SALLY Leung likens her 40 years at Montgomery Infant School and Nursery in Colchester to her being an acorn which has grown into an oak tree.

Times have changed and pressures on teachers have certainly upped but for her, the nurturing of the children has been a constant.

But now she is to retire and take some time out for herself.

Sally said: “I always wanted to do my 40 years, I am 62, I just feel the time is right, the school is in a place I am so proud of.

“If you leave somewhere, you leave it on a high. My deputy Sue Bridgeman is taking over and we have the same ethos, values and the same vision - the school will blossom.”

Being a head teacher is a tough job though, and Sally backs the Gazette’s support for the Funding for Schools campaign, to pressure the Government for more cash for schools in its Autumn Spending Review.

Many schools say despite more money coming into schools, it’s not enough to meet their spending demands on teachers’ pay, pensions as well as building repairs and equipment.

Sally said her school’s finances were stable “for now” but she added: “The funding has diminished, we have to cut the cloth accordingly to balance the budget but the children have to come first.”

What has helped is the school undergoing building work four years ago to allow it expand capacity from 232 pupils to about 330.

“At the moment we are OK but that’s not to say that in the future things won’t be different,” she added.

Time has marched on since Sally joined the school as a newly qualified teacher in 1979.

She originally trained to teach older children and admits: “It was quite a change to start with but it was something I came to absolutely love .

“Nurturing young children is something I came to love. I have taught thousands of children.”

Two thirds of the children in the school have parents who are in the military.

Sally said: “It takes quite special people to work with the military because you have to understand the military way of life.

“For me, I have supported the children and their families. That’s my proudest bit actually - I have made a difference to the children and families. If the family is happy, the children are happy.”

Sally became head teacher in 2009 and the school has repeatedly been rated as outstanding by Ofsted inspectors.

One area which Sally has promoted enthusiastically is music which has always played a big part of her life.

It helped her survive her teenage years when she was bullied by giving her a sense of purpose.

Sally went on to study music at college and trained as a specialist music teacher.

Within months of joining Montgomery, she was tasked with getting together a choir for the Colchester Schools Prom and all these years later she is still involved and is now chairwoman of its committee.

She’s also a long-standing member of Colchester Operatic Society and musical director of the Colchester Military Wives’ and Children’s Military choirs.

Sally became Primary Head Teacher of the Year at 2019’s Essex Teaching Awards, due recognition.

She’ll miss her job and the children but counts her blessing for such a fulfilling career/

“I love my job and always have done. I pull into the car park in the morning and I am sunny because that’s how I feel about coming to work.”

  • Support the Funding for Schools’ campaign at gazette-news.co.uk and by signing the petition at bit.ly/2Y4XUoR.