'Can you make a car explode on stage?' – my 16 years as a York teacher

Burnholme School in York

In the first of two articles for The Press, former York teacher JOHN FLETCHER looks back at his time at Burnholme School

IN 1990 I graduated from St Johns College with a Design & Technology degree, and – lucky me – managed to secure a job at Burnholme School in Bad Bargain Lane.

However, “Bad Bargain” it certainly wasn’t as I enjoyed 16 of the most happy and productive years of my working life there.

In addition to my main role in technology, I began to support the music and drama departments, where my experience of local music plus the fact that I was a drummer and a joiner by trade made my experience invaluable to both departments.

Burnholme Community College, formerly known as Burnholme School. Picture David Harrison.

I soon began to coach young school bands and got involved in set-building for productions.

“Can you make a car explode on stage?” the head of drama asked me. I forget which play we were performing but there was a car chase and the fleeing vehicle had to crash into a brick wall.

I constructed two sides, a front and a roof and then obtained two car seats from a scrapyard. Using strong fishing line, I attached pull cords to the roof and sides. The scene began with two young actors in the car and a rolling road projected on to the backdrop.

As the driving became more erratic and the soundtrack swelled with sirens and screeching brakes, the brick wall loomed up. In those days you could use pyrotechnics onstage so at the moment of impact I set off a “flash bomb” and six offstage students pulled simultaneously on the fishing lines. The sides and roof flew off, the soundtrack culminated in a huge cacophony of twisted metal and all the lights went out. We ran this scene for four nights, and each time there were gasps and then applause from the audience.

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One day I was called into the headteacher’s office and presented with a radical proposition. I was to be taken off technology work, and given charge of all non-academic activities. Careers, work experience, recording achievement, business links and pilot schemes would all be handled by me, with my own office and unlimited time.

2004 - John Fletcher when he was head of careers and business links at Burnholme School. Photo - York Press

This very shrewd decision meant that overstretched teaching staff could concentrate on their own subjects without the burden of another workload.

Plus the freedom it gave me to concentrate on these programmes soon propelled Burnholme – later to be renamed Burnholme Community College – to a world-class leader in these areas, especially regarding links with business, and also provided me with a wealth of humorous anecdotes.

Work experience gave me one of these. A student was very late in choosing a place of work. He couldn’t make up his mind. Eventually all the best places had gone. “Why don’t you try York Cemetery?” I suggested. All his mates were scathing. “Don’t fall in any graves..!” they scoffed. “You’ll be back in school in two days”.

York Cemetery. Picture: Ally Carmichael.

I waited with bated breath for the phone call – which never came. The student had a wonderful two weeks and one of the best experiences of his life. The staff took him under their wing, looked after him, taught him the names of plants and shrubs, gave him responsibility for clearing various areas and he had two glorious sunny weeks working outdoors with a glowing reference at the end.

This was in sharp contrast with one of the plum jobs that everyone fought over – a place at a well-known music shop in York. Everyone wanted to go there – surrounded by music, games, the centre of town, it was always over-subscribed.

“Have you read the job description?” I used to ask. “Yeah yeah..” came the answer. Two days in I always got the call. “ Can we change our placement?”

Working at the shop had its status, but the work consisted of being cooped up in the back room, with 1,000 CDs and 1,000 labels, monotonously sticking them on to plastic cases for eight hours a day.

I remember being in charge, along with a female member of staff of a small group of students who were at risk of not achieving their potential. These were a special group with a special curriculum designed to re-engage them with learning and we basically had carte blanche to do what we wanted.

I decided to take the group to Scarborough and devised a check list of items they would have to collect through the day using their initiative.

A visit to Scarborough with pupils did not go to plan, recalls John. Pic Martin Oates.

They were dropped off in the school minibus with strict instructions to report back to a muster point in the afternoon having fulfilled the brief.

Each group had a mobile so they could contact me if necessary, so it was rather embarrassing in the early afternoon when I received an agitated call from a group who had been detained by Scarborough’s truant officers.

They had been following groups of students obviously truanting from school and didn’t believe a word of their explanations that they were collecting seaside artefacts.

It took me at least ten minutes of explanation before the pupils were grudgingly released and their experience was excitedly discussed all the way back to York.

John's recollections of his time at Burnholme will continue in The Press next Wednesday