A celebration

Tonight marks my last night as a residential school advisor for the Open University level one science course SXR103. The course has two further weeks to run and will finish, bringing to an end 42 years of week-long practical science summer schools. Over that period tens of thousands of students have looked through telescopes and lit bunsen burners and puzzled over physics and worn white coats and goggles and enjoyed the company of academics and other students.

For many of the staff it may be the last time we work together or even meet. I'm a relative newbie having done about ten weeks but many can claim far longer and the tales they tell will forever raise a smile - the tales are almost always at the expense of other members of staff rather than students!

There will be tears but also a sense of achievement. I've just been chatting with a wonderful lady who is in her 70s and uses a wheelchair but who has had - and I'll quote her - "a marvellous week". It's not for me to go into further detail as my role has mainly been observe the great teaching and learning but when they write the book about science resi schools it'll be well worth reading.

I sense a few beers and, maybe, the disco in my immediate future. Charge your glasses and toast SXR103 and the end of an era.