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education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,5500,1433101,00.html
Brickie makes good on college foundations
He started an apprenticeship in bricklaying with one day a week at Mid-Kent College in 1971, and went on to get a series of qualifications including two degrees.
More than 30 years after he first walked through the door, Mr Grix, 48, returned to take charge of Mid-Kent College this week.
“It’s good to be back and to be working with students,” he said.
“It is nice because I have had that long-term relationship with the place.”
Although he left school without any formal qualifications, Mr Grix, from the Gravesend area, went on to teach before working in a senior role for Ofsted.
He left his job as corporate director of education for the London borough of Tower Hamlets to return to the college that set him on his path.
“I left school because I was impatient to get to work and earn some money and I had a sense that I had outgrown school,” he said.
After a visit to the local careers office as a 15-year-old he took a job as an apprentice bricklayer.
"I enjoyed it. My grandfather was a bricklayer and it was something I was good at.
"They sent me to college one day a week. If you missed classes they stopped your pay.
“I missed the occasional evening class but my attendance was broadly good,” said Mr Grix, who is married with three children.
There are 16,000 full-time and part-time students aged 14 and older at Mid-Kent College, which is spread across sites in Chatham, Rochester and Maidstone.
The college is joining forces with several nearby universities in plans to build a new £48m centre in Gillingham.
But Mr Grix said he was not likely to be picking up his old trowel to help out on site.
“I’m probably a bit old and slow for that - and I’d be quite an expensive bricklayer now,” he said.
Brickie makes good on college foundations
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**Tuesday March 8, 2005**
A former trainee bricklayer who left school at 15 returned to his old college this week as its new principal. Stephen Grix had no formal qualifications when he left St George's school in Gravesend, Kent, because he was impatient to earn some money at work.More than 30 years after he first walked through the door, Mr Grix, 48, returned to take charge of Mid-Kent College this week.
“It’s good to be back and to be working with students,” he said.
“It is nice because I have had that long-term relationship with the place.”
Although he left school without any formal qualifications, Mr Grix, from the Gravesend area, went on to teach before working in a senior role for Ofsted.
He left his job as corporate director of education for the London borough of Tower Hamlets to return to the college that set him on his path.
“I left school because I was impatient to get to work and earn some money and I had a sense that I had outgrown school,” he said.
After a visit to the local careers office as a 15-year-old he took a job as an apprentice bricklayer.
"I enjoyed it. My grandfather was a bricklayer and it was something I was good at.
"They sent me to college one day a week. If you missed classes they stopped your pay.
“I missed the occasional evening class but my attendance was broadly good,” said Mr Grix, who is married with three children.
There are 16,000 full-time and part-time students aged 14 and older at Mid-Kent College, which is spread across sites in Chatham, Rochester and Maidstone.
The college is joining forces with several nearby universities in plans to build a new £48m centre in Gillingham.
But Mr Grix said he was not likely to be picking up his old trowel to help out on site.
“I’m probably a bit old and slow for that - and I’d be quite an expensive bricklayer now,” he said.