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quickly went from strength to strength. As links were forged with employers in ever-greater numbers, large numbers of Year 11s and Year 12 boys were able to benefit from the opportunity to engage in valuable work experience. The concomitant need for facilities to accommodate the surge in Careers-related activity was met, firstly, by the creation of a Careers suite in converted rooms on the ground floor of the South Block and, subsequently, by a purpose-built one in the Lord George Building, complete with classroom, interview rooms and offices. There was also a library which, in addition to its impressive array of books and publications on career- related matters, possessed a sofa, remembered fondly by certain boys as a place where they were able to catch up on much-needed ‘rest’ after a hard morning’s study in lessons. With the onward march of technology, the department progressed from a single landline to a website linked to career profiling (built by the then Careers Administrator, Gilly Sinclair) and to hundreds of useful sites, with boys being helped to navigate the burgeoning opportunities via a scheme of lessons taught by the PHSE (now Wellbeing) team. Elizabeth’s crowning moment at the College came in 2013. As a result of high levels of employer and Government concern regarding the widespread lack of good career guidance nationally, Sir John Holman was appointed, under the auspices of the internationally recognised Gatsby Foundation, to seek out good practice and cutting-edge ideas which could be deployed to bolster provision across the UK. Sir John was highly impressed with what he saw in the College’s Careers Department, and incorporated a number of Elizabeth’s ideas and practices into his publication on good career guidance, which underpinned the Government’s National Careers Strategy. In addition to Elizabeth’s professionalism, her hallmark has always been her very strong relationship with both boys and OAs. Many students have benefitted hugely, not just from her endeavours on their behalf to help them gain valuable work experience, but also in her insistence on punctuality, courtesy and representing themselves and the College with pride: values which will stand them in very good stead as they go out into the wider world. Elizabeth is now completing further post-graduate studies in Career Management as well as engaging in private career consultancy. Happily, she will continue to lend her expertise to the College by interviewing Year 11 and Year 12 boys, as well as returning to school and OA events in her position as honorary staff member of the Alleyn Club. We thus look forward to continuing to enjoy her company at the College whilst wishing her all the very best with all her new endeavours.
Elizabeth Soare
David Smith
1 989 was a year of fundamental change and new beginnings, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and other earth-shattering events in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, in a corner of south-east London, a far quieter and more gradual revolution was about to begin, with the appointment of Elizabeth Soare, as Dulwich College initiated a process of fundamental change with regards to its nascent Careers Department. After a brief period working alongside long-established colleague John Langford under the leadership of John Johnston, Elizabeth soon found herself with overall responsibility for Careers. Working from a desk in Room 14 of the South Block (before those wonders of modern technology, namely computers, were in common usage) she managed to persuade the Master, Tony Verity, to grant her a telephone in order to facilitate liaison with external companies. Evening work, in those early days, was often completed to the soothing tones of Gregorian plainsong as the then Head of Religious Studies, Robert Weaver, would often mark students’ work whilst singing heartily at the other end of the corridor. Under Elizabeth’s leadership, the Careers Department
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