Andy Seed - All Teachers Great and Small

review by Ro Bennett on show 20/10/11
This book is about a young newly qualified teacher who takes up his first post in the Yorkshire Dales. The school is a rural primary school with an irascible, inflexible, dyed-in-the-wool headmaster who is totally averse to any innovation and a small staff of female teachers who have been harassed into treading on egg shells around him. Into this mix comes this bright, highly motivated, eager young man fresh from college and bubbling with new ideas ...

Each chapter has the title of a pupil’s name and includes anecdotes about that child. Interwoven into these are aspects of daily life at the school and in Andy’s personal life with his wife Barbara. We share their experiences as newly weds - the excitement as they move into their first home which is rented, then the anxiety and exhilaration of buying and renovating their own property, the anticipation and delight of their first baby. Andy also describes the beauty of the Yorkshire Dales and introduces the reader to the people, their way of life, their ethos in a gentle and humorous way reminiscent of Gervase Phinn. There were quite a few laugh out loud bits.

I include an extract from one review which I particularly empathised with: As a teacher, I had tremendous sympathy for Seed's tales of juggling new government edicts with the demands of the actual classroom, and enjoyed his depictions of parents' evenings, school trips and attempts to modernise the curriculum. He perfectly captures the clash between the old and new, in the rural community and in education more broadly, without being excessively sentimental and without a trace of cynicism. I totally agree!

Andy’s descriptions are good. You do feel you get to know the various children, his wife, the teaching staff and assorted other characters. The reader can easily imagine the school and school life, participate in the highs and lows, the challenges and successes. When Andy walks in the Dales or admires the beauty of the scenery, he brings the reader with him.

From the book, Andy Seed comes across as a genuinely kind and caring man who loves his wife and family, loves teaching, loves the kids, loves the Yorkshire Dales - a thoroughly good sort. Sometimes I found the book a tad dull and I couldn’t get caught up in his obvious enthusiasm and details of his school plays, projects and trips which gave him such a sense of achievement and pleasure. But this is not a fault in his writing it is entirely due to the fact that now I’ve retired, just the thought of a class full of children is enough to send me into anaphylactic shock.

The author Andy Seed worked for many years as a primary school teacher in the Yorkshire Dales before setting up as a freelance writer in 2000. He now splits his work time between writing and travelling around schools, running workshops and enthusing children about books and reading. Andy is married with three children and lives in the wilds of North Yorkshire.