162
163
THE ALLEYNIAN 709
VALETE
established a DUCKS String Orchestra which played in concerts and church services, and in the Junior School, Caroline established the Year 3 choir, teaching class singing alongside the Y4 Woodwind Scheme. A major highlight of recent years was the hugely successful production of The Story of Dick Whittington Produced by Edward Alleyn , an entirely new play on Dulwich themes written especially by Caroline for the 400th anniversary year, and produced in the Edward Alleyn Theatre in 2019. Elsewhere in the College, Caroline was the DUCKS representative on the Common Room committee for several years, and she continued to help in the theatre from time to time, notably, together with Maggie Jarman, sewing costumes for three Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the final years of the Michael Ashcroft era and helping with the production of Purcell’s King Arthur with Richard Mayo and Peter Jolly.
an opera singer. Her talent as a performer has been of huge benefit to the College. Over the years she has given various recitals, and has featured as a soprano soloist in many College concerts, firstly at the Fairfield Halls with Michael Ashcroft, but more recently at major choral concerts with Richard Mayo, notably Haydn’s Creation and Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor at All Saints church, Rosendale Road. Caroline will be warmly remembered by the generations of children she has nurtured at DUCKS, whose rich musical experiences at an early age are, to quote one parent, ‘a gift for life’, and this is perhaps her true legacy. The self-confidence they have gained through singing, playing and performing in DUCKS productions has made an extraordinary contribution to their development. The importance of this is demonstrated by the fact that so many of the Music Scholars and Choral Scholars in the Senior School started their musical careers at DUCKS. Caroline’s contribution to the whole of the College has been exceptional, and her professionalism and deep knowledge will be missed.
Jane arrived at the college on 1 April 2004 after a chance encounter with a native speaker taking maternity leave. Previously, she had worked as a teacher and interpreter in Milan before becoming a proud stay-at-home mum. With her exemplary knowledge of both Italian and French, her calm and caring manner, and willingness to get the best out of both pupils and school, she rapidly made herself indispensable, taking covering roles in Italian and French, and finally becoming Head of Italian in her own right, a position she has held for 17 years. Colleagues in the Modern Languages Department pay tribute to her as an influencer and teacher. A native of Blackpool, she has brought the voice of straightforward, Northern common sense to the department and the Common Room. Jane has ever been reasonable, unflappable, creative, thoughtful, positive and consistently loyal to her pupils and her colleagues. She is, admirably, never afraid to speak truth to power, but able to do it diplomatically and sensitively, even in extremis . As a head of department, Jane has been much respected for her insistence on high standards, her support, especially to young and inexperienced colleagues, and the consistency with which she believes in and values those who work with her. Above all she will be remembered at the College for championing the Italian language and the remarkable culture of Italy to pupils who will forever be grateful to her. Jane has always worn her academic excellence lightly and unpretentiously (and her academic range – I note with grateful thanks the two years when her O-level Latin was memorably put to good use teaching Latin in the Lower School); she could laugh at a gauche sixth-former Buddhika’s passion for cricket was quickly picked up by the College, and he took the 3rd XI after a couple of years, something he continued to do until relatively recently, when his administrative duties became too onerous to continue with both. He was also asked briefly to take the 2nd XI hockey team, when the sport was being challenged by the introduction of football, though by his own admission this was more a case of stepping in when needed than being called on for his great experience or talent. He has enjoyed playing in many Dusters matches over the years. Buddhika was commissioned into the CCF RAF Section in 2003, attending his initial officers course in 2004 and being appointed Officer-in-Charge of the RAF Section in 2006. He attended a range management course in 2007, passing with flying colours, this course being a key factor in enabling the cadets to go shooting. His passion and commitment to the CCF led to his being appointed second-in-command of the contingent in 2008 under Geoff Rutter. Buddhika attended numerous summer camps, visiting almost every RAF base in the country, one of his highlights being a flight in a Typhoon. Buddhika retired from the CCF with the rank of Squadron Leader, retaining his rank after having returned his College commission.
As if all of this were not enough, Buddhika has also been the Common Room secretary for the past five years. This has involved being Peter’s right-hand man, helping organise end- of-term parties and leaving presents, as well as helping preside over Common Room meetings and generally pulling Peter back on track when he goes off on a particularly wild tangent. Many will remember Buddhika’s revival of after-school teas in the Masters’ Library, cajoling other teachers into putting on short acts, from music to stand-up comedy. Buddhika’s crowning achievement as secretary was probably the role that he played in organising the meal at the Stationers’ Hall in October 2019, attended by over 200 staff members and partners as well as past presidents and colleagues, an event which it is hoped will be repeated when Covid restrictions allow. Buddhika was also a visiting tutor at the Orchard for four years; he was part of an early Community Service project in which students helped older members of the local community to learn how to use IT; and he was a valuable presence on DofE trips. The enormous range of his contributions stands as testament to Buddhika’s dedication to the College for over 20 years. He will be warmly remembered by Common Room members, both present and past. We wish him all the very best with his future plans, both in the UK and in Sri Lanka.
Caroline is a fine professional musician, having trained for four post-graduate years at the Royal Academy of Music as
BUDDHIKA KULATUNGE
Chris Ottewill
Jean-Michel Hulls JANE BRIGGS
Buddhika joined Dulwich College from Whitgift at Easter 2001, his offer letter saying that he was the ‘unanimous choice for the post’. Buddhika quickly settled into the Maths Department despite joining mid-year, helped by a departmental trip to Bletchley Park on his first day at the College for the start-of-term INSET day. Happy to teach across the range of groups covered by the department, Buddhika taught classes from Year 8 to Further Pure Mathematics in his first year, continuing to take a similar range ever since. His students knew that he always wanted the best for them academically and pastorally, and many will remember Buddhika’s teaching style over the years, which included chivvying them along with anecdotes about his mathematically able imaginary cat or butler. Within the department, Buddhika took over running the Year 8 ‘Mathematics through IT’ course in his first year, adding material on sequences and binomial expansions to the spreadsheet section as well as overseeing the printing of the course, and training teachers in the use of the specialist software.
Buddhika’s IT abilities led naturally to him taking on the role of the organiser of daily staff cover. Whereas previously this had been a relatively laborious process carried out by hand, Buddhika moved to using the College’s online administration system to select teachers as fairly and efficiently as possible. Many members of staff will remember Buddhika’s faithful presence in the pigeonhole room first thing in the morning, both checking final cover requirements and dealing unflappably with last-minute cover requests. To this role was added that of overseeing the end-of-year examination schedule, with Buddhika again introducing many online and IT-based solutions to problems that had previously been worked out by hand. His experience in both of these roles led to his more recent involvement with the introduction of the College’s new information management system, Buddhika being an early advocate of replacing CMIS with an integrated system, and successfully project-managing the introduction of iSAMS.
worrying about ‘ending up at a rubbish uni like Sussex’, Jane’s own alma mater . Many pupils have said that choosing Italian was the best decision of their school career, a decision made that little bit more enjoyable by Signora Briggs’s presence. Breakfast club meetings hosted on Wednesday mornings, attended by JAGS girls and members of the department, were lifted by Jane’s apparently miraculous positivity and sense of bonomia . Several former students recount their fondness for lessons in Italian literature and how much they miss those times. Those pupils who were lucky enough to have been taught by her or to have visited Italy on one of her dozens of trips will always remember how she opened their eyes to the beauty of
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online