Bob Snellgrove Retires

After a remarkable 29 years of service it was time for Shiplake College to say goodbye to Dr Bob Snellgrove. Dr Snellgrove retired from his position of Careers Adviser and Head of Science, leaving a College that is now ‘unrecognisable’ from when he began his teaching career in 1988.

Dr Snellgrove was asked what made him want to become a teacher, to which he responded: ‘I didn’t’.  Dr Snellgrove began his career in government research where he worked for 11 years whilst completing his PhD. With funding being cut and morale in the field low, Dr Snellgrove began to look for a career that combined his two passions of biology and sports. He found Shiplake and ‘never looked back’.

Dr Snellgrove commented on a number of changes at the College since he started, including the increase in the number of pupils attending the College and the number of new buildings. Despite the increase in numbers, Dr Snellgove was proud that the ethos of the school ‘hasn’t changed’ and that staff managed to maintain the ‘friendly atmosphere that made the College a great place to work’. Another change that stood out for Dr Snellgrove was the introduction of girls to Shiplake, and how the numbers have accelerated from the first year of just 6 girls at the College. This ‘introduced an increased element of maturity and work ethic to the College’.

When asked to pick out any particular highlights from his time at the College, Dr Snellgrove found it difficult to provide just one. He has had many highlights over his 29 years at the College, but one of Dr Snellgrove’s greatest achievements was when he and a group of support staff and students completed the Three Peaks Challenge, climbing the three highest peaks in England, Wales and Scotland within 24 hours. Dr Snellgrove then added that he was ‘always pleasantly surprised’ with the Science exam results and always ‘delighted’ at the number of pupils that got a place at their first choice university.

There are many memories over the years that make Dr Snellgrove laugh, however there was one that stood out for him in particular.  Dr Snellgrove was leading a field trip for A Level students to the Isle of Wight. The journey began and he noticed the minibus didn’t have a full tank of diesel and they would need to fill up after they crossed on the ferry. Running on fumes, they made it onto to the island and managed to get to the nearest petrol station to fill the tank up with diesel. They pulled out of the station, heading towards the field centre, when the minibus broke down. They soon realised the minibus actually had a petrol engine. Although this wasn’t good news, it wasn’t the end of the world. There was a second minibus waiting for the group at the field centre, so a taxi was ordered and the member of staff accompanying Dr Snellgrove went to pick up the second minibus. When approaching the minibus, he realised that he no longer had the keys. He went back to Dr Snellgrove, hoping he had the keys, but he didn’t. They were now left with one broken down minibus and one keyless minibus. Thankfully, the set of keys for the second minibus were found hours later in the car park of the field centre, and the pupils - along with Dr Snellgrove - were collected. When asked how he felt once the incident was over, Dr Snellgrove responded: ‘all’s well that ends well!’.

Dr Snellgrove is looking forward to a relaxing retirement full of holidays, Tennis, Table Tennis, volunteering and continuing to tutor at Buckinghamshire New University. He advised any new members of staff to ‘be themselves and don’t try and pretend to be one of the pupils!’. Dr Snellgrove also stressed the importance of staff separating their lives as teachers and their lives at home. Dr Snellgrove said that the best piece of advice he had ever been given was: ‘the greatest gift you could give anyone is your time’. We would like to thank Dr Snellgrove for all the time he has given to Shiplake College over the past 29 years and we wish him the very best in his well-deserved retirement.