Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen & Hwyl Fawr*

Where do I possibly start?

Almost 30 years ago I came to YGP for a year 6 transition day and I still remember now what happened at the end of the day. The last lesson of the day was French in P3, with Miss Anne. She taught me how to say hello, say my name and count to 10 in French and, well, that was it – I was hooked. It was like a little spark was lit within.

At the time my dream in life was to be an air hostess. Not because of the glamorous uniform or the neatly packed meals or even the trolley full of duty free…I didn’t really care about any of that. But I had watched the cabin crew on a recent flight speak to passengers in many different languages and looked on like I was watching a magic show.

I wanted to be able to do that. To have that superpower.

Miss Anne went on to teach me through GCSE and A-Level and later became not just my teacher, but my colleague, friend, in fact, my very own ‘Aunty Anne’.

Years after her retirement, I still get a message at the start and end of every term, a bon courage or a bonnes vacances. My life is definitely the better for having Anne be a part of it.

Anne is not the only person to have become part of my life through this school. There are many staff here who make my everyday better. There’s Cheryl who keeps the Languages Block so sparkly clean that it even satisfies Julia’s OCD. Dave who literally is the eyes and ears of this school – my god how I wish I’d had a few blue bins turn up at my house over the last few weeks of sorting. He’ll be pleased to know that his mantra ‘if you haven’t used it in the last year, bin it’ is how I have approached my thinning out of the house ready to move. There are those staff who make me roar with my Boycie-esque laughter and those who are always there when I need them, even though they may not even know it. All those honorary members of MFL who step into their foreign alias as soon as they walk into a French or German room and share their best linguistic offerings with the class. The entire PE department, anyone who ever brings biscuits to the staffroom, and our two tea fairies can also be added to the list.

I have made so many friends through my time in this school, it would be impossible to mention them all here. But I have spent 16 years working closely with Team MFL, who always, always run with my big ideas no matter how much singing, dressing up or flipping everything on its head is involved. Everyone shares the workload, with the mutual understanding that by working together, we can achieve more. I think having to fight hard to protect the endangered species that our subject has sadly become in UK schools, only fuels our passion all the more.

In this school, I have also met one special soulmate in particular. So special in fact, that if it hadn’t been for her friendship, support and her belief in me, that I don’t think I would have reached this point in life, where I believe in myself enough to pull off this move.

No matter where you are in the world, great friends will always find a way to reach you.

When I left YGP as a pupil, I never even imagined going into teaching, let alone teaching here. Someone recently referred to those years out as my sabbatical and Clare, who I am pretty sure is secretly a superhero, says I should count my school years in my total time here…which puts me at almost 30 years.

After completing my degree, I asked Anne for a reference for my application to do a PGCE, and much to my surprise she said, ‘I’m just surprised you’re going into teaching. I always imagined you travelling the world’.

Not quite the same response as Heather, my former form tutor and the person who pushed a very quiet little me into every club going, who saw me at interview and said ‘why the hell do you want to work here?’

Well the answer, I guess, is the same reason that I have stayed here for 16 years.

For kids who grow up here, there is no real alternative to this school. Everyone who lives here comes to school here. I suppose that’s why I feel so passionate about making it the best it can be, for all our pupils, for our staff and for the community.

Years after we leave school, we still talk about ‘the one who was in your brother’s year.’ ‘Or X’s mum, you know, they were the year above your sister.’ For me, it’s not just myself, my siblings and my daughter who came to school here. But also my husband, his brother, my uncles, and both of my parents. That’s quite a lineage.

In fact, my Dad was a pupil here the year that the school changed from being a Secondary Modern to a Comprehensive School. He tells me how there was an art competition to design the new logo. The same one we have today on the jumpers that kids wear to school.

Last month, Sixth Formers from across the county were sat in our JT for an Oxbridge masterclass with an admissions tutor from Oxford University. He looked into the mass of students and asked me which pupils were mine. As I was about to say ‘the ones in the blue shirts’, he asked, ‘are they the ones with the dragons?’

Yes, I told him as I stood there thinking that I have seen this logo a million times and yet never really seen it.

The dragon clearly represents the school’s Welsh roots, ironic perhaps, for a town that has an ashamedly poor attitude to the language and culture of our own land. Something I have never understood. And something that I feel is our collective responsibility as a community to put right.

Behind the dragon, if you look closely, is an anchor. A symbol, I guess of the school’s coastal setting. And that is so important with many of our pupils volunteering in the RNLI, and working at the beaches’ lifeguard stations over the summer, where they help save lives every day.

But for me, the anchor represents so much more.

This school is an anchor in the community. A place that connects people. To each other, to their past, to their future. And for me it has been a real anchor, the thing that has kept me here, in my comfort zone, through 16 years of friendships, 16 years of buzzers, new specifications, parents’ evenings, reports, exams and summer holidays….16 years of highs and of lows.

And it has been a great place to anchor down.

I recently realised that I had spent more years of my life walking the grounds of this school than exploring beyond it. And not for lack of trying, my air hostess dreams as a child never really went away. I’m still fascinated by flying, travel, languages and new cultures. It’s the thing that floats my boat. That makes me feel alive.

I have told many pupils over many years how the best things I have ever done were always the things I did outside of my comfort zone. From my year spent working and studying abroad – 20 years ago now – to the 5 week trip we went on as a family through SE Asia in 2019. I have encouraged pupils to seize opportunities to travel and study or work abroad because I believe with a passion, that pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is the very best way to grow and experience all that life has to offer.

And then one day I heard myself saying it, and wondered why I wasn’t acting on my own advice. After turning 40, with life flying by quickly, and being unable to satisfy that itch for adventure within, I realised that it was now or never.

So it’s time to raise my anchor, to shake off the comfort blanket that YGP has become and to go and explore some very far away shores.

Not to escape life, but before life escapes me.

Thank you to you all for your kindness, for making me part of the team and for making me smile.

‘ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, he toa takitini‘

(Success is not the work of an individual, but the work of many)

* I love the way that different languages offer us different ways to express ourselves. Like saying goodbye. The English ‘goodbye’ is very final. The French ‘Au Revoir’ and ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ both mean ‘until I see you again’. But by far the best of all for me right now has to be the Welsh ‘Hwyl Fawr’, literally meaning ‘big fun’. Which is exactly as it should be.