Little ones of my own

I left my teaching job in Backworth after I had been teaching there for seven years to start a family and son Michael was on the way. When my second son Andy was three, I thought it time to explore work again. So my husband Don and I both started teaching evening classes. We were based at the Linskill School and they had a different head teacher for the evening classes. I taught English to teenagers and that was the only time I came across older children. They had left school by then but had been sent by their parents to further experience. It was a time when teachers were very underpaid so the extra money was necessary because it helped us pay for Christmas and holidays.

By the time I went back to proper daytime teaching during the early 1960s I had had a seven year break. At the time the people who had taught me used to ring me up to ask me if I would go back and teach older children. I said "Absolutely no way!" There was no way that I was compatible with teenagers. It was like bodysnatching in a way because there was a shortage of staff and if a head teacher heard that someone was leaving they immediately went on the hunt for a replacement. If they heard that there was someone coming back to teaching after an absence or there was a supply teacher they would come around knocking on your door saying "Will you come back and teach for me?"

King Edward's School, North Shields

When I first started teaching as a trial I went to Kind Edwards School, North Shields where I taught infants. In actual fact the place had hardly changed since I was a pupil there myself. I distinctly remember a cabinet which they had placed against the wall in one of the classrooms where things of interest were displayed. My uncle had travelled abroad and on his return he gave me a locust which I proudly took to school and that went in there. When I went back to King Edwards School, the cabinet was still there (although the locust wasn’t!) The school had a central hall which is where they held assembly, music lessons and physical education. The classrooms opened around this central hall. When I was a child, the headmistress used to sit there and could see everything that was going on. By the time I went back as a teacher the head mistress had a room of her own in a different part of the building.

When I returned as a teacher, everything had changed. Physical education particularly had become the new gymnastics. We had an advisor from Northumberland (a Miss Jacques - a tall, rather plain looking lady who was always immaculately dressed) She had invented a new way of doing the gym activities and we were invited to go and see a demonstration. By this time she had also brought out a PE manual. I had actually done this type of physical education before so I asked her if she would come in to the school to give demonstration lessons for me. She always came in a car and she wore a chiffon scarf which she would put on her hair before she got out of the vehicle. In the winter she wore one of these beaver lamb coats. So while we and the children were all stripped down ready for action she would be wrapped up warm while watching us. And of course Maisie, being Maisie, appeared in a very nice blue polo neck shirt, shorts and knee-length socks with a matching cardigan also in blue. She also had pancake stuff (make up) on her knees. Eventually she was to become the second Mrs Welch, the wife of the local sweet factory owner in North Shields.

Meals used to be brought to school in containers. As part of a development programme it was decided that we should build a servery from which to serve the school dinners. After that it was decided that there should be indoor toilets for the children (there was already an indoor one for the staff!). During that time of course we had workmen in the school for much of the day. Once again one of my functions was to take classes for music (no matter which school I have been to I was considered the music teacher because most people could not play the piano, and I could) As part of a PE lesson the children were expected to interpret pieces of music (a sort of music and movement exercise). I well remember one occasion when I had put on 'The Sugarplum Fairy' for them to listen to and then asked them to dance to it. The next day the workmen asked the head teacher "Where’s the sugar plum today?" They had obviously been taking notice of the lesson as well.

Continued in column 2...

Deputy and head

After some years, the managers thought I should apply for a deputy headship which had become available at Collingwood School. That was near St Peter’s Church in Chirton, North Shields near Verne Road. So I did and got the appointment - and again, curiously, the head was someone who had taught me when I was a child at King Edward School.

When I was a deputy head I did continue with teaching duties. We always had to check on the children’s ability to read and my main task was to hear reading so the other members of staff didn’t have to do it. I never asked them to do anything I couldn’t have done myself. I also took the music lessons of course. If a teacher was off for some reason I would take her place. There was one teacher who came from somewhere just outside of Morpeth in Northumberland (Alnmouth, I think) and she travelled from there everyday which was a good long journey. We seemed to have very snowy winters then and I was always telling her to go home about three o’clock. I preferred her to go before it got dark so that she could see the road. I would take her class for the last lesson. However she was never late and she could be relied upon to arrive for the start of the next day. They were a very co-operative staff, very friendly, and I still see some of them socially now.

When I was at Collingwood the authorities were just becoming keen on nursery education and so our biggest classroom was converted into a nursery. There was a little triangle on the site and they built out into that where they also built on a shower and toilets and wash basins. They also left some of it undeveloped and it was a good place for the children to play so that was very successful. We had an intake of 25 children in the morning and an intake of 25 in the afternoon. They were aged 4 to 5 years and went up to the reception class after that. Before the nursery was built we used to have a lot of tears in the reception classes because the children were new to the school and they weren’t used to it or being away from their mothers. Once the nursery started it was quite different. Beforehand it was quite common to have some children who were just miserable until they got used to the change of scenery and being at school.

Education in the third age

The head mistress retired after about four years and I applied for that job and became the head. That was quite a big school and when I started it had about four hundred children in that age group. Gradually the birth rate dropped and the number of children dropped to about 200. Just about that time my doctor had told me that it was about time I considered retirement. I had applied for early retirement because I had suffered a heart attack and I was off work for several months.

I was 57 years of age when I finally retired in 1982. I have always enjoyed and responded to the challenge of study and it was perhaps because of the increased amount of leisure time that I embarked on a new role as a student of the Open University. I started my foundation course in the Humanities in 1990 and for the next five years a studied a variety of courses in History and Philosophy. Tutorial groups were held at monthly intervals at Durham University and I attended Summer Schools in Manchester and York. After five years I graduated with a BA Honours degree in 1995. Unfortunately I was hospitalised with a heart problem and was not allowed to attend the graduation ceremony.

I would liked to have gone on to do a Masters degree but tempus fugit and the commitment would have been unfair on Don. However I have thoroughly enjoyed my life in education.

References

1. Mrs Simpson's Class of 1963: Carol Wilson at FriendsReunited.co.uk
2. King Edwards Primary School Staff (about 1965): Carol Wilson at FriendsReunited.co.uk

Please contact us

If you have any questions or comments about the information on this site in general, or you have further information regarding this article, please contact us at Alan. We look forward to hearing from you.

Added: May 8th 2008
Last updated: March 24th 2012

Return to Top of Page