Kate Heath

Science Teacher
Former Houseparent and Eco Schools/Sustainability Co-ordinator

Life before the Dragon:

After school life in Sussex, I attended Warwick University where my first degree was in Biochemistry. After three further years in research, I put my PhD to use in the pharmaceutical industry, where I worked in a Biotechnology unit in the Discovery section. A career change to teaching started in a girls’ secondary school in Portsmouth and within 3 years I was in Oxford. After a short stint at a Senior girls’ school, I moved to the Dragon to become a Houseparent, a Science teacher and, latterly, started up the Eco Schools sustainability programme.

What do you enjoy most about the subjects you teach?

Science has never been in a more exciting era with technology moving so fast and research moving at an exponential pace, it is a dynamic and exciting subject to teach. Pupils at the Dragon are characteristically confident and their frequent ‘blue sky’ thinking, can-do approach and sometimes near-impossible questions are constantly refreshing and frustrating in equal measures! Getting pupils to realise that textbooks and scientific literature is written by scientists who have carried out experiments (for years) is another challenge. Thus, it is vital that we teach our future scientists good practical and analytical skills so they too are equipped to come up with the theories that will take the subject forward.

What do you enjoy most about the Dragon?

Pupils here are very good at not letting you take yourself too seriously. Dragons career around at pace and are determined, yet relaxed in all they do. They play games around - or over - you in the playground, frequently read a book on the move between lessons, and they smile and laugh – a lot. This is mirrored by so many of the staff and we all enjoy a lively and talented Common Room.

Incredibly, and enviously, in a day packed with lessons, activities, clubs, friends and decisions, they are able to make the most of every moment and every single nook and cranny round school. Even when classes are over, activities are done and clubs packed away, the life of the School buzzes on through the boarding houses.

In the last few years I have been closely involved with encouraging pupils to think more sustainably about their lives. This is an area which extends beyond the energy saving and recycling within and outside school, and has allowed the pupils to realise that that way we choose to live – at school, at work and play – can have a profound effect on others and on our future. As part of this project, I have managed to learn a lot about keeping bees and their ecological and economic importance. For one who was never keen on flying insects, the desire to get my hand on some honey-filled comb was enough of an excuse to overcome my fears.

Passions

When not at School, I spend time with family and friends at our home in Normandy. It is here that we can pause for breath and indulge our pastimes of reading, cards, walking and arguing about rugby with the neighbours. We also practice speaking the language and undertake some serious research about French wine and good cheese. Occasionally, we talk about fixing a hole in the house, or replacing a floor, but as renovation is supposed to last for years, we always end up just planting another tree or two in the field and shrugging our shoulders (in a Gallic way).