Sign In
Sign In
Register for Free

The People Who Made Me, By Hywel Roberts

Each issue Teach Primary asks one amazing teacher: who’s changed your life? Here, the travelling teacher, writer and presenter introduces us to his dream team: Jane Hewitt Teacher and freelance photographer Jane taught up the corridor from me when we both worked in secondary school. When I started to do school productions, she was always […]

Hywel Roberts
by Hywel Roberts
Paddington Bear whole school resource pack
DOWNLOAD A FREE RESOURCE! Paddington Bear – Whole-school lesson plans & activity sheets
PrimaryEnglish

Each issue Teach Primary asks one amazing teacher: who’s changed your life?

Here, the travelling teacher, writer and presenter introduces us to his dream team:

Jane Hewitt Teacher and freelance photographer Jane taught up the corridor from me when we both worked in secondary school. When I started to do school productions, she was always there helping. Every time I turned around, she was sorting stuff out. She’s the best. A brilliant teacher. @janeh271

Professor Mick Waters Educational godfather When I first went freelance, I gave myself a year. I found myself at a conference where Mick was presenting. My suit was new and he asked if I was a bouncer. Over a coffee, I told him what I was doing. Later he slipped me a note asking if I wanted to do some work with him. A year on, he contributed to the introduction of my book, Oops! Helping Children Learn Accidentally. The thing with Mick is, he is always learning, yet to me he already knows everything there is to know.

Dr Alan Macdonald Educationalist Alan was my tutor at Bretton Hall College which became part of the University of Leeds. He showed me what a curriculum could be. He taught me that the potential for learning was everywhere. In one memorable year on my degree we studied Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, Springsteen’s Badlands and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. We were also given huge VHS video cameras and told to go and make documentaries. It was bonkers and I loved it.

Kenny Anderson Musician An enigmatic songwriter from Fife, Scotland, who fronts a one-man band called King Creosote. His music makes me pause, reflect and is the soundtrack of my writing, my forties and my heart.

Diane Heritage Former headteacher Sometime in the 2000s I became an advanced skills teacher. The title was hard won, as anyone who went through the process will know. Once acquired, Diane got in touch and suddenly I was involved in all sorts of stunning projects, particularly focused on CPD design. Whenever I deliver CPD today, Diane is metaphorically by my side. @itsdihere

Anne and Arfon My mum and dad I can’t ignore my dad, Arfon, a kind and humane teacher of, appropriately, the humanities. And my mum, Anne, who following a tragic accident when I was a small boy, went from being a vibrant and exciting early years teacher to having her memory wiped clean and whole life rebooted. Resilience personified, both.

Hywel Roberts is a teacher, speaker and writer. He is the author of Oops! Getting Children to Learn Accidentally (£18.99, Crown House). Find him at createlearninspire.co.uk and follow him on Twitter at @hywel_roberts.

You might also be interested in...