TWO things strike me as I enter the headmaster's office at Hamilton School in Colchester.

The first is a signed picture of former Ipswich Town heroes John Wark and Franz Thyssen sitting on a football pitch looking absolutely shattered talking to their legendary manager Sir Bobby Robson.

"Now there's a group of footballers who look like they've given their all," Clive Reynolds jokes.

"And hanging on their manager's every word," I add.

If I didn't know already that he's a massive Ipswich Town fan, I would have thought it a very appropriate image to have on a headmaster's wall, a man inspiring his team, in presumably the most difficult of circumstances.

The other thing that strikes me is the mug of tea he's holding in his hand, made by himself in the little kitchen outside, which as we settle down for our chat, he promptly hands over to me.

Even when it comes to making his visitors welcome, Clive remains very much a hands on kind of guy.

I'm here because after 36 years as a teacher, 20 of those as a head, Clive is retiring to spend more time, well, learning.

"I want to learn a language," he says, "and maybe a bit of history but I also want to travel with my wife. I'm ashamed to say I've never been outside of Europe mainly because I've only been able to take holidays outside of the school terms. I've always fancied going to Australia and New Zealand, maybe China, and now I can."

With a matter of weeks left there's still plenty to occupy the headmaster and although you could forgive him for possibly slowing down just a little bit, I'm guessing that won't happen.

A headteacher to the very last day.

"It's not a job," he smiles, "it's a vocation really. I have enjoyed it immensely but it's a full on role with many different challenges being thrown at you from week to week but that's what I love about it."

Born in Surrey, Clive and his family moved to the area when he was eight, eventually going to the Gilberd School on North Hill where he left after doing his A-Levels in 1975.

With both his parents teachers, the last profession Clive was looking to go into was education and so with a passion for maps he went to Newcastle University to study surveying and geography.

After graduating he got a job as a hydrographic surveyor for the North Sea oil industry but after two years on the ships he decided his life would be spent better 'working with people rather than machines'.

"I suppose because of my family," he continues, "I knew what was involved in teaching and after I spent some time working in a primary school I realised it was the path for me.

"That said back in 1980 it was tough finding a teaching job so I took the first one that came along which was in Dudley in the West Midlands."

Clive was there for four and a half years in the middle of a housing estate, very different, as he puts it, to the school he is at now.

"It was a very big school," he adds, "but then I've always worked in big schools. You have to work out very quickly how each child ticks when you have a class of 30."

After Dudley, Clive got a job closer to home at Spring Meadow in Dovercourt where he began taking an interest in the management of a school thanks to 'a very helpful headteacher'.

Then he got the role of deputy head at the newly opened Highwoods Primary School in Colchester.

"We only had 55 pupils when it first opened," he says, "but it was very exciting being involved with the opening of a new school, especially as it grew so quickly, and I would say it definitely gave me even more enthusiasm for that aspect of leadership and management."

In 1996 he got the job of head at Brightlingsea Junior School and then just over 12 years ago successfully applied for the job he now has at Hamilton.

Clive says: "When you are working in all kinds of different communities you have to try and understand, and empathise, with the families of the children; their circumstances, where they are coming from, the lives they are living, and the aspirations they have in life, and for their children.

"That's what you try and do, enhance the life chances for youngsters, equip them with the basic skills, make sure they are safe, obviously that's of the utmost importance, but also give them self confidence and self belief."

And nowhere more so than at Hamilton, one of the town's most successful schools, located in the south of Colchester off the Maldon Road, which for its last two Ofsted Reports has got outstanding and in the league tables regularly comes near the top of the local primaries.

"It took me a while to tune into the aspirations of Hamilton parents," he reveals, "but I've always found the community here fascinating, especially in regards to what they are trying to seek for their children.

"One of my proudest moments though was at the school's summer fete last month. Some old pupils had been told it was my last year and came back to say goodbye.

"I thought that was rather cool."