Primary School Children Call For More ‘Marvellous’ Teachers


marvellous teacher
Posted on 07 July 2016

A primary school’s campaign to identify the recipe for a ‘marvellous teacher’ and attract more people into teaching will be launched on 7th July.

To encourage more people to get into teaching at primary schools, children at Seabridge Primary School undertook a project to unearth the qualities they believe teachers need.

Nick Gibb, Minister of State for Schools, said:

Teachers transform the lives of young people. Over 1.45million more children are in good or outstanding schools since 2010, which is a testament to their hard work and dedication.

Seabridge Primary Schools’ marvellous video offers an excellent insight into what primary school aged children want from classroom teachers and shows real innovation and imagination.

Seabridge Primary is the lead school for the Keele and North Staffordshire Primary SCITT (School centred Initial Teacher Training) that works in partnership with Keele University and over 60 schools across Staffordshire, Stoke and East Cheshire. Over the last two years, they have produced over 120 teachers for primary education and continue to experience growth in demand, both from a school and a student perspective.

Inspired by the hit film Marvellous, which chronicles former local Stoke City kitman Neil ‘Nello’ Baldwin’s story and positive attitude to life, school children carried out their own independent research and devised the ingredients using the information they had found, before presenting it back to Nello and Malcolm Clarke, who co-wrote his biography.

Headteacher of Seabridge Primary School, Sandra Mitchell, said: “Our children were extremely passionate about this project and felt that all of these ingredients were important for teachers to have to enrich their learning experience.”

Diane Swift, Director of the SCITT, has mapped the children’s ingredients to the DfE’s Teachers’ Standards, highlighting how relevant the pupils’ recipe is.

We continue to see increased interest in teaching and a growing demand from schools and it is hoped that this campaign will inspire more people to get into teaching and to stay locally and contribute to the schools in the local area.

The video will be launched at the school on the 7 th July, with children sharing their recipe with Neil Baldwin and Malcolm Clarke. The video will be used to encourage more teachers to progress to primary school teaching.