Who was your favourite teacher(s) and why?

[Chefpig]

I struggled at school. I had a big group of friends but was painfully self aware and very shy. It was a large comprehensive and rough at the time. Lots of kids there didn't seem to want to learn. It was so uncool to want to learn and to display any shred of intelligence.

My favourite teachers, one was my English teacher, Mr Hawkins. I left school in 2000, and that man probably won't even remember me, but he and his English classes turned my life around. They were my sanctuary and a safe space. He led the class with humour but authority and I still love reading, writing, especially creatively and poetry today.

I also loved my RE teacher. She made RE very interesting indeed and I learned so much. I remember none of my friends going on a field trip and there were numerous very loud girls on the trip. I was quiet and dreading it, but the teacher made it so worthwhile.

I also loved Georgraphy and still do as an adult but every time I was off, for what I now know is endometriosis, the teacher asked why I was absent in front of the whole class and went on a long monologue of how there's no substitute for the classroom. I didn't ever dare tell him it was what I thought was period pain and heavy bleeding back then, but he was a bastard and quite inappropriate with the kids too!

My History teacher meant the world to me. He was a father figure.

Mr Simpson, my wonderful English teacher. He really brought the subject to life and he had superb behaviour management

My GCSE food tech teacher. She really stepped in and stood up for me when I really needing protecting (I was in a physically abusive relationship with a boy in my year)

She didn't have to put herself on the line for me the way she did, especially because up until that point I'd been a bit of a pain in the arse for her lessons.

I worked so hard after that day, I only scraped a C as I'd messed around for so long, but I was determined to pass for her.

I still think of her regularly even though I can't remember her name anymore 😔

My English teacher Mr Daw was my favourite teacher ever. He also ran a d&d campaign that me and a few other nerds played every Thursday for five years. He was so down to earth and agreed with us that the vast majority of the school rules were absurd.

His classroom management was second to none though and he took no bullshit. He very quickly had the respect of the class, but also showed us respect and didn't speak to any one of us like we were from another planet or stupid, unlike almost every other teacher, so it was one of the few classes where no one tried it on. Not through fear but an actual good working agreement and mutual respect.

He also got my (set 1) English class through our dire gcse English lit texts super quickly, got our essays churned out with high marks and let us basically just read /revise whatever we wanted in his lessons for almost two terms.

Ours was the only class he did this with, we had an 'understanding', particularly when slt came into class. Lowest mark our class got was a high b so we were all quite grateful for the reprieve of his lessons in more ways than one.

Mr Grayson, Science teacher and Head of Year. Legend of a teacher. I know he was disappointed with a result I received, after a difficult year, but I will always remember him with absolutely gratitude.

My primary school teacher was very smiley and kind.
Saw her on the news years later found guilty of fixing exam results. I was quite gutted.

I have been thinking about my favourite teacher a lot recently, not sure why. He was my top juniors teacher (Yr 6). He wasn't what you would think of as a great teacher - for starters, he made no secret of the fact that I was his favourite in the class - but I was very happy in his class. I became a teacher because of him. This was over 50 years ago now.

At age 8, we were moving to the middle east. My teacher organised a surprise farewell party. I was sent to do photocopying and on my return, the room was dark and everyone gone. The lights came on and they all jumped out. It was so memorable and I was so appreciative to Mrs Potocki.

My teacher in, I think, Year 3 was lovely, her name was Miss Hooson and the whole class was gutted when she left before the end of the year, we even held a protest!

And my drama teacher, who was also my tutor in 6th form, Mr Porter - he was just a brilliant teacher and a kind man who sparked an interest in politics in me that made me end up studying politics in University.

Also liked my English teacher in my GCSE years though I can't actually recall her name right now, but she was lovely and she claimed to really enjoy my nonsense essays I wrote, plus she used to bribe my class with sweets and biscuits to behave (I was in a really badly behaved class, the Ofsted inspector said we were the worst he'd ever seen and we made some substitute teachers cry)

My last year of juniors teacher Sylvia Young. Flamboyant with her red hair, purple satin clothes and furious temper, she brought unflinching rigour and boundless creativity to our classroom - a reading corner with cushions (unusual at the time), challenging classical singing (Elgar, Vaughan Williams), golden silence for the first half hour as we did mental maths. At her funeral, the church was full to bursting with her past pupils.

John bettridge at Hurstpierpoint College. A very kind man of the old school. An excellent geography and sports teacher who always watched over us and was a good confidant. When I had worries I always went to him... And he always took me seriously as a young boy and helped me. I was never shoooed away, no matter how trivial my issues may have been.

I hear he's retired now after a career spanning many decades.. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of men and women out there with fond memories of this excellent teacher. I just hope he's still playing cricket, enjoying a glass or two, and having a lovely life. He's great. A kind man from the 80s and 90s at a time when not many teachers in boarding schools were genuinely kind, indeed school was often a lonely place.

A male teacher when I was at Primary school. I see now he was a father figure. I loved his lessons and his sense of humour. I felt so safe and secure in his classroom. Absolutely lovely man. Bloody good teacher, I can still remember some of his lessons.

Mrs Roland my RE teacher took it to GCSE because of her. She was the only person that 'saw me'. I was diagnosed as autistic as an adult and always been very shy but she seemed to understand and brought the best out in me.

Mr Golightly, last year of junior school, absolutely lovely man. First male teacher I'd ever had and my father was absent so that was obviously part of it (vividly remember calling him dad by accident in class once ) but he was genuinely lovely and an excellent teacher.

My maths teacher in Year 10/11. I was set 3, so not particularly great with numbers, and had real issues with algebra. A lot of the kids in that class also just wanted to mess about, so it wasn't a great atmosphere and he shouted a lot.

I hated him, in a class setting.

Then, as GCSEs approached, he started working with people in smaller groups or one to one. That's when I realised, he was actually great. He managed to get me up to passing standard, after getting a U in my mocks, rather spectacularly.

Still grateful to him - it'll be 20 years next year since I collected my results, and I can still remember the elation when I saw I'd got a C!

Also my biology teacher in Year 10. He was an NQT, and we weren't the easiest class, despite being top set. One to one, he was great, we had some brilliant chats about various topics, and he loved me asking questions, but he couldn't manage a class at all. I do wonder what happened to him, as he left after that year.

Is that Sylvia Young who founded the theatre school?