All Teachers Great and Small

By Andy Seed

This book will be enjoyed by teachers, ex teachers, those who work with young children, parents and anyone interested in Yorkshire!

Very much in the same vein as Gervase Phinn and Jack Sheffield, these books quickly became favourites of mine. Being an ex-teacher and living in Yorkshire for many years, the stories and characters resonated with some of my own experiences, I just wish I had written all my own happenings down at the time! They are described as a ‘memoir of lessons and life in the Yorkshire Dales’ and are written by ex-teacher Andy Seed. Andy lives in North Yorkshire and worked for many years as a primary school teacher in the Dales before leaving to pursue his career as a freelance writer in 2000. He also spends a great deal of his time running workshops in schools and enthusing children to enjoy books and reading.

There are three books in the series:

All  Teachers Great and Small

All Teachers Wise and Wonderful

All Teachers Bright and Beautiful

The first book, ‘All Creatures Great and Small,’ details Andy’s first year as a teacher in the Yorkshire Dales. He and his wife moved there expecting to live a gentle simple life, in an area with beautiful views. In reality, life as a new teacher was to prove anything but simple, as many of my teaching colleagues will identify with! The books detail real life events experienced by Andy and real characters he encountered, but Andy is at pains to point out that each character is an amalgamation of several people, rather than reflecting one person or child specifically.

Unlike other books of a similar style, Andy chooses to spend each chapter focussing on one child in his class at a time.  He writes with a gentle humour which should have you smiling and chuckling as you read. Those of us who have taught, and particularly in the same era (the 1980s), will recognise many similar events in our own teaching careers and sympathise with his trials and tribulations.

As we read, we discover Andy negotiating the delicacies of the local dialect, laugh at his attempts to bring new fangled modern ideas into a school that seems to be stuck in a 1950s-time warp and warm to the notion that he and his wife have finally found a place that they can call home.

If you want a warm, nostalgic and humorous read, look no further as you are transported to a bygone era of education, with descriptions of heart-warming incidents that inevitably occur when you are working with young children.

Enjoy!