Rob Bourke has been principal of Melville High School since 1998, but will call it a day at the conclusion of school term one later this year.

“I turn 60 in April, and I always intended to retire at 60,” the former PE teacher said yesterday.

Mr Bourke is the longest serving of the three principals Melville High has had in its 30-year history.

He arrived at Melville as deputy principal in 1997 and spent 15 months in the role.

“I thought I’d only be here for a few years,” he said.

“I’d been deputy at Katoomba High for five years before that and wanted to use Melville as a stepping stone to a principal’s position.”

A Friday afternoon meeting with then principal Derek Long changed all that.

“There’d been a disruption in the playground, which is another way of saying there was a fight, and my office was full of kids and teachers,” Mr Bourke said.

“Derek came in and said to me ‘I’m going’.

“It was late Friday afternoon and I thought he was just heading home early, but he sent everyone out of the office, shut the door and told me he’d decided to retire.”

A fortnight later Mr Bourke was acting principal and a couple of months later he was given the job full-time.

It was a rapid rise from head teacher of PD-Health-PE to principal and came about as a result of unusual circumstances.

“In the early 1990s I had a lot of knee problems, which were all a result of sports injuries,” he said.

“Because of those issues I decided to look at the administrative side of teaching more closely.

“I started a Masters of Education through the University of NSW which I did part-time over a few years, then started doing relieving deputy principal work before getting the job at Katoomba.”

Mr Bourke said a stable staff and a fantastic collection of students had been the highlight of his long tenure at Melville.

“I have a great belief in the staff and the students,” he said.

“If there is a legacy it’s that I’ve always come back to the question ‘is what we’re doing in the best interests of the students’ and trying to get others to look at it that way.”

He said the school’s focus on literacy and numeracy in the junior years, combined with the introduction of VET courses into schools, were things he remained proud of.