Keith Pearson Obituary, Death, Funeral And Visitation
Keith Pearson Obituary, Death Cause – was incredibly saddened to hear about the passing of Keith Pearson. My heart breaks for you. He was so sweet and kind. Such a great man. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Sending you love and peace during this unimaginable time.Keith Pearson, who has died aged 78 following a long illness, was a schoolteacher through and through, and a very successful and well-respected head.
Following a year studying in Madrid, he won an Open Exhibition to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he studied French and Spanish. Following teacher training, he started his career at Rossall School in Lancashire in 1964, becoming head of modern languages in 1968.Having married Dorothy Atkinson in 1965, he came to Scotland as head of modern languages at George Watson’s College in 1972.
So Keith learnt about the horrors of the timetable, the need for consistent and fair discipline and the ways to encourage the hard-working and talented staff he led.In 1983, probably to the horror of his charges at Watson’s, he became headmaster of George Heriot’s School, where he remained until his retirement in 1997.Keith had two interviews, and said that shaving off his beard between them seemed to seal the deal for his headship.
He was a kindly but exacting teacher, who expected his pupils to try hard, with a particular emphasis on their spoken French and Spanish. His intelligence and attention to detail naturally saw him progress to deputy head at Watson’s, where he worked happily with his fellow deputy May Nicol, under the leadership of Roger Young, who saw that his talented deputies were perfectly capable of running the ship on a day to day basis without too much interference from on high.
This 14-year tenure saw seismic change at Heriot’s as Keith strove to raise academic standards and focus harder on pastoral care.The introduction of girls had been agreed before he arrived, but Keith pushed hard to ensure that they received equal status, insisting on a widening of the curriculum, appropriate pastoral care and proper facilities to welcome the new arrivals, no easy task in a school which had known only boys for the preceding 300 or so years.
Keith Pearson Obituary, Death Cause – was incredibly saddened to hear about the passing of Keith Pearson. My heart breaks for you. He was so sweet and kind. Such a great man. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Sending you love and peace during this unimaginable time.Keith Pearson, who has died aged…
