Talk:Roger Clifford Carrington

Dr. R.C Carrington - the man that I knew
I attended St Olaves from 1966 until we amicably parted company around 1972. I cannot blame the school for what I now perceive as a poor education - it was the exam boards that we were being taught to pass. The school did, in fact, do its job very well.

Dr. Carrington, known affectionately as "Oaf", was my headmaster for much of my sentence there. He was a very clever, in fact brilliant, individual - wasted on schoolboys like me. He held the respect of pupils and staff alike until his unfortunate ill health when we all moved to Orpington. Under his leadership we had a choir second to none, staff that offered passion outside of their subjects, and an ethos that told us that none of us could fail. As far as I'm aware, none of us did.

What I regret is not paying more attention to what Dr. Carrington had to offer. The school was exam and measures based (as most are today). If we just had a little time to listen but not be tested then I suspect the whole school would have been fascinated by what he had to tell us. It didn't happen, or if it did it slipped under my radar.

A sad loss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.239.71 (talk) 17:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It was the 60s and there was a lot going on outside of school which made school seem not so important. However I do recall Carrington speaking as an archaeologist to the History Society at least once, and the History Society itself was an example of study for the sheer pleasure of it, and was very dynamic while I was there (from 1964), under the leadership of that fine History teacher who used to commute from Brighton.

My impression was very different to yours. I recall clearly having it impressed upon us that education was valuable for its own sake. Exams were a fact of life, but I don't feel we were taught just to pass exams. --Pavlos Andronikos (talk) 13:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)