A Teaching life

How long have you been at Mayfield?

This is my 20th year of teaching at Mayfield. I started off as a parent helper in Reception when Dr Linklater was the Reception teacher. Then I was a PPA teacher for three years, doing PE - Mrs Redman was my appraiser at that stage, so there’s been some role reversal over the years! Then Reception teacher and Foundation Stage/Year One team leader for eight years. Then I became Assistant Head and then Co Head. So, yes, this is my 20th year at Mayfield, but sort of 21 if you include my Parent Helper role while my children were here. Plus with living in the community, Mayfield has always sort of been in my life.

And were you a teacher before that? 

Yes. Before that I was Head of Chemistry at Sawston Village College, I started there in 1986. I did a chemistry degree, taught Chemistry then I had seven years out of teaching, being with the kids at home and doing some GCSE Chemistry tutoring. So over 40 years across Secondary and Primary. Primary and Secondary aren’t as different as you’d think - they still can't share when they're 16, you know! There are lots of common threads, so it's not that different.

How has teaching changed over the years?

Oh, it's completely different in terms of the expectations of what we as teachers are expected to do. We're expected to be everything, now. We have to support parents, be social workers almost. It's not just teaching the knowledge, it's about teaching the whole child and also being part of a community as well. 

When I first started, I was only responsible for teaching chemistry. I wasn't responsible for the pastoral care of children. That was somebody else's job. But now you're much more involved with the whole family and the whole community and you're expected to do that. In fact, the buck stops with you in many respects because there's nowhere else necessarily for people to go. We are the sort of permanent feature in people's lives. 

What's the best piece of advice that you've ever been given as a teacher?

The best piece of advice I've ever been given as a teacher was actually when I was a parent helper in Reception class here. I was starting to think that Reception was somewhere I wanted to be. I’d been given a job to do which was cutting up stars or something, and I was just looking out of the window and watching the children - watching them interacting with each other, watching them learning who they were as individuals. 

Anyway, when the teacher came in I said  “Oh, sorry, I haven't cut the stars out. I've just been watching the children” and she said, “Never apologise for observing the children because that's what you're supposed to do. That's how you get to know them.” 

That is probably the best advice I've ever been given. And that is why we do spirals of inquiry and ask those spirals questions because we want teachers to get to know the children as individuals and have good relationships with them.

Are there any embarrassing teaching moments you're willing to share?

Oh, yes, I can remember one. I was on a German trip when I was teaching at Sawston. I was a year seven tutor and we went to the Rhineland. All of the kids in group went to buy ice creams. And then they said the teachers could come up and have a free ice cream. So I went up to get my free ice cream and they said, “No, no, no, you are a student! You can't get your free ice cream”. 

A similar story, also at Sawston Village College, was when the Head of Middle School saw me in the office and said  “Come in here! Why aren't you in the correct uniform?” And the office staff member was going, “No, no, she's staff, she's staff”. So this was very early on in my career. But that was very embarrassing. I was like, “But I'm a teacher. I don't have to wear a school uniform”.

Mrs Ayliffe's time at Mayfield

personal life

So a bit about personal life. Question from 1R - When do you play? And what do you play?

When do I play? Oh, that's a good question. When do I play? Well, I like going for a long walk on a Saturday. So that's sort of like play, isn't it? Maybe just enjoying the outside, you know, I do that with a friend and it's just lovely. It's what's kept me going really, over the last three or four years. I like having a laugh and joke around and going out and doing things with friends. I like going on holiday. So that's all fun stuff. 

And I hear you're good at dodging lightning?

Oh, my word. So there was a huge lightning bolt that split a tree over in the KS2 playground and bounced off the tree: broke the tree in half and bounced off the playground. Then I was walking home down Windsor Road and a bolt of lightning was literally a yard or so in front of me on the ground, in front of me! Smoke was coming up from the ground. I didn't dodge anything. It was just in front of me. But, yeah, that was definitely a moment - I could have had a lightning scar, like Harry Potter.

Are you a music fan? What's your favourite type of music?

I don't know the lyrics to any songs, apart from nursery rhymes probably. I listen to a lot of Christian music. I do like jazz and big band music as well. I like a whole range of things. I like listening to somebody called Lou Fellingham who's a Christian artist. Her music became very important to me when my husband died. He was listening to one of her tracks as he died. So we used that at his funeral. I have a lot of music in the background but I couldn't tell you any of the words or anything like that. I don't sing along to them. I listen to them. 

I used to play the alto saxophone and woodwind instruments. I still have a saxophone. It's in storage at the moment. Maybe I'll pick it up again once I have less to do here.

So, we're hosting a tea party for you next week...

So I gather!

What would be your go-to cake or bake? 

Well, I do like a fridge cake. Crumbled digestive biscuits with a Cadbury's milk chocolate top (it's got to be Dairy Milk!) with a few cherries in, that sort of thing. Fridge cake is my favourite. I like brownies but I'm allergic to walnuts. A good old Victoria sponge as well. A bit of lemon drizzle. Now don't get me started because I'm now feeling hungry.

And I’m a big cheese fan. My mother used to say I should have been a mouse because I eat so much cheese. A good old cheese scone is not bad. 

Do you have any hidden talents?

Oh, I don't think so. A lot of my friends are good at things like cooking and knitting and crocheting and needle work and all that sort of stuff and they enjoy it. I'm hopeless at any of that sort of thing. I like to do a jigsaw from time to time. Give me a spreadsheet to design! 

Maybe I need to develop some hobbies. I might take up golf. I used to do a lot of tennis and hockey and skiing in the past. 

So you said a hidden talent? Well, I used to be a Wimbledon umpire many years ago. I mostly did line judging. I got Hana Mandlíková fined: I can't remember how many dollars now, something like $500, because she told me I was blind. Hana Mandlíková was a tennis player in the 1980s. People won't even know who she is because I'm that old. Another time I was being a far line judge at Centre Court at Wimbledon and this person was sat the side going "she's going to miss it. She's gonna miss it. She's gonna miss this one". I didn't miss any of them - called all the lines correctly. I turned around and it was a Daley Thompson who was a Decathlon gold medalist in the Olympics in the eighties. 

What's your dream holiday?

Oh, definitely involves walking with friends, in a beautiful part of either this countryside or somewhere else in the world. I'd quite like to do the Scottish Isles, somewhere where there aren't many people, where I can walk and slow down. That would be my ideal vacation. I don't think I do people very well now. Yeah, crowds. I'm not really into crowds. I like space.

I think it's quite funny because we would all say that you do people quite well...

Well, I know, but I do like to go to quiet places and just slow down, read books. 

Do you have a favourite author or favourite style of book?

I'm looking forward to having a favourite style of book. My brain is so full of stuff that it takes a long time for me to be able to read a book. Although when I was in Queensland this summer I did read A Town like Alice by Nevil Shute, which was amazing because I was actually in the place where it was happening. So that would be a favourite book that I've read recently. But I'm looking forward to reading more. 

If you were stranded on a desert island, do you have a book or a film that you would want to take with you? 

Jane Eyre was always a favourite, and A Tale of Two Cities. If you're on a Desert Island Discs you get the Bible anyway. So I'd have that. 

Films? Well, on the plane this summer I saw A Man called Otto. I haven't read the book of nearly the same name. That was a great film. The ones we watch with the kids are always special - The Railway Children. The Secret Garden, The Little Princess.

The future

And looking at the future, we've sort of touched on this a bit, but we have to ask what are you going to do, what does retirement from teaching look like?

What am I going to do? Well, actually that's a very good question. I don't entirely know what I'm going to do. I am going to be doing some work with Leeds Beckett University. So there will be something there next year probably, looking at education and working with either current teachers or teachers in training. I’ll be doing a little bit more research into Headships and how to make them sustainable. I'm also going to be making some Podcasts, and I've been commissioned to write two chapters in two different books. So I've actually got quite a lot to do!

Hopefully I'll be working a little bit with Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination in the future. And I'm also going to be working volunteering one day a week at Saint Matthew's Church where I go on a Sunday. Not sure exactly what that's going to look like, but probably working with women. All to be decided. 

Will you be around Mayfield? 

I'm sure I will be around Mayfield from time to time. I've already been asked to go on next year's Year 6 residential so it looks like I'll be doing that as well. So, yes I'm sure I will.

And a final question from 1R, and this one is a tearjerker - can you stay?

I will pop in and I'll just be around the corner, but no I cannot stay. And I will definitely hear you because my garden backs onto the school field. So I won't be very far away. 

But yes, it's time to go. It's time to do something different. I'm still young enough to have enough energy to do other things. So, that's what I'm going to do. I had a very funny moment, the other day, when I overheard two children chatting with one say to the other “I thought she was retiring?” and the other one said “Yeah. Yeah, she is. What age do you have to be when you retire?” And the other person just looked at them and said, “Well, she won't see 50 again!”, and then walked off, I just thought it was hilarious because I won't see 50 again. And, you know, I'm just about to be 60. So, yeah, that's it. That's it from Mayfield in terms of being employed here. 

I think it's good to be able to leave a place where maybe you could have stayed longer. But for me, I know it's right, it's the right time to go.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with the families of Mayfield? 

Thank you for your support over the years. It's been a joint effort I think. I appreciate going into the shops and you see children and parents from the past and they come up to talk to you - please don't stop doing that!

I feel that Mayfield is in a good place to launch further into the future. It's been recognised as a centre of excellence and that's the legacy of not just me but others before me. So, I think I'm leaving it in a good place. 

Keep looking after each other, keep looking after the place, keep supporting it. And thank you for the support you've shown me over the years.