I started to teach at St Andrew’s in January, 1980, on the new school site. I was appointed as a Scale 1 class teacher with the addition of running extra-curricular sports activities. The headteacher, when I arrived, was Mr Hayward who was nearing retirement. Whilst there I taught Year 3 and Year 4 classes. In most years, I had 36 children in my classes with no teacher assistant support. In my first year at the school, I also had two SEND pupils, although in those days they were not identified officially as SEND, and had no local authority support to appoint additional teaching assistants. After Mr Hayward’s retirement, the school’s headteacher became Richard Walsh. I left the school in 1984 to take up a Scale 2 post at St Mary’s Primary School in Bridgwater.
During my time at the school, I had the pleasure of teaching over a hundred children and found it a real privilege to teach so many delightful children, who behaved extremely well and worked very hard. I still see a good number of these children around in Burnham, although as it is over forty years since I taught them I need to apologise if I have not always recognised them!! Playing football for Berrow for many years it was not unusual to ‘bump’ into a few of the boys if they were playing for Burnham.
Probably one of my main achievements at the school was to change the nature of the matches the boys football team played. Most of the teams we were playing were based in Bridgwater and although they provided the tough challenges the boys needed, we didn’t have the relationships we could have had with local village teams. As a result, together with all the local village schools, we formed our own 7 a-side league which enabled all the village teams to enter competitive football. It also meant our school could have two teams, so more boys were able to play (at the time we didn’t have any girls interested in playing). The links with the local schools also helped them to meet children from different schools, who they would then meet again when they entered King Alfred’s.
I also had the privilege of joining in on a Year 6 field trip to Salcombe, which was a great experience for all.
Since he left teaching in Burnham Malcolm has constantly been involved in education. He became Deputy Headteacher at Cheddar First School and then set up his own education business operating government contracts in England and overseas.