwood Steel Band was a regular feature at all the local summer fairs.
In 1995 Ofsted gave us at Foxwood School a good report, but the exam League tables had spotted that our “inner-city” [and read that anyway you like] weren’t making the grades. Shame on them, Leeds City Council closed us.
I didn’t have the heart to give to any other school at that time. I accepted the Music Service offer to be their steel pan development officer and head of steel pans. I kept the Foxwood Band going, if for no other reason than we had all these summer gigs booked, and so thus began the band’s new beginning. We played Leeds Carnival as ourselves and not just joining New World or being part of a music service steelband. from 2000 to 2010.
Dear Reader, at Foxwood School, I worked with some of the most amazing teachers that this town or even this country could be proud of. Meantime the scarred beginnings of poor grades being mistaken for poor teaching infected the education world. And when the new school rejected my most reluctant offer to work there [I promised the kids], it was the NUT who stood by me. Not
political, but compassionate, and supportive.
The children I wanted to empower were thrown to the winds, and I couldn’t but be a bit political after that. So, Foxwood Steel has played TUC rallies so many times that they put the band on their banner [awesome] and when the NUT asks us to play the strike rallies, it’s an honour and a responsilbity.
Above are pictures of the backs of Gary’s and Debs’ heads, Georgia trying to sleep on a conga and one of me with flags . Below is a picture of us [Sarah, Daisy, Georgia and Small] from the previous rally in Leeds City Square in June.
Below is Amy and the rest after we packed most of the pans away.
It was all too much for Clippy who passed out on the radiator after all that traipsing in and out of the house with instruments. [Clippy was a present from the eponymous Lisa Clipstone, who, in her Yr 11, was in the Foxwood School Steelband in 1996].
