My friend and former colleague Keith Snowden, who has died aged 89, was a highly regarded and inspirational chief education officer for the Rotherham education authority.
A former history teacher, Keith advocated imaginative, pupil-centred teaching and learning, and under his leadership Rotherham schools had a good reputation. Since these were the schools in which his own children and those of his colleagues were educated, he would ask the question: “Why wouldn’t they be good schools?”
Keith was also a leader in education in the wider Yorkshire and Humberside region. He sat on the boards of the former GCE and CSE examining bodies for the northern region, and nationally was an adviser to the Association of Metropolitan Authorities (later part of the Local Government Association).
Keith came from a working-class home in a pit village. He was born in Featherstone, West Yorkshire, the son of Dorothy (nee Davis) and Lewis, both of whom worked at the colliery, his mother as a coal washer, his father a wagon shunter. His education was disrupted by illness and he left school at 14, working first as a scarecrow chasing birds off a local farmer’s fields, then serving a joinery apprenticeship. He joined the Labour party and became chair of the local Labour League of Youth.
There he met his future wife, Bernice Glover, and together they attended Workers’ Educational Association classes in Leeds. Encouraged by one of the lecturers, Patrick Duffy (later a Labour MP and minister), and supported by his trade union and by Bernice, Keith went to Ruskin College, Oxford, and then read philosophy, politics and economics at Jesus College, Oxford.
After graduating, he qualified as a teacher at the University of Leeds, taught history at Wakefield Cathedral school and then joined the education service at Wakefield prison. Wakefield council then appointed him as an education officer. In 1970, Keith moved to Rotherham as deputy director, then director of education of Rotherham metropolitan borough council.
Keith never forgot his roots, and through his ingenuity the children of Rotherham’s mining villages were fed during the school holidays of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
After retiring as director, Keith was asked to help the Hesley group of schools for pupils with special educational needs for a period. This temporary position continued in various capacities for almost 20 years until Keith gave up work at the age of 82. He remained involved in education in Rotherham, as a school governor and as a member of the corporation of the local college.
He had many interests, particularly sport, staying loyal to the teams he had supported since boyhood – Yorkshire Cricket Club, Wakefield Trinity rugby league club and Leeds United. Above all was his love of and support for his family.
Keith and Bernice were married for 65 years. She survives him, along with their sons, Matthew and Martin, and grandchildren, Josh, Jake, Cara and Ben.
