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National Thank a Teacher Day
Wednesday June 21 is National Thank a Teacher Day when everyone is asked to think back to the teachers that inspired and helped them when they were at school and to say a big ‘thank you’ to these special men and women.
The Thank a Teacher Campaign is run by The Teaching Awards Trust which was established in 1998 to celebrate and recognise excellence in education. The charity’s mission is to raise the profile of the teaching profession, highlight the positive impact teachers and school leaders have in our society – with pupils, parents and the wider community, and show teachers how much they are valued.
At Thrive, we support this mission wholeheartedly because we know the difference teachers and classroom staff make to children and young people’s lives. To celebrate National Thank a Teacher Day, we asked the Thrive team to tell us about the educators that inspired them.
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Andrea Cartwright, Practice and Innovation Developer
The teacher who I remember with such love and passion is Mrs Faunch, who taught me and my brother in first school. She was so lovely, smiley and kind and got to know each and every child and their family. We see her now in our local village and she still remembers us and asks how we are, about our lives and our Gran and how she is. She's the reason I always wanted to be a nursery teacher and the one who I tried to be like when I got there!
I also had the pleasure of working alongside a teacher called Olwyn Moss. She was, and still is, an amazing teacher who lit up the room with her Read Write Inc lessons. I would always know which room she was teaching in as you could hear the cry of children belly laughing from the opposite end of the corridor. Whenever I set foot into a room she was teaching in, the buzz and excitement you felt was awe-inspiring.
Jennie Hogan, Regional Team
The teacher that inspired me was Mrs Johnston, my primary school teacher (so taught everything!) when I was seven years old. She taught at Lindvale School, Woking (school and Mrs Johnston sadly no longer there – but I am now 52 so…) She made me smile every day at a time when my Mum became more and more unwell and I was more and more alone. She allowed our class pet rat, Jimmy, to sit on the desk while I worked and and encouraged me to keep trying. When it got tricky, she would grab the practical equipment and get me to work it out in a different way or go outside to get some thinking space and time. If I could see her now I would say: “thank you for showing me what it is to co-regulate, co-explore and that you just have to be willing to step into the unknown.”
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Dani Lawson, Training, Practice and Innovation lead
My favourite teacher was Mrs Everson. She taught me at Worsborough Common Primary School in Year One and again in Year 6. She was kind and made me feel like I was important to her. She was the best storyteller and read us stories by Roald Dahl - she used to put voices on that made the characters come to life. If I met her today, I would tell her that it was having her as a teacher that made me want to work with children and I would say ‘thank you’.
Lee Prichard, Head of Partnerships
My favourite teacher was PJ, my economics teacher at Afon Taf Comprehensive. He always took the time to get to know us and he saw the best in us. When my A-level economics result wasn’t quite what it should be, he wrote to my Mam to tell her I was a great girl and on another day would have got the grade I so deserved. He wrote: ‘Lee’s many qualities will see her through life, and I am sure she will do well.’ I didn’t know this until a few weeks ago when my Mam was looking through old letters. I think my feelings that he was a good man were right. I felt so proud to be called bright and intelligent. Sometimes those words see me through some tough days!
Kate Fonseca, PIND Project Manager
My favourite teachers were my drama teachers, Wendy Waites and Chris Dryden at Teignmouth Community School. Like thousands of other children who they taught, they completely inspired me to love drama, a love that led me to become a secondary drama teacher and head of drama for 15 years before coming to work at Thrive. I think that they know how special they are to me as we have always stayed in touch and they are both now my friends, which feels an incredible privilege 32 years since I first walked into their classroom!
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