By Maya Williams

“TEACHING at Stroud High has been a real privilege and a joy,” these are the words of much-loved teacher Nigel Prenter following his retirement after twenty-eight years at the school.

As head of politics, sociology and Year 13, Mr Prenter, as most pupils know him, organised endless enrichment activities and foreign trips.

These include taking students to the European Parliament where Stroud High students have represented the UK many times and taken part in international affairs.

Mr Prenter has also led six school trips to Africa and eleven to Asia, and has especially enjoyed the visits to India.

“I will miss working with young people,” he said.

“But I won't miss being this tired. I'm 65 and I never want to be this tired again.

“Thank you, to all the students, parents, teachers and governors, for being part of such a wonderful institution that has allowed me to flourish and be myself.

“Teaching here has been amazing. I wouldn't have wasted 28 years of my precious life being somewhere where I couldn’t use my talents to the full.”

Mr Prenter has also been a Labour Stroud District councillor for Rodborough since 2011, and he intends to continue until 2020.

His teaching career stretches to more than four decades, 44 years in total.

He has worked as a teacher in London, the east coast of America, and Hawaii, before moving back to Gloucestershire, and started working at Stroud High School in 1989, describing it as “the most wonderful school to have taught at.”

The year he began teaching (1973) was the year the UK joined the European Union.

A self-described “passionate European”, he finds it ‘tragic’ that in the year he retires the UK is leaving.

He called Brexit “a slowly unwinding catastrophe of the first order, and an act of immense national self-harm.”

Although he is retiring from teaching, he still sings and writes songs for a local band, the 'Hawds', in which he also plays guitar.

The ‘Hawds’ have recorded eight albums and their music has been played on the BBC World Service.

Mr Prenter’s father was in the RAF and he grew up on nuclear air bases in England and Germany. After five years at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he tried teaching.

“If I’d have had to train to be a teacher I never would have become one,” he said.

“The year I graduated was the last year you could go straight into teaching with just a degree.

“It was just something I was going to do to pay rent until I decided what I wanted to do, but I learnt that I was made for it.

“I was never trained to be a teacher, my students taught me how to teach them.”

Former student Sophie Foxen said, “he taught me politics at AS level, around 2004-5, and he was brilliant. I got full marks in the AS! He covered all the material, as well as being hilarious.”

If you’d like to share your favourite memories with Nigel Prenter, email sev@stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk or call 01453 769414.