Thank You · Wed May 17, 23:14 by Eleri Straker
For some fourteen years, as well as teaching English, I’ve worked in the special needs department, alongside one of the best teachers I’ve ever known.
Sarah is a tiny woman with the biggest glasses, the longest hair and the highest heels I’ve ever seen. You could always tell when she was approaching, because of the clatter of her stilettos on the tiled floors. She was the head of the special needs department. The children adored her. In all the time I worked with her, I never heard her shout. But she wasn’t a pushover. In fact, despite loving her, the children she worked with were terrified of her. Not of what she would do if they were naughty, but of upsetting her. They would prefer to face a very angry and very big head teacher before facing her disappointment.
Working alongside Sarah, I learned about the range of special needs problems in the school. I learned how to recognise specific problems and how to deal with them. Or more importantly, how to get the students themselves to deal with them.
I watched Sarah handle students that other teachers couldn’t deal with and watched her nurture and encourage them to be the best that they could be.
There was Jack, who couldn’t manage a whole week without picking a fight with a member of staff. Who had had so many final warnings he didn’t know if he was coming or going. Sarah and I decided that I should bring in one of my dogs, my golden retriever, soft, gentle, fabulously behaved Bella. When Jack saw Bella for the first time, the aggressive, hung over yob disappeared and the little boy emerged. He got down onto the floor of the special needs office and spent the whole lesson playing and stroking her. By the time the lesson ended, he was almost as chilled out as the retriever. Jack managed to achieve a decent clutch of GCSEs and twelve months later, after joining the army, was named best recruit of the year. His success might not have been academic, but he was certainly a success.
Then there was Phillip, Brian, Henry, Debbie… and so many others that somehow, having passed through Sarah’s hands, went on to become success stories.
The reason for their success? Sarah didn’t believe in writing anyone off. No one was a failure. Everyone had potential and she would make sure that they had the tools to fulfil it. Sarah never mollycoddled the students, she was strict and uncompromising, but completely fair.
Sarah left twelve months ago. She moved away and took more than herself with her.
I miss her dreadfully. No one else seems to have managed to fill her size 4 shoes. But twelve months on, when faced with a student with a specific learning problem, I ask myself what Sarah would have done and the problems seem more manageable.
What my friend Sarah taught me was that no one is irredeemable and that there is always hope for even the most apparently hopeless. I’m an English teacher, but my time with Sarah in the special needs department made me more.
