I am a teacher. I qualified more years ago than I care to remember, particularly when while chatting to a colleague I realise that I started teaching before he was born. Since then many things have changed. I started working under the so-called Christian National Education system in South Africa at a time when education was fragmented into numerous ethnically-labelled departments and education was neither free nor equal. In my first year of teaching, I was form tutor to Standard Nines at Wynberg Secondary School many of whom were in one of my English classes (English Second Language Standard 9) which had 47 pupils in it; some of them older than I was.

Since then, many things have changed: I moved countries and education systems, currently finding myself working at an inner London school. My school boasts that it operates in one of the most culturally diverse boroughs in the country offering education to speakers of more than eighty languages. My journey to Park View has been an interesting one taking in Lambeth borough south of the river and Earlham High School in Norwich, Norfolk.

In my time as teacher I have played many roles in many different educational systems built on more pedagogical models than I care to think about, but the truths on which my teaching rests remain exactly what they were more than twenty years ago.I am a teacher of children, a moulder of lives: not a teacher of English, History or whatever subject I may be called upon to teach. What an awesome responsibility this is. Sometimes we become almost blase about who we are and what we do or we are overwhelmed by the weight of bureaucracy that every year seems to set a new standard of excellence that leaves us all wallowing in the mud of our inadequacies of 'unsatisfactory' or 'needing to improve' ratings.

Truthfully, however, it is also an immense privilege. Many of us we get to share in the lives of young people we would otherwise never have met. For just a brief moment we are able to be a part of their lives, to share with them our knowledge and our life experience and to equip them with the skills they need to live. Let us never lose sight of this. Tomorrow is the end of the penultimate half-term of this academic year and we will enjoy a well-earned rest. I know I am looking forward to a time of quiet relaxation with my husband and boys but I also look forward to those last few weeks with children I have grown to love and who continue to challenge and inspire me every day that I am privileged to spend with them.

To all my English friends, have a wonderful Whitsun break.