Teachers! Shall we cheer people up with an account of some of our surprise happy endings for difficult teens? Change names!

[notknowledgeable]

I'll start

"Andrew" - heading for prison at 16, now high up in the metropolitan police

"Amy" - pregnant at 14 - now a successful local business woman about to open the 4th shop in her chain

"Austin" - expelled for fighting and alcohol - and fighting about the alcohol - got a first in physics from a RG uni last year , ok a few years late, but he got there!

"Annabel" - school refuser at 12 - 4 top grade A levels at 18

Just remembered "Angela" who I put in detention more times than I can possibly remember, now runs a beauty salon near us, one that I would not be able to attend if she didn't give me a discount for cutting my hair 😂

I don't have many stories to add but just wanted to ask...how do you know what they did in the end? Other than a neighbour of mine who was my student, I have no idea what most of my former students ended up doing - I'd like to, though.

I do occasionally bump into former students out and about and...they're so OLD!

We went to our local church for the Christmas service and this man greeted me excitedly and I did recognise him as someone who I taught recently (as I recalled). He was closer to 30 than 20 omg I felt so so old. He is now at uni after taking several years out of education for his mental health, and he had a gf with him... so things are looking up for him.

I also once got greeted excitedly by two (as I thought) middle aged men on the street near my former school. They told me they now work in finance in the city... they reminded me which class year they'd been and they weren't yet 30. I silently vowed I'd discourage my kids from that career - it seems to prematurely age people from stress.

Well, I only know if I still see them around, on buses or trains normally, except the ones who pop up in the local paper.

Actually, some do come back to school for careers days too, but most of the ones I have seen do well and come back and talk about it are ones who were always going to do well. My thread was really about ones I didn't expect to do well, but who turned it around

A great idea for a thread. I don't have any myself as I'm in HE although I sometimes meet students who tell me about their mispent or troubled childhoods. This is often when they get a first class degree - I'm really happy for them.