Newspaper Article 2019 – PE teacher reflects on his fields of dreams

PE teacher reflects on his fields of dreams

High school department head retires after 43 years

Roger Moroney

Over the past 43 years Peter McGlashan has covered a fair amount of ground but now it’s time to hang up the sports shoes and kit . . . sort of.

For while he is set to close the door on a remarkable career as the head of department for Physical Education (PE) at Napier Boys’ High School, he is not about to put the well-used feet up just yet.

Well used indeed.

When it was suggested he puts in fair bit of walking and running in his role he looked at the step-counting device on his wrist and said “about 20,000 steps a day”.

Multiply that by 43 years of commitment to physical education and you’d need the head of mathematics to step up with the answer.

McGlashan, head of the dedicated seven-strong PE crew at the school, is set to leave the grounds behind next Friday, the end of the term, and said he had no plans to step back into any support or relieving roles with the health and physical education department.

“But I’ll be happy to come along and assist the groundsman or mow some fields.”

He has hit the age of 65, although his physical condition hugely contradicts that, so it is time to step aside.

But not away from sport as he’s looking to do plenty of cycling and head out for a round of golf – and put the football boots back on when a Saturday “old boys festival of football” is staged for him at the school the day after he departs.

“It’s going to be great to catch up with them and yeah, I’ll get out and have a kick around.”

It has been quite a journey over more than four decades and with a smile McGlashan pondered how in later years time just seemed to go faster and faster.

“Where did the years go?”

He recalled arriving home after his first week on the PE teaching front and saying to his wife Myn it was quite remarkable how there were some teachers at Napier Boys’ who had been there for 10 years or more.

“I’ll never do that,” he said, adding that as time went by he did have a couple of opportunities to “move on” but never pursued them.

Nor had he ever really pursued the notion of leaving Hawke’s Bay.

He was born in Napier, as was Myn, and they had known each other since they were 15 and she too would enter the education service.

After completing his own high schooling, at William Colenso College, he headed south and undertook a three-year PE diploma course and then looked at his options.

He and Myn were keen to head somewhere “where the weather was good” so it was either going to Nelson or back to the Bay.

It was back to the Bay and he applied for a role as a teacher trainee at Napier Boys’ in 1976, and a year later he was under way.

He has seen changing health and physical education landscape through the years, as well as some high-flying sporting achievers coming through the school gates and on the fields and courts.

There was Black Cap Jesse Ryder, All Black Zac Guildford and All White Chris Jackson among the remarkable line-up of former pupils.

“Some interesting characters,” he said.

McGlashan himself was a top footballer, and the sporting doors also opened for two of their children with both son Peter and daughter Sara representing New Zealand at cricket.

In the early days PE was pretty much just getting students to play games, which meant they’d pick one and that was that.

That basic approach evolved through increased academic ingredients and breaking down the “one sport” road so that young people became exposed to a range of activities.

“It is great to see them enjoying something physical and giving them a passion for it.”

He does not like to see young people being pushed in just one sporting direction, and said he wanted to see them develop a wide range of skills, and to decide what direction they wanted to take.

“To be exposed to as many sporting activities as they can.”

McGlashan also takes a psychological approach as well – talking to young people and understanding where they are at as it was always a bit of an unknown just how much “baggage” some brought to school with them.

Talk, listen, advise and encourage.

He has always had a simple but passionate philosophy.

“Living what I teach.”

Healthy programmes and healthy living, oh, and cutting the Wi-Fi coverage during the lunch-break!

For as mobile phones and social media grew many students spent their lunch breaks on their devices – so the access has been cut for that time of the day.

“So they get out the cricket bats or the rugby balls or the frisbees – they are back to doing physical things.”

Some, of course, were a bit grumpy about that but the response has been buoying, he said.

“They are doing things out there now.”

McGlashan said he would miss the contact with the kids, and having been a football devotee himself will miss the camaraderie within those teams . . . where some players would call him “Pete” rather than “sir”.

He didn’t mind that.

Nor did he mind when some students approach and tell him “you taught my dad” as there had been hundreds of them.

With a laugh he said despite the many years on the school’s PE front line he was pleased though to have not come across a “you taught my grandfather”.

There have been many high points and great memories forged, although there were also sombre and sometimes emotional moments.

Like during the 90s when a young lad collapsed on the field and despite he and a fellow teacher’s CPR efforts he died.

“He hadn’t known he had a medical condition.”

It has been a career of devotion and putting in the time, which often meant that during his coaching and work with other youngsters he often missed seeing his own children in action, which he now regrets.

“But we played a lot in the backyard,” he said.

School headmaster Matt Bertram said McGlashan may have set a new sporting record of sorts, as the longest serving head of a PE department at a high school in this country.

“He has had a great commitment to sport and he never sought recognition for everything he did and achieved – just a gentleman and gentle man.”

And while McGlashan may not be on the grounds any more, his name will – the sporting pavilion is about to carry his name. He is clearly a man who intends to keep on moving.

With a laugh he said Myn would see to that.

“She’s got a few jobs for me to do”.

“It is great to see them enjoying something physical and giving them a passion for it.”
Peter McGlashan

Photo captions –

Peter McGlashan on the field and on the ball with the first XI football lads.
PHOTO/WARREN BUCKLAND

Peter McGlashan’s portrait presented after 25 years’ service.