Who'd be a teacher?

As someone who has spent more time in school adminstration than teaching, I have the greatest admiration for those who carry on doing a good job in the classroom year after year. MGS produces a good number of teachers (and Heads), and I'm glad to see that John Witton (ex-MGS pupil) and son of Allan and Lesley (both ex-MGS teaching staff) is featured in one of the latest advertisements from the TDA, the Training and Development Agency for Schools:


http://www.harriscrystalpalace.org.uk/39/video/video/25/mr-wittons-tda-advert


One of MGS's great teachers of modern times was Ian Leverton, first Head of Russian and subsequently Head of Modern Foreign Languages, who died tragically young. He is said to have taught largely through the language and imagery of football, so the first Russian sentence a 13 year old learned might have been 'That's a thundering shot from outside the box'. One of the many MGS soccer teams he successfully coached, the lads of 1976 to 1983, presented a trophy in his memory this year to be awarded annually to the highest goal scorer of the season, and this was duly awarded by Rodger Alderson to Felix Shalom (U12, 29 goals) in Prizegiving this morning.


The 2009-2010 school year has now officially ended, but the Development Office staff will be in action for most of the summer break. I'm off for 2 weeks in Austria with the 'Old Trekkers' Trek' - a hut-to-hut walking tour at, hopefully, a leisurely pace, but will be around again from the end of the month.

Do you know how hedge funds work?

Well you certainly would if you had been able to attend this year's Hugh Oldham Memorial Lecture at MGS on Monday. Old Mancunian Stanley Fink, known from his days at the Man Group rather affectionately as the Godfather of the hedge fund business, gave a highly challenging explanation of the contribution that hedge funds make to the financial markets and the economy.

With analogies including a visit to a horse racing meeting in Hong Kong, he explained the mathematical approach to movements in prices which is adopted by hedge fund traders. He also made clear that the over-simplification of these instruments in the press does little to explain the range of intellectual challenges they pose. His views on regulation are clear: already recent rule-changes have the Swiss authorities rubbing their hands as many firms move from London to Geneva.

Stanley Fink and his wife Barbara are also well known as philanthropists, and he explained the reasons behind their emphasis on educational, health and poverty-reducing charities. If you are lucky enough to make or have money, he said, it's your duty to send the elevator down to bring up as many more deserving people as you can.

The Hugh Oldham lecture follows an afternoon of seminars attended by Sixth Formers from a wide range of Manchester schools. We were fortunate to have a sparkling set of seminar presenters on Monday, many of them also Old Mancunians.

If you would be interested in attending future Hugh Oldham lectures, contact us in the Development Office at MGS to be added to our mailing list.