Coming Home as a Teacher: Returning to My Old Primary School

Stepping back into my old primary school in Felixstowe felt strangely like stepping through time. I walked past classrooms where I once sat as a wide-eyed pupil in 1996, worrying about SATs and puzzling over handwriting joins — only now I entered those same rooms as a fully-fledged teacher. It’s the first time I’ve experienced school life from both sides in the very same building, and it has been far more powerful than I expected.

The school's landscape has changed, of course. The blackboards I learned from have long since gone, replaced by sleek interactive whiteboards glowing with digital ink. Some of the classrooms that once echoed with the noise of our times tables are now nurturing spaces; calm, supportive rooms that reflect the growing awareness of children’s mental health and wellbeing. The trees we used to climb and play around are now off limits, unsurprising with today’s health and safety expectations, though the conkers still fall each autumn as if unchanged by time.

Yet so much is the same. The old climbing frames are still perched along the hall’s sidelines like familiar friends. The rhythm of learning feels unchanged, too; the medium might now be an IWB rather than chalk, but the core of education - children learning, questioning, discovering - remains reassuringly steady.

What surprised me most, though, was how quickly I slipped back into my younger self's perspective. Standing in a Year 6 classroom, I could vividly picture myself at that age, sitting right there, imagining the future, wondering what secondary school would be like. That feeling of dual perspective, teacher and former pupil combined, has sharpened my empathy for the children I now work with. It’s easier to meet them where they are when I can remember exactly what it felt like to be them.

And then there’s something deeply grounding about recognising surnames in the register, seeing people I went to school with now bringing in their own children, and hearing Suffolk accents that feel like home. After years away, I spent a long time searching for belonging without realising I already had somewhere I belonged. Returning here hasn’t just been a geographical homecoming; it’s been a professional and personal one too.

Teaching geography recently, I found myself drawing on my knowledge of Felixstowe's beaches, ports, heathland, and estuaries, not as abstract examples but as part of our shared story. These children aren’t just pupils I teach; they’re the young of my people. Supporting their learning feels like contributing to the future of a community that raised me.

It’s reminded me of something important we often forget in teacher training: schools are more than institutions. At their best, they are community hubs where relationships, identity and belonging are shaped. And while we spend a great deal of time thinking about how to be teachers, we cannot overlook the importance of remembering what it is like to be a pupil. Returning to my old primary school has brought that sharply back into view.

A Lesson Idea Inspired by Returning to School

If you want to bring this theme into the classroom, here is a simple activity that works beautifully with KS2 pupils:

Lesson Idea: “What Will You Remember?”

Learning intention:
To reflect on how school experiences shape us.

Activity:

1. Ask pupils to imagine themselves returning to this school as adults.

2. What will they remember about being in Year 5/6?

3. What skills do they think will carry them into the future?

4. What difference do they hope to make to their community?

They can write short reflections, create a memory map of the school, or record an audio message to their future selves.

It’s a gentle, meaningful way to develop metacognition, emotional literacy, and a sense of belonging, while reinforcing that the learning they do today continues long after they leave the building.

What I’m Reading Right Now

I’m almost finished Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, and it has left me thinking deeply about the skills today's children will need in a world shaped by artificial intelligence, automation and rapid change. Knowledge still matters, but so do adaptability, critical thinking, creativity and empathy. Returning to my old school while reading this book has made me appreciate even more the quiet power of primary education. These early experiences — the ones I am now helping to shape — are the foundations upon which future lives are built.

Returning to Phonics Reminded Me Why Early Reading Matters So Much

Last week I stepped back into a Reception classroom after a little time away from early-years teaching, and it was like being handed a reminder of why phonics is such a powerful, beautiful part of a child’s educational journey. Watching four- and five-year-olds crack the code of written language never loses its magic. I saw children confidently recognising graphemes I knew they had only recently been introduced to, segmenting new words with real pride, and blending sounds together to read in a way that was nothing short of astonishing.

What struck me again, clearly and loudly, is that this progress isn’t accidental. It comes from routine, consistency, and from teachers following a structured, research-backed phonics programme with real integrity. When a school commits to a systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) approach, and teachers deliver it faithfully, children flourish. You can see it in their developing phonological awareness, their growing independence, and the little spark they get when they realise, “I can read that!”

How Parents Can Support Without Disrupting the Routine

Parents often ask me how they can help at home, and the good news is: you absolutely can, but the way you support matters.

The single most important thing you can do is find out which phonics scheme your child’s school uses. Every validated SSP programme has its own order of introducing sounds, specific grapheme–phoneme correspondences, and precise pronunciation guidance. If you inadvertently teach a sound too early or model it differently, it can make reading more confusing for your child rather than easier.

So:

• Ask the teacher or the school which scheme they follow.

• Request any parent guidance that the school already provides. Most programmes have pronunciation videos or booklets.

• Keep communication open. A quick chat at pick-up time or an email to the class teacher can help you know exactly how to complement what’s happening in the classroom.

• Stick to the sounds they’ve learned so far. Supporting consolidation is far more helpful than pushing ahead.

• Celebrate effort as much as accuracy. Confidence is a major factor in early reading success.

A well-aligned home–school partnership doesn’t disrupt the routine; it strengthens it.

Phonics Tuition: In Person or Online

For parents looking for additional support, I also offer one-to-one phonics tuition, both in person and online. The online sessions use interactive tools that mirror what children experience in the classroom, which makes learning feel purposeful and fun.

If you feel your child would benefit from a targeted boost, or if they’ve fallen behind and need a structured, reassuring approach, please get in touch. I’m always happy to talk through what might help.

What I’m Reading

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari – a jaw-dropping exploration of humanity’s past and the dizzying possibilities of our future. It’s the kind of book that makes you pause, look at the world around you, and wonder what sort of future the young humans we teach will eventually inherit.

Finding the Balance: Rewards, Sanctions and Building a Strong Class Culture

Teachers walk a constant tightrope when it comes to motivation. We want children to feel encouraged and supported, but we also want them to build the intrinsic motivation that underpins genuine learning. Too many rewards, and their value diminishes. Too few, and pupils feel unseen. Too much emphasis on sanctions, and a classroom becomes tense; too little, and expectations lose their meaning. The real art lies in finding the balance.

The Value – and Limits – of Rewards

Rewarding good learning behaviour matters. When pupils feel their effort is recognised, they are more likely to repeat it. A simple verbal acknowledgement, a note home, or a well-timed positive point can reinforce a clear message: your choices matter.

But rewards quickly lose impact when handed out too freely. When every small action earns a sticker or a point, the motivational value drops. More importantly, children become dependent on external validation rather than developing perseverance, curiosity and pride in their own progress.

The aim isn’t to create reward-chasers. It’s to help pupils notice what good learning feels like – focused, satisfying, calm, productive, so that over time, the reward becomes internal.

Clear and Consistent Sanctions

The other side of this equation is equally important. Sanctions aren’t about punishment; they’re about boundaries. Pupils need to know what will happen if they cross the line and that the response will be the same every time.

Consistency is what builds trust. It turns behaviour management from a negotiation into a structure. A predictable system removes emotion from the process and reassures pupils that the classroom is a safe, fair environment. When expectations are firm but reasonable, sanctions become less about stopping poor behaviour and more about protecting everyone's learning time.

The Power of Class Culture

Rewards and sanctions alone cannot create the kind of classroom where pupils thrive. That foundation is laid in the first term, when routines, norms and relationships are being built.

Class culture is subtle, but powerful. It’s the collective understanding of what we do here, how we speak to one another, and what we value. When that culture is deliberately shaped with warmth, structure, and high expectations, it begins to do the heavy lifting.

In a strong class culture, even the “class clowns” start to recognise that their audience has changed. Their peers aren’t impressed by disruption; they’re invested in their own learning, social currency shifts. Children begin to support one another in making positive choices, not because of a sticker chart, but because it’s who we are as a class.

That’s when motivation becomes meaningful: when it comes from belonging, purpose and shared pride.

What I’m Reading

I’m currently reading Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco, a novel that plays with the boundaries between truth and fantasy. It’s a timely reminder that intellect and rationality don’t always walk hand in hand, and that the stories we choose to believe can shape our behaviour far more than facts alone.

What My Grandfather Taught Me About Teaching Historical Enquiry

As Remembrance Sunday approaches, classrooms, families and communities often pause to honour stories of courage, service and sacrifice. This year, for me, that reflection has been deeply personal.

Recently, I delivered a talk at The Hold, Ipswich Archives, about my grandfather, Stanley Rose, a gunner in the 67th Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery, captured at Tobruk in 1942 and held as a prisoner of war in Stalag IV-B.

What started as a family question became a research journey — and ultimately, a powerful model for how we teach historical enquiry.

Please watch my talk (which my father kindly recorded) below:

The space between memory and evidence

Growing up, our family knowledge of Stanley’s wartime experience came from two fragile threads:

1. A handwritten note my grandmother kept, summarising what she knew

2. Fragments of conversations my father once had with former comrades of my grandfather — men who recognised his regiment, remembered the desert, or recalled the camp, and filled in small details the family had never heard before

There were no long retellings. No stories offered or pressed for. No neat narrative to inherit.
Only snippets, impressions, and silence.

That silence became the starting point.

Because this is where real historical enquiry begins:

• What can we prove from the evidence we have?

• What questions does it raise?

• What might be true, but cannot be confirmed?

• And how do we honour a story without inventing what is missing?

These are the same questions we ask students when teaching history well.

From fragments to facts

Using that note and those remembered conversations as clues, I began tracing archival records through:

• the International Committee of the Red Cross

• wartime service records

• POW camp transfer lists

• regimental histories

• geographical movement across war fronts

A timeline slowly formed, from Suffolk, to the Western Desert, to capture at Tobruk, to Italy, then by overcrowded train to Stalag IV-B in Germany after the 1943 Italian armistice.

His POW number, 224787, transformed him from a remembered man into a documented one.

Walking the ground history left behind

Last year, I travelled to the site of Stalag IV-B in Mühlberg.

There is no museum.
No reconstructed barracks.
No guided tour.

Instead, there are quiet fields partitioned by hedgerows, brick outlines of former huts, the remains of camp latrines, a scattering of memorials, and the weight of absence. Nearby lies a cemetery — not for the Allied POWs, but for the thousands of German prisoners who later died there in Soviet custody, a layered testament to the long shadow of that place.

Standing there, I realised something central to both remembrance and history teaching:

History does not always speak loudly. Sometimes it speaks through gaps, traces, and quiet landscapes.

Why this matters in the classroom

The value of this journey is not simply in retelling a family story.
It is in modelling how history is uncovered, not inherited.

This is the work we want children to do:

• Interrogate a primary source

• Test reliability and limitation

• Distinguish evidence from inference

• Build a narrative that respects truth without embellishment

• See individuals inside vast historical events

Because history is not just information to absorb. It is a discipline of curiosity, patience, and respect.

A simple lesson rooted in real enquiry

(A classroom or 1:1 activity, ages 9–14)

Starting point

Show one source (for example, a handwritten recollection).
Ask students to split a page into two columns:

What this provesWhat we think might be true but can’t prove

Investigative phase

Provide three source types:

• A family account or testimony

• An official document

• A map showing movement

Ask students to:

1. Extract 3 facts from each source

2. Write 2 questions each source raises

3. Identify 1 limitation per source

4. Plot movement chronologically on a blank map

Writing prompt

“From the evidence, we can say that…”
(no invented details - inference must be clearly labelled)

Reflection

Why do individual stories matter when studying events involving millions?

What I learned

My grandfather rarely spoke of the war.
But in reconstructing his silence, I found the blueprint for how history should be taught:

Not as a list of answers,
but as a process of discovery.

On this 10th of November, as we prepare for Remembrance, his story reminds me that commemoration is not only about looking back, it is also about equipping the next generation to ask, question, evidence and understand.

Because remembrance is not passive.

It is enquiry.

It is attention.

It is care.

A return to environmental education (briefly)

As I return to teaching after half-term, I am reflecting on how lucky I was to get out and about in nature during the holidays. I was able to return to Moray, Scotland, to work with the incredible environmental education charity Wild Things. With instructors Paul and Jamie, we took a group of Primary 2 to Primary 7 children from local schools to the woodland on the Moray Firth coast. The children were selected because they come from Forces families based at RAF Lossiemouth and Kinloss Barracks. They were chosen to be part of the group to help them settle into their new homes and schools.

What a fantastic experience it was. The weather wasn’t great, but with some resilience and problem-solving, we were able to set up the tarpaulins, and a more than adequate shelter served us well whenever the weather was poor. We started with the classic Meet a Tree activity, where the children guided their blindfolded companions to various trees. This was followed by one of my favourite activities, where the children made nests for toy birds, created their own dawn chorus and had to collect ‘food’ for their birds, all the while avoiding predators! The children loved every second, and it was an absolute honour to be part of the fantastic work that Wild Things do again. It had been a while since I had last been out with the team, and it was good to know that I still love working with kids outside just as much as I used to.

What a fantastic week, and part of me will miss the great outdoors when I am back teaching in class this week!

I can’t wait until I get to join the Wild Things team for another expedition!

Wild Things is a charity constantly seeking donations to support the fantastic work they do. Find out more at https://wild-things.org.uk