Page 66 - She's One Crazy Lady!

There is a sayi“
first boss. Dennis Millman was an established table tennis player who I often partnered in mixed doubles tournaments; played against him in league play (never beating him) and against him in the Kettering mixed tennis league – beating him! He was a friend and the headteacher of a newly established Junior School in Rushden. His wife, Evelyn, was a teacher at Tennyson Road Infant School in Rushden, where I did my first teaching practice. Both Dennis and Evelyn took a keen interest in my intended career and as I was nearing the end of my third year, Dennis asked if I would be interested in applying for a teaching post at his school, Whitefriars Junior School. Teaching jobs at that time were in short supply so it was an offer too good to miss – I applied. With an interview looming I was then approached by Walter Williams, the headteacher of Victoria Junior School, who had heard about me via one of my college lecturers. He wanted me to apply for a post in his school. I declined his offer, praying my application to Whitefriars would be successful. Thankfully, it was, and I was to spend eighteen very happy years there, taking a one-year secondment to obtain the Honours part of my degree
and later to become a Primary Consultant in the newly formed North- amptonshire Inspectorate Advisory Service, where I was responsible for the delivery of the National Curriculum in 70+ primary schools – my main area of support being Design and Technology.
ng that everyone can draw – make a mark with a pencil and you are an artist! Hmm! I’m not so sure it worked
Whitefriars was very special indeed and I was to make many lifelong friends. Teaching in the seventies did not include the targets now set for children and teachers, or the endless lesson plans of today – we worked from textbooks, work sheets and from the blackboard, with the occasional radio broadcast and TV programme to liven things up and move away from pen and paper and exercise books. There were no computers! Just the good old-fashioned 3 R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) and the freedom to be innovative with other subject areas. I really do believe standards were much higher then as children received such a broad and balanced cross-curricular education, allowing them time to have more experiences outside the classroom in preparation for the ‘real world’ and to achieve and excel in areas that they were good at, for not every child found the 3R’s easy. I do admit to doing a lot of art with my children, personal projects, where children had to do a lot of investigative work and research, and or course a lot of sport!
With art being my specialist subject throughout my college days, the teaching of art was something very dear to me. There is a saying that everyone can draw – make a mark with a pencil and you are an artist! Hmm! I’m not so sure it worked with me. For some reason I have never been able to ‘draw’ creatively or even copy anything accurately.
66
with m”
e.