Dugald Forbes - Guest Speaker

TALK BY DUGALD FORBES: TUESDAY 16^th OCTOBER

Last Tuesday evening Kirkcudbright Rotary Club was privileged to hear a talk from Dugald Forbes who recently retired as Rector of Kirkcudbright Academy. Dugald began his address by talking about his career before becoming a teacher and then he told his audience with great passion and certainty about how his ambition had turned to becoming a teacher. He told that once he had achieved this, how his love of his subject, English, developed to become a lifelong love of teaching. His talk was both serious and entertaining and was amply illustrated with humorous anecdotes, personal experiences and jokes. He referred to working with some of the best teachers in Scotland during his sixteen years working at Kirkcudbright Academy. He outlined his philosophy during this time as trying to ensure equality of opportunity for each and every pupil, stressing that the key to succeeding in delivering this is the provision of a relevant curriculum that gives parity of esteem to both academic and vocational courses. Dugald expressed some frustration at meeting the demands of one political administration only to be told by the next political administration to do something different. His plea to politicians to allow their schools, teachers and communities the time to consolidate, find local solutions, form local compacts, build strong partnerships and to fund this was clearly heartfelt.

Dugald then paid great tribute to the many people in Rotary who, over a period of 16 years, have made a real difference to the lives of children in the Kirkcudbright community. He described their work as