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strengths is his loyalty and the ability to deliver on a vision and a mission in support of a school even if he does not agree with every aspect of its delivery. His ability to know what to fight for and what to let go will serve him well as a Head. Damian is a consummate physicist and a brilliant teacher. He has the gift of simplifying complex problems and of enjoying the complexity of his subject. As one colleague has put it: ‘I loved watching him teach. He thought as the pupils did: every tangential question was dealt with because he had already thought of it; especially the hypotheticals like whether a particle can travel faster than the speed of light. Answer: probably, but currently unprovable.’ An exceptional nurturer of talent, Damian has been a great mentor for a succession of colleagues who have gone on to hold positions as department or faculty leaders elsewhere and it is no accident that his two Directors of Studies have both progressed to senior deputyship very quickly. He is a generous line manager with an open-door policy: very patient and affable; never shy of doing the heavy lifting; never holding back the best tasks for himself. That Dulwich has become such a major player in the national school-centred initial teacher training schemes (in Maths and Physics and in Modern Languages) owes most to Damian’s clarity of mind and unstinting engagement in projects in which he believes. The quintessential image of Damian is on his Brompton speeding from meeting to meeting, on and off campus, Gail’s coffee in one hand and – metaphorically – iPhone in the other (the phone being an extension of himself). Colleagues are awed by his ability to see the whole Senior School timetable in his mind and to predict the effect of staff changes at lightning speed. He is one of those people you write to knowing you will receive an immediate but considered response: he thinks quickly, acts quickly, moves quickly, but he is also tolerant of those who take more time to come to their decisions or to complete their actions. Again, this will hold him in good stead when he is leading his own school. Damian should receive more personal thanks than any other individual for ensuring that we were in a position to move online when the pandemic struck in March 2020 and that we have been able to adapt to each successive call for virtual or hybrid teaching. He helped all teachers to become more comfortable on Teams and Zoom (and OneNote) than they might otherwise have been. Damian also had the task of overseeing our honest and informed apportioning of Centre- and Teacher-Assessed Grades for those pupils taking A levels and GCSEs in 2020 and 2021. He did this with characteristic assiduity and tact. Damian and his wife, Carrie, and the children (Henry, born on the eve of his taking office as Deputy Master Academic in 2016, Mimi in 2018 and Teddy in 2020) will be much missed at Dulwich, but we confidently wish them all the very best for life in Essex. We hope that Damian will find time for his other passion, sailing, and for encouraging the King children to enjoy themselves in reservoirs and rivers and on the sea. He is a highly accomplished sailor, though he never brags about it. He is as highly respected at London Corinthian Sailing Club as he is at Dulwich College.
Damian King JOSEPH SPENCE
Damian leaves Dulwich College to take up the Headship of Chigwell School. He has given excellent service here over the last 11 years and particularly in his years as Director of Science, overseeing the building of The Laboratory, which he was heavily involved in designing, and as Deputy Master Academic since Al Kennedy left us to become Head of Trinity in 2016. Damian was educated at the Royal Grammar School Colchester and at Mansfield College, Oxford, where he read Physics. He stayed at Oxford to do a PGCE (at Queen’s College) and then went straight to teach at Eton College. Damian’s reputation preceded him. I had heard great things from 2002 about a young Physics teacher who was also to become resident tutor in my former boarding house, looking after the 70 Kings Scholars in College at Eton, and I was delighted when Damian accepted the position of Head of Physics at Dulwich, having enjoyed four successful years as Head of Science at Brighton College from 2007. Damian knew what he wanted from Dulwich. Always an early adopter of new ideas and devices, he brought with him the first flipped lessons, and an ever-innovative approach to teaching and learning, using new technology whenever it could help both teachers and pupils. He also came to us because he believed in the importance of a holistic education and what he came to champion as free learning: learning free of the constraints of the syllabus and formal examination and freely engaged in by teachers sharing their intellectual passions with their students.
There were times when he may have preferred us to have operated a sharper academic focus but one of Damian’s
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