AFTER 36 years of teaching, the principal of the borough's biggest secondary school is retiring to take up bird watching in Wales.

Steve Robson has led Haydon School in Eastcote since 2007 after starting there in 1986. He was previously the head of geography at Queensmead School in South Ruislip.

Before his departure at the end of this term, Mr Robson (pictured) told the Gazette about his experiences.

“I used to hate schools with a passion,” the 60-year-old admitted. “I never intended to become a teacher but it has changed my view completely.

“When I was a child a lot of it was based on fear, whereas now it is based on mutual respect and the vast majority of children here are absolutely delightful.”

Haydon had 1,200 pupils when Mr Robson started, but has swelled in the 26 years since to more than 2,000. In recent years £5million has been spent on new buildings.

“It has led to a different way of managing the school, we have a strong senior management team and each of our five deputies has 300 children to look after.

“If I show visitors around they often ask where all the kids are, you wouldn’t realise it was this big.”

There have been many changes to education over the years Mr Robson has taught, but one of the biggest is technology.

“They have the greatest source of knowledge known to man in their pockets. There is a lot said about the risks of the internet but we should be trying to make it more positive. The potential is huge.”

Mr Robson is less enthusiastic about the way successive governments, of all colours, have felt the need to meddle with education.

“There is a huge frustration from staff that every time a new government comes in they think they can do it better.

“The best thing would be to give teachers a period where they can teach the same curriculum for several years and be left to do their job.”

That said, Haydon has itself taken advantage of one of the current government's initiatives, by converting to academy status in April 2011.

“Becoming an academy was a big step but if you ask a member of staff they wouldn't be able to tell you the difference it has made,” said Mr Robson.

Other changes in Mr Robson's years include Haydon becoming a designated language college. An impressive 13 languages are now taught in the school, from the traditional French, to Mandarin, Greek, Russian and Punjabi.

“We also went for vocational education as a specialism, and that has worked well for our youngsters, but the government is perhaps not as keen on it as we are.

“I hope we are able to still have a broad balance in our curriculum that enables all the children to succeed, whatever they are good at.”

One Haydon alumni who has done quite well is Fearne Cotton, a regular on both radio and television entertainment shows since 1998.

"I could see when she was doing her A-levels here that she would go on to earn far more than me," Mr Robson joked. "And I was right."