By PHIL SCoBLE
Matt Bakewell
become an inspirational teacher: from investment banking to marketing executive and then to head of English at Prince Charles’ school via Spain and a teacher training year in London. Born in Torquay, Matt studied at
D
Torquay Boys’ Grammar School. He left in the 1980s having been told by the school careers advisor he would be a wonderful teacher. His response? He laughed and went into property development in Spain and then tried his hand at banking in the city. But he was less than impressed. “I studied English literature at
University, but thought the most important thing – as everyone seemed to in the 80s – was to make money,” he said. “I then went straight to a job in the City working as a junior money broker. However, life in the City was not for me.” Reading a self-help book that challenged its readers to ‘find themselves’ Matt realised something, and it would change his life: “It turned out my careers teacher was right and I should have been a teacher.” He took a teacher training course in London. Travelling in
Europe during the course he called a girl he’d met on holiday seven years before. Yvo was from Belgium and he
artmouth Academy’s head of English ll has had an interesting journey to
thought as he was going to be in that part of the world he should see what she was up to. They arranged to meet in Utrecht, where she was at University.
“From the moment Yvo and I reunited in a cobbled street in Utrecht, we both knew it was always meant to be,” Matt recalls. They are now married with three children. Matt’s first job in teaching was at a boarding school in the Midlands – he applied for it out of curiosity about private education. He got the job and after a year was made Head of Drama.
I told our children we were moving to the most beautiful town in Britain and told our eldest son, George that he was moving, like Prince Charles before him, from Gordonstoun to Dartmouth
He then moved on to become
Head of Drama at King’s College, Taunton. He spent seven happy years there and directed more than
from Gordonstoun to Dartmouth HEaD oF ENGLISH aT DarTMouTH aCaDEMy.
60 productions. However, changes were afoot. “I was offered the position of
Housemaster, in charge of 74 boarders and a promotion in the school hierarchy,” he said. “While the pastoral role is immensely rewarding, I decided after four happy years that I enjoyed the academic side much more and became Head of English at Gordonstoun, Prince Charles’ famous school in the far north of Scotland.” The decision meant a massive change for Matt, his wife Yvo and their children: “We moved as a family and enjoyed two and a half tremendous years, exploring the Highlands by wild-camping on expeditions, for which, as the founder of ‘outward bounds’ and the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, Gordonstoun is famous. “One third of Gordonstoun’s pupils are from overseas and it sometimes seemed to be crammed with the sons and daughters of European royalty, south Asian rulers, African princes and Russian oligarchs, but there are also children on full
scholarships from the East End of London and East Yorkshire. It is one of the most democratic, egalitarian multi- cultural communities you could imagine with all pupils and staff put through the rigours of ‘crew’, where groups of
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