Back to school: And a big thanks to those special teachers who stay with you (that’s you, Mr Williams.)

Imagine a 10-year-old girl.

She’s keen and polite, always running because she’s always late – a trait that would stay with her, unfortunately – but she’s hardworking and eager to learn.

She loves school, but it doesn’t always come easy to her. She’s going into her last year at St Peter’s C of E Primary School, and her new teacher, Mr Williams, is a man. She’s never had a male teacher before. What will he be like?

Mr Williams comes in on that first day and he’s not just a man but he’s a massive man. A giant. She’s tiny, too, which makes him seem even bigger than his 6ft 4 ins.

And then he starts to speak. And her fears vanish, almost immediately, because she can tell, she just instinctively knows, that Mr Williams is a good, decent man. He soon learns all their names, their likes/their dislikes, their strengths, their weaknesses, and he has this manner, this easy way about him, which makes complicated things seem easy and the girl, for the first time in her school life, feels like she can fly.

That girl was me. I was a shy 10-year-old girl, lacking in confidence. And Mr Williams made me believe I could do anything.

School didn’t always come easy to me. I’d read things and some words made no sense to me. I’d write stories and I’d be stuck, dumbfounded sometimes, by a word I just couldn’t find. I didn’t know this, but I was dyslexic. I worked around this by building my own personal thesaurus of words I could use instead of the word I couldn’t spell.

Nobody had spotted this – but Mr Williams did. ‘Why are you using this word here, Amanda?’ he said, but he was understanding and helpful and I felt I could tell him.

He encouraged me to read more. It was a gentle cajoling, so reading never felt like a chore. But it helped me so much.

I was raised in Cleethorpes. It was a fishing town. My grandad was a fisherman. My dad worked in the Findus factory.

The British fishing industry went the same way as the British mining industry at about the same time. It was decimated and it affected all of us.

There wasn’t a huge amount of money in my town. Every year, there were school trips for the kids who could afford it. We didn’t have the money for that. I didn’t go on the trips.

So there was a small group of kids that week who had one-on-one classroom sessions with Mr Williams as my classmates went on the school trip.

That week transformed me. I read and I wrote, and he instilled in me not just a love of words but a love of learning that has stayed with me my whole adult life.

He didn’t just boost my knowledge. He built my self-esteem. It’s a special gift, being the kind of teacher who can make children feel that the impossible is possible.

I think of Mr Williams often, like people do of a good teacher who left a mark on them, who made a difference.

I think of him every year at this time, the end of the holidays and the start of a new school year.

It’s a funny old time, I always think, the end of the school holidays and the start of a new term – new shoes, new uniform, new beginnings but the return of the same old morning  routine.

If you have kids that have gone back to school this week, I wish you well. Somewhere, amid all the stress and chaos, remind them to enjoy it.

But, most of all, remember the good teachers. They’re in every school. Quietly, without any fuss, they make the world a better place.

So from a shy 10-year-old girl who grew up to think she could do anything, a big, heartfelt thanks to all of you and all you do – especially you, Mr Williams.