It’s Friday afternoon, 21 February 2025. Eight days ago, I attended Andrew Watson’s funeral service at St James the Less, Stubbings. The event was so oversubscribed that the church and parish centre (with a live broadcast) were full, and there was standing room only outside. The service was a remarkable showcase of his life, not just because of the size of the congregation but also because of the incredible epitaph his sister Victoria gave that brought home to us all the remarkable impact Andrew had made in the 54 years of life spent alive with us. Since Andrew’s service and following conversations with friends at the wake and elsewhere, I feel I can add just a little more to the notes Andrew might have made of his time at CC.

During Andrew’s time as a child, he attended Ridgeway (the name of our junior school back then) and then Claires Court Seniors, and I had the good fortune to teach him. Though he left to continue his secondary studies at Reading Bluecoat, in those days our Junior to Senior split took place at the end of Year 5, giving students the time to enjoy a full preparatory education to age 13, and thus sit and (hopefully) pass into the senior school of their choice after 3 years of separate specialist subject education. French and Latin were on the menu, where the standards required by the most demanding of schools at 13+ were close to the current curricular demands giving rise to a grade 4 at GCSE. Those 3 years of prep. school, still in grey shirts and shorts at the outset meant that the programme was demanding and left really quite a range of children unable to access the curriculum. By way of illustration, a typical longer History essay question might ask “Choose two significant events from the 20th century and explain why they were important.”

Andrew was no slouch, and at any given stage during his education with us, he would always show he was often the best amongst equals. That’s not the point of my writing this blog, no, not at all. The thing with Andrew is that there was always something more going on in the lesson than just his attention to the demands of the teacher. Some 25 years later, I came across the research “The Hidden Lives of Learners” written by Graham Nuthall and published in 2007. It’s a highly influential book in education, based on Nuthall’s extensive research into how students learn in the classroom. In short, Nuthall’s research suggests that teachers are often unaware of a significant portion of what’s happening in their classrooms from the perspective of the children within. Put bluntly, we only know the 5%, the rest is beyond our ken. While the “5%” figure is a popular takeaway message, it’s more of a powerful illustration of the gap between teacher perception and student experience than a precise measurement.

Nuthall’s work emphasizes that students are constantly constructing their own understanding, engaging in complex social interactions, and experiencing a range of emotions that teachers may not fully perceive. This “hidden life” of the learner encompasses their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and interpretations of the learning environment. Because of this, teachers might only be consciously aware of a small fraction of what each student is experiencing. This realization that there’s a vast and often unseen world within the classroom, comprised of the individual and collective experiences of the children as a group. Ross Morrison McGill highlights the 3 worlds Nuthall uncovered really well in this short video:

Working with classes 4 to 6 (now Years 6 to 8) back in the ’80s, boys like Andrew made it abundantly clear to us all that far more was going on than we considered in our adult vision. I remember one particular occasion when Kenelm England, Latin teacher and of a similar age to me lost his temper with his class. Known as Eggy to all, it was that day that Andrew suggested ‘Eggy had cracked his shell!’ Andrew’s theatre was the schoolyard, where umpteen different games and sports were invented to pass the time of day. When one game palled’ another would be invented to renew the competition.

Whilst during our adult lives, our paths rarely converged, I became very aware of Andrew’s impact on the family, company and sporting life. I hope to share with a wider readership Victoria’s Eulogy to her brother, but for now, I ask you to jump over to Andrew’s own blog, Watto’sWords. Andrew and his brother Nicholas who followed his steps into Claires Court, suffered from Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disorder that sadly and inevitably leads to a premature death. Despite the ever-present threat that lungs could fail, Andrew lived a life that daily brimmed to overflowing.

In his diary entry, The day that changed my life! By Andrew Watson | May 18, 2018, Andrew highlights and celebrates the day when he was given a life-saving lung transplant. The entry makes compelling reading, perhaps a little more sombre now that, just under 7 years on, in early January this year, Andrew suffered from a relapse to his health, and died shortly afterwards 18/19 January. His parents Allen & Laraine Watson were incredibly supportive of our school whilst their boys passed through our hands, and we’ve stayed in touch professionally too, because Allen’s skills as a surveyor have assisted us in making a variety of planning applications thereafter.

A day in early May 2017………………….

It was early morning and the first intravenous drugs of the day were already making their way into my veins, when there was a knock on the door. It was unusual for another knock so soon; it was too early. I knew the routine as I had been in this solitary hospital room for ten weeks. Please read on…