Andy Kilcoyne has retired after 31 years as headteacher at Mauldeth Road Primary School in Withington, a career he never initially planned. As a young man, he says he 'didn't have a clue' what to do, and was certain he 'wasn't going to be a teacher'.
'It just wasn't for me,' he says, sitting in the school library days after retiring. 'We used to poke fun at the teachers when I was at school. I didn't fancy it all.'
From youth work to teaching
His path changed when he took a job as a youth worker in east Manchester in the early 80s. Smithfield Market in Openshaw was a major employer, but many teens he worked with lacked basic literacy and maths skills needed for jobs there. He often found himself teaching them the basics, and soon realised education might be for him after all.
'It was really sad,' says the 65-year-old. 'They'd gone through, however many years of education not having basic skills. I needed to do something about it, but it was too late in the day. And the second thing, which always felt really sad, was when they did get work in the market, the first time somebody had hard words with them they lost it and ended up unemployed again as a result.'
Originally from Middlesbrough, Andy took his first teaching job at Claremont Primary School in Moss Side in 1986, under the 'absolutely inspirational' headteacher Richard Fye. Nine years later, he was appointed headteacher at Mauldeth Road, where he remained ever since.
Changing times in education
Teaching then was very different, he says. There were no Ofsted inspections, no National Curriculum, no SATs, and hardly any computers. But that's not to say things were better. Modern education involves much more bureaucracy and regulations, he says.
'At the height of the Cold War I had a temporary job working in Germany on an American army base, and there is more security to get into this school now than there was to get onto that base.'
But Andy says the structure brought by the National Curriculum means kids nowadays are years ahead of their counterparts four decades ago. He believes they're also better-behaved, more hard-working, more respectful and 'just nicer to be around'.
Pride and drama
He's proud that Mauldeth Road, where one in two kids are on free school meals and around three quarters have English as an additional language, has always outperformed the national average.
Along the way, there's been plenty of drama. There was a 3am rooftop stand-off with a burglar the night before an Ofsted inspection, an unprompted visit by a mounted police officer which ended when the horse sneezed all over Andy, leaving him looking like he'd been 'slimed by Mr Blobby', and a pupil who took his cat into his granddad's shed and painted it with red gloss.
And there was Covid. Looking back 'with the benefit of vaccines', Andy says it's easy to forget how scared everyone was at the start of the pandemic. Cleaning out his stuff, he found a video of a socially-distanced staff briefing in the school quad during early lockdown, which reminded him how fraught the situation was.
'I think everybody forgets the absolute level of fear and paranoia that everyone was feeling when COVID first happened,' he said. 'I think in retrospect, I probably felt initially that the lockdown should have happened sooner. What I feel about it now, I don't honestly know. It's really hard to gauge. But when I think about the level of anxiety and fear that existed when lockdown first occurred, I think everybody welcomed it.'
Seeing pupils succeed
The best part of the job, Andy says, has been seeing how former pupils have gone on to succeed in life.
'I've had the privilege of being able to see people in their 30s and 40s, who've come back to see us,' he says. 'They might not have been the children you would have targeted to get good results, but they've done really well. They were enthused in their education and love of learning when they were here with us and have gone on to be dentists, doctors, film directors, mechanical engineers. My dentist is an old pupil. I wandered into a solicitor's office with my brother-in-law, when we were doing my mother's probate and the solicitor who came out to greet us was another past pupil, who has since brought his children back to the school.'
Retirement plans
At a surprise assembly at the end of term, staff presented the Liverpool fan with a Reds' shirt with the number 31 on the back. Now the father-of-five, of Chorlton, plans to catch up on DIY projects and finally take a holiday in term-time.
Reflecting on his 40-year career, he said: 'It's been an absolute privilege. Especially at this school, which is quite unique and a wonderful place. I've been really lucky with the team I've worked with over the years. And I think that whereas I came into the job with a load of simple certainties and saw the world in very black and white terms, I now see many more shades of grey.'
'I don't want to come over all kumbaya about it, but we have a greater understanding of kids' individual needs now. We don't leave children behind to become angry and antisocial. I just hope for the future we can maintain the funding needed to give that level of support and I hope that governments allow schools with unique characters to thrive and don't stifle them with one size fits all policies.'
