Who was your favourite teacher at school,and why?

[ALongHardWinter]

Inspired by the thread about who your most hated teacher was. When I was at primary school,I had the same teacher for 3 out of 4 years of the juniors,and although I wouldn't say I particularly liked her,I will always be grateful to her because she made sure that we all knew our times tables off by heart,and she was very hot on spellings,punctuation and grammar. So thank you Mrs.H! At secondary school,I really liked my English teacher. I was good at English,and she always encouraged me and listened to me,although I was painfully shy at the age of 14. Also at secondary school,when I was in the 3rd year (now called year 9) we had a science teacher who was a right joker. He used to drink during the lunch hours,we could smell the beer on him when we had science straight after lunch. He thought nothing of swearing and used to say to us if we being noisy 'Shut yer teeth'.

Mrs Smith because she wore gold Doc Martins.

Adored the teacher I had one year at primary school. I thought he was so funny, and he even made maths interesting. I think now that he was some kind of father substitute for me, as my own father was always tetchy, sarcastic and obviously bored by his offspring.

I had one teacher in school who was a friends mum.

She knew a lot about my home problems and my parent issues and she always helped without saying she was helping.

Things like putting sanitary towels in my bag without saying anything as she knew my parents never bought it for me.

She taught me about sex as my parents didn't.

She quite often had left over sandwiches etc which she gave to me.

She also had clothes that various relatives had grown out of which just happened to fit me.

She was amazing. I guess now she would be sacked for over stepping the mark.

I had two or three. Incidentally, two of them taught the subject I took my degree in and the subject I now teach.

My year 2 teacher was lovely, nothing stands out particularly just that she was so calm and sweet.

Hand on heart I loved every one of my primary school teachers, they were all different but brilliant.

But hands down has to be year 5 Mr Dorras. Encouraged me all the time, admitted I was always going to struggle at maths but said I was also always going to be exceptionally good at English and did everything he could to promote that really. He'll never know how much his words meant to me, a very shy, parents a bit shite, no-confidence 9 year old who at least knew someone thought she was the best at something. I'll remember it always.

Mrs Hensley.

She was a diamond, my year six teacher. She took my reputation as quite loner and ran with it.

I was going to post a similar thread in response to the other. :)

I had a fabulous teacher in juniors. He played the guitar, was a really nice bloke, took no shit and was a very positive male role model.

I had a fabulous history teacher and a French national for French.

Both were strict teachers with good class management in a shitty school and I actually had a chance to learn in their lessons.

Ms Sargeant. She had no faith in my abilities in English (I discovered this years later by accident), but kept that to herself and encouraged the fuck out of me.

Mr Smith, who made science less intimidating.

My English teacher Mr Clarke at senior school treated me well as he knew i loved literature and read voraciously (still do) he was a true gentleman and an excellent teacher, sadly he died not long after retirement and on the school facebook page lots of ex pupils remember him with fondness

There were some nice teachers at school, but no one who really stood out for me. However, there was my tutor at College called Mr Taylor, who saw my abilities where no teacher at school did, and supported and encouraged me to apply to uni. Thanks Mr Taylor, I now have a BA (hons), and an Msc in Health Psychology. I was told by my headteacher at school that I should not consider an academic career, as I was not academic.

Year 2. Not favourite but i remember so much i learned that year. I feel she must have gone above and beyond what other teachers were doing to introduce us to so much that i still remember. I still remember songs we learned and books she read us and topics we studied where i don't for other teachers.
Year 6. Favourite one. Just lovely.
Junior school headmaster. Very interesting speaker. Very dedicated. Used to give people the slipper. He retired in the early 80s but i googled him recently and him and his wife are still going strong. They appeared in a village newsletter. Was a heavy smoker but got away with it.
Several lovely teachers at my high school. Liked our sixth form form tutor/history teacher although i didn't do well at the subject

My primary 4 teacher, Mrs Finlayson, was absolutely wonderful. She was just so lovely. She always wore floral dresses with doc martin's and this huge pearl necklace. She had a pet snake that she let us name, we named it Tootsie because it was so tiny. It grew to over 6 ft long. She used to bring it in once a week for us. I thought she was the coolest person ever

jaseyraex She sounds awesome!

Sixth form English teacher. He was inspirational. I ran into him recently and was still in awe of him, it was so lovely to see him! He used to read aloud to us in hilarious voices that entertained and captivated the class and made dull material interesting. He’s retired in the last few years, a sad loss to the school, IMO.

My Yr 7 Maths teacher, who was incredibly patient and kind with me as I always struggled with maths and he really encouraged me. My son's form tutor in Yr 9 who was fantastic when we went through difficult times as a family. Her support and positivity were continuous and invaluable.

Mr Laver. History teacher. Inspired my love of Russian and German History. He arranged a school trip to Russia aswell, and that sealed it!!

Miss S, a spinster who taught home economics to dyspraxic me - thanks to her patience I can cook a decent meal now and run a household.

Miss F, who rightly or wrongly encouraged her 4th year girls threaten/beat the 2nd yr girls who were bullying me. Stopped it very quickly - I often wish she hadn't done it that way but never mind.

Mrs D and Mr E who taught me advanced higher English despite me not even being their pupil - council paid for me to travel 20 miles to next secondary to take it. Both taught me how to really appreciate poetry and plays, fantastic year.

The junior school teacher who read us The Hobbit every day after lunch and let us fiddle with small pieces of Blue Tac so we could relax. The teacher who was infamous for throwing black board rubbers but in fact was the most encouraging, kind man. The English teacher who understood I came from an uneducated background and taught me to believe in myself. All three are the reasons I now teach.

Miss Vercoe she was amazing so cool and kind and genuinely cared for us, this is secondary school in the 90s, if I had Facebook I would definitely find her now and tell her how great we thought she was.

@Whydomypubeslooklikeanest - she sounds lovely, I'm glad she helped in whatever way she could

Primary teacher that I had for two years in a row was amazing. Another older one that never had a class, not sure what her role was but she was amazing. Secondary I had a few, my form tutor and later my sociology teacher was fab. My CDT teacher was a hoot and a French teacher, she was strict but I really liked her. My maths teacher was my favourite though. Later learned that he was severely depressed, alcoholic and sadly committed suicide.

I honesty cannot remember any of my primary school teachers (left primary in 1980) it was that long ago!

Two secondary school teachers that were the most memorable for the right reasons were Mr Taylor for maths (aka Taffy Taylor as he was Welsh and he was also slighty eccentric) and Mr McColl for physics. Both for the same reasons, 1) they had the respect of all the pupils and kept the class under control at all times 2) you felt that they enjoyed teaching you, loved their subject and cared about you learning it.

I went to school in the days of the belt which teachers could and did use as and when they pleased, humiliating pupils in front of their peers. blackboards with chalk and erasers that were regularly thrown at pupils misbehaving. Punishments like standing in the corner of a room facing the wall for the whole class. Taylor and McColl never had to use those methods, their pupils just magically complied and behaved when firmly asked to. They could have the class rolling in laughter one minute and back to work the next. They were just natural teachers and mentors.