Episode 20: Karen Norton MBE, Retired Head Teacher

INTRO: Welcome to the Trailblazers Podcast series by Periplum, sharing the experiences of trailblazers living and working in the Tees Valley: the innovators, activists, workers and adventurers as told in their own words. Episode 19 Karen Norton MBE, Retired Head Teacher Karen (Interviewee) I was born in Middlesbrough. I was the eldest of two children. I've got a younger brother who's five years younger than me, so quite a bit of an age gap. Dad worked at ICI and then Cleveland Bridge as a welder burner and my mum was a housewife up until I was about 16 years old and then she went to work at North Tees Hospital as a telephonist on the telephone exchange. Very happy childhood, very close family- my Mum and Dad still live in the same house now, so they've been in that house well over 60 years. They were the first people in our family to own their own house. Everybody else had council houses. So they've stepped up from that and they got their own house. They were very proud of the house. It was a big step for them, and they've been very, very happy living in that house…I'm obsessed with dogs so I got my first dog when I was 11. Then we had two from then on until I left, when I was 18 to go to university. But a very, very happy house. Paul (Interviewer) What was the typical day for you as a teenager. Karen (Interviewee) As a teenager, it would have been up breakfast, school for the day. Then from sort of 16 onwards, after school I worked in the local supermarket…just to get some funds to buy clothes and go out on a weekend and things like that. Mum and Dad were quite protective, so we were never allowed to play out in the street, so we had to come in and do homework, school work…we were allowed to go and do clubs. So I was in Adventure Scouts and part of the local church. I was in the church choir, we used to get paid on a Saturday to attend weddings…you got 50 pence a wedding, singing at a wedding. So it was quite a sheltered life that I led up to sort of 18 until I went to university. Paul (Interviewer) You say 50p Karen (Interviewee) Yeah Paul (Interviewer) At that point, that's quite a lot of money. Karen (Interviewee) That's quite a lot of money, yeah. One had…sometimes we had 4 weddings on a Saturday, so it was like £2. Paul (Interviewer) So leisure time…and obviously you had the clubs that you were doing and you weren't allowed out, such you…you weren't allowed out to play. So.. was there a lot of family leisure time with your parents and younger brothers? Karen (Interviewee) Yes, it was…it was all family time, really. Very supportive of school. They wanted us to do well at school and progress or they helped us with homework, and you know- I was struggling with maths so they got me an extra maths tutor so they were very proactive in things like that. But we'd go out for lunch on Sunday and…big family lunches. Mum and Dad used to go and play badminton, so there was lots of sporting activities. For me. My brother wasn't sporty, he was more geeky on…CB radios at that time, so that's what he was into. But I did quite a bit of hockey, netball, running that sort of thing. Paul (Interviewer) Did you have any chores at home? Karen (Interviewee) The only thing that we had to do was we were in charge of the washing up after tea, so I was in charge of washing, and my brother did drying. Unless we could get out of it, then we didn't do it. But Mum just did everything really. Bit naughty. Paul (Interviewer) Going back to school, did you enjoy school? I mean, you said you struggled with some subjects, but like, did you actually enjoy the schooling period of your life? Karen (Interviewee) Yes, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Loved primary school and secondary school. It wasn't so much the education part, it was the social aspect of it. Lots of friends, lots of people, lots of people from mixed areas all coming together and it was the Grange in Stockton and I went to. It was just a brilliant, brilliant school. I’m still friends with the people that I was friendly with when I was with 11. Two of my closest friends are people I was with at 11. Lovely. Lovely. Paul (Interviewer) Did you have any favourite subjects or any favourite teachers? Karen (Interviewee) Mrs Hendry cause my main subject union was R.E. [Religious Education] Mrs Hendry was my R.E. [Religious Education] teacher. She was brilliant. And the schools did really well because the options that I wanted to do didn't fit in with the blocks at the school provided. Paul (Interviewer) I see. Karen (Interviewee) So I went to see the head teacher at the time and said…look, these are the subjects that I really want to do. I don't want to do any others. So the school were really accommodating and they allowed me to do all level R.E. [Religious Education] but sit in a CSE class. So she talked 2 curriculums alongside each other, Mrs Hendry. And I did the O level syllabus and the others did the CSE syllabus. So she were really accommodating so I loved R.E. [Religious Education], loved history and even though I hated maths, Mr Robson was an amazing maths teacher and I still remember my mock …in I think it was about December-time for my O level maths. I got 18%. Which is just absolutely shocking. But he tutored me, up until the June and I came out with a C which Paul (Interviewer) Wow Karen (Interviewee) was just like… [breathes out] Brilliant teacher, very inspirational teacher. Paul (Interviewer) Do you have a fond memory of your early family life. Karen (Interviewee) I think it's… really big family occasions where Christmas, Christmas was massive. We used to have Christmas together as a family, but then the next day… Aunties and Uncles used to come round and we'd all celebrate together. So Christmas was big and that's influenced me now. So Christmas is massive here. I have 4 Christmas trees and everybody comes to us. So…we have 12 people around the table on Christmas Day and it's just…chaos. But it's what I like doing, and that stems from Christmas at home that was such a big event really. You know. Paul (Interviewer) And its… Karen (Interviewee) Television off. Games. Food- just gorgeous. Paul (Interviewer) You've talked a little bit about when you left school. You worked at supermarket for the… Karen (Interviewee) Yep Paul (Interviewer) …to earn some money. So were you in any sort of formal training or any sort of formal education at the same time as working at the supermarket, was that a stock check… Karen (Interviewee) I was at Sixth Form College. Paul (Interviewer) Right. Could you describe the routes that you took in between school into a working career? Karen (Interviewee) Yep. So…I….left The Grange at 16 and went to Stockton Sixth Form College. I took initially 3 A Levels: One was Latin, one was Ancient History and Ancient Literature, and… the third one was R.E. [Religious Education]. But it wasn't Christianity, it was Islam, Philosophy and Ethics. After the first year, I gave up Latin. It got to the point that I just…[laughs] it was very difficult. I got my O Level in it, so that was fine, but I couldn't take it any further, so I concentrated on the 2 A levels. Luckily, at that time, to get into university, you only needed 2 E [grades] at A level to be teachers which it's…it's crazy now and I got an E [grade] for my Ancient History and Ancient Literature and a C [grade] for R.E. [Religious Education]. During the Sixth Form, as I said, I was working at the supermarket, but then at 18… I decided that I wanted to go straight into University. I didn't want to take any time out, I wanted to go to Uni[versity] and I wanted a change in circumstances, a change in area. And…I went to Birmingham. So from a very sheltered, rural Paul (Interviewer) Retreat? Karen (Interviewee) Yeah, straight to inner city. It was Westhill College in Birmingham, which is affiliated to the University of Birmingham…spent 3 very, very happy years there. It was wonderful. And made, again, some fantastic friends that I'm still friends with today and 2 of them are actually coming to stay this weekend to go to the christening. And I did a B-Ed A [Bachelor of Education] and I did it for 3 years. You could have done 4 years, but at the end of 3 years, I've had enough. I wanted to go out and earn some money and get on with my career. So I stayed in Birmingham for the first 2 years. I wanted to…know that I could teach in an inner city, multicultural school and have that under my belt, before… I knew I was always going to come back up here, but I wanted to know that I could do that in quite a tough environment really. So I started off in Perry Bar in Birmingham. It was a very multicultural school. I worked in a Nursery at that particular time…an element of the school. We had 39 children in the class and we had 1 white Christian child in the class. The rest were Asian, Caribbean, you name it, but we only had 1 white, so it was very, very different to… where I was here. But it was a fantastic experience. Eid was amazing. We were right in front of the Aston Villa football ground in Ewe Tree Primary School it was..And Eid...the school just shut. And all the families brought the tables out into the street at that time…had big parties. All the teachers were there. It was massive. It was absolutely amazing. So that was a very happy time in my life. I loved it and I still love Birmingham now, and go back quite often. My son was based near Stafford, so we go back there quite often…. Then from there, I returned home to get married and we lived in East Harlsey, which is round here and I got my first job in Whinstone Primary School in Ingleby Barwick, which was part of the Vision [Academy Learning] Trust. So that was my first job. Stayed there for 16 years and worked my way up from just out of NGT [Newly Qualified Teacher] right up to First Leader before I went on to further leadership. Paul (Interviewer) So it sounds like working in education was always your ambition? Karen (Interviewee) I never ever want to do anything else- all my games that I played at home it was all teacher based. I was a teacher while my teddies [toys] were set up on my bed and they were all my pupils in my class so… no, it was never, ever want be anything else. Paul (Interviewer) And was it always primary? Karen (Interviewee) Primary..yeah Paul (Interviewer) That you were interested in, it was never secondary. Karen (Interviewee) No Paul (Interviewer) That you did. Did you ever consider teaching older children, so... Karen (Interviewee) No, no. Paul (Interviewer) Is there a reason for that? Karen (Interviewee) I always wanted primary. I'm always very.. small children focus and I'm only small myself and I didn't like the idea of the pupils being taller than me [laughs] which most of them would be because they all seem to be about 6 foot now and I'm 5 foot 3 [inches] Paul (Interviewer) So at any point in your working career, could you describe a typical day in your working life? Karen (Interviewee) If you think about Headship there is no typical day. Because as much as you can have a diary, it can be planned out to the Nth degree, but if you turn up at school at like half seven [07:30] in the morning and you've looked at your emails overnight, your diary has changed by the time you've got into school, different things come in, parents are on the phone…but I did always like to start off the morning doing a tour of the school, making sure everybody was happy in the classrooms, there was no issues with anybody. So that was my first job every morning when I went into school. Then my second job was when the children come in I would be on the gate every morning. That was a non-negotiable, unless I wasn't in school and then it was my deputy's job to be on the gate every morning. I just wanted to welcome all the children in and welcome the parents in - and if they wanted to have a chat to me about anything, absolutely fine. But I needed to be that first person they saw every single day, that was massively important to me. Beyond that, it would be things like…meeting with parents, meetings with staff, looking at the School improvement rule within schools, monitoring evaluation, classroom observations, talking to children. I like to communicate with children. So that was huge. Doing assemblies in front of the whole school. It was very important for me to know every name of every child in the school, so that if they were talking to me in the corridor, I could name them- so it had that personal connection to the child. So that was important. Meeting with Staff, PTA [Parent Teacher Association], Governors…it could have been absolutely anything. And then lunch time, lunch duty, playground duty. Or if it was part of my Trust role: visiting other schools, talking to the teachers, trying to help improve other Schools Paul (Interviewer) Did you ever…build into your time to actually go into classrooms and teach? Did you ever think...oh well, actually I want to keep my hand in with the classes so…? Karen (Interviewee) For the first two years I did at Junction Farm. When I took the school over, it was a small school, we had 120 pupils. It had mixed year groups in classes together and not enough staff really to cover it, and I hate mixed year groups because it's so difficult for the teachers to teach mixed year groups. They've got enough on their plates without having to do 2 year groups in the same year so I did stand in and take some classes at that particular time and then… did supply if teachers were off for any particular reason. And then also which possibly shouldn't be said, but I always gave the staff an afternoon off near Christmas to go and have some time if they wanted some time and I would cover their classes for that experience. It's very naughty. It shouldn’t happen but… Paul (Interviewer) So that period of time, did you still manage to maintain a good work-life balance when you was at that point of life? Did you have any leisure activities or any clubs that you did after school? Karen (Interviewee) No, not really. And headship even less. It's a very, very demanding job. You don't sleep because things play on your mind. You don't switch off if you've got social services cases, if you've got anything to do with police or anything to do with children, you just can't switch off from them. My mobile was by the side of my bed. And it would be on permanently. And when I went on holiday, I like to go on holiday. So when I went on holiday… I remember going to Majorca for a week and my mobile phone was underneath my sunbed, because there were still people communicating with me all the time when I was on holiday. So you never switch off. Ever. Even Christmas Day, my work mobiles were still there, and still getting them, so there's no time to switch off, at all… Paul (Interviewer) [Exhales] Karen (Interviewee) Yeah, it's it. It was tough. Paul (Interviewer) I mean, you've already talked about some of these already, but what would you say were the biggest challenges that you encountered in your adult life- the major challenges that you've faced as part of your career, shall we say? Karen(Interviewee) Umm…for me, I think the hardest time in my life, which… was sort of life and it had an impact on career as well was I got divorced when I was 20…..I was about 30. My ex-husband moved…abroad, so I had the children virtually myself. My parents were really supportive and they helped, they picked the children up from school, took the children to school and things like that. So that was amazing, but it was still all on…me. So I was…teaching, climbing the ladder career-wise, but still have the children to look after. My son was a local rugby player, played badminton for the County, North Yorkshire County. My daughter was a, a national runner and some point she also did Sword Fencing and she'd go Sword Fence abroad and things like…So…during the week it was school and clubs after school, which luckily my Mum and Dad used to take the children to the track on a Tuesday and a Thursday. But Saturdays and Sundays… it was sport all the time. So you never got time to live really. Paul (Interviewer) I…I can relate to that. Like I say, I,I remember one particular time taking my eldest daughter to a trampoline class and sitting there with a pile of maths books in.. Karen (Interviewee) Yeah, yeah. Sat in Clairville Stadium, pile of books next to me while they were running round the track. It's just what you had to do, isn't it? Paul (Interviewer) Yep. A nice question here I think - Who has inspired you the most and why? Karen (Interviewee) Personally, my parents are being, the biggest influence in my life and give me sort of life goals. Things like working for Academic achievement and things like that, and how to run a family, and make family the focus for everything. Careerwise. I would say I would have 4. 4 inspirational Head Teachers that I'm aware of. The first one was a guy called Mike Abraham and he was the head of Yarm Prep [Yarm Independent Prep School] at the time, and every day I'd drive to school past Yarm Prep going to Whinstone, and Mike would be on the crossing at Yarm- day in, day out, morning and night. Seeing the parents talking to the children, making sure they all got over the road safety and I thought: That's a good Head. He's greeting people. He's talking to everybody. He's making himself available first thing in the morning. Hence I took that into my career and did that. Even though I never worked with Mike. I could see from, as a public person passing him, how available he was to his school. Second person was Pete Smith. He was the head of Whinstone Primary School, where I worked for 16 years. And he taught me…how to look at a child as a whole being not just as a little instrument of Maths, English, reading, writing. There was more to the child than that. He was very into Art and got us involved in all sorts of Arts projects. We won the National Gallery competition one year we had big Dragons hanging from ceilings and all sorts. He was amazing and he was very into International Schools and things like that. So we joined Comenius project and we got funding to visit schools in other countries. So I don't know how it happened, but I was really lucky I went to Sicily. I went to Finland, went to Vienna and Berlin worked for a week in these different schools and just brought so much back. And then we did projects with those schools and we shipped out our project work so that every school we were involved with in those countries could have that project up in their school. It was amazing. It was absolutely brilliant, and, this is totally irrelevant but we went back to Sicily this year as a holiday. And I met up with the people in Sicily that we were based with this project and he took us to his vineyard and we had a lovely meal in his vineyard. It was just amazing. Yeah. And two more. One would be Andrew Wright who was Head of Mandale Mill in Thornaby and I worked as his Deputy, and he was very financially adept - figures and things like that - whereas I'm more a people person, he was Policies and Figures and his accounts were second to none. And he taught me about succession planning, and…again I was really lucky and he sent me on a conference to Boston in America to look at succession planning at Harvard University. And… there was a group of Heads from Stockton going, but Andrew didn't want to go. So he sent me. And that was brilliant. And it taught me that you need to have that succession planning within your school. So for an example of how I took that into Junction Farm, I employed somebody at 18 or 17, 18. She was at Sixth Form College, but she was a lunchtime supervisor for me. Then she went to University to do teaching. I employed her then, when she came out of Universities a main school teacher. She went on to be a Subject Leader, FES leader, and now she's Deputy Head. And it's just how that succession planning works. If you see talent, you've got to harness it and get it going, really. And she's absolutely flying. And then the last one, Simon White, who was the CEO of the Academy and he is a very strong character- charismatic, so organised, workaholic, gets up at 4:00 in the morning and doesn't stop till 10 O’Clock [22.00] or 12 O’Clock [00:00] at night. But for him, everything was about the child. It wasn't about anything else. It was what we could do to make life for that child. And that's it. They're my inspirations. Paul (Interviewer) So what has been your greatest achievement? Do you think? Karen (Interviewee) Personally, children, because they're my world and I'll do anything for them. My whole life is based around helping them really. Professionally, it was, I suppose, moving Junction Farm from a satisfactory school where when I took it off there was no reading scheme in the school, it was one after school club, one residential. And it was mixed form entry. And then I took it all over and we got the reading scheme up and running. We got residentials in…we had residentials from Year 2 to Year 6. We went into single form entry. I opened up 2 special needs units for autism based units and we got outstanding in all areas. But the thing was also the relationships with staff was fantastic. We were a family. We built the school up together. It wasn't me, it was us. We did it together. We had a very good social life as a school. We had a social calendar. You planned out your school events, but you also planned out your social events because I wanted my staff to have time out of school. And so that they weren't like me, just thinking about school all the time. So we had meals out. We had events out. We went to Edinburgh for the weekend Paul (Interviewer) Wow Karen (Interviewee) And some others even went to Spain for a week. But it was all planned and it was open to absolutely anybody that wanted to go. Junction farm was a lovely place to work. Paul (Interviewer) It's fantastic. Would you like to talk about another recent achievement? Karen (Interviewee) Ohh yes also MBE.. sorry I forgot about that. Paul (Interviewer) [Laughs] You don't have to talk about that. Karen (Interviewee) [Laughs] Paul (Interviewer) It’s, I just thought I’d…um.. you know, Karen (Interviewee) Yeah. Yeah. Paul (Interviewer) Congratulations on that um Karen (Interviewee) Thank you. Paul (Interviewer) But I don't know, what does an MBE involve? I mean, what do you get? What, what does it give you status as? Karen (Interviewee) You’re a Member of the British Empire, so… it was a complete shock. I knew nothing about it whatsoever. I actually got a letter here and it was very official and it had a, an official stamp on. And I opened it…and my face must have gone absolutely white because the officialness of it. I thought it was some sort of like court summons or something. And I thought, oh, I've done something wrong and my partner looked at me and he said: What's the matter? And I went: I've got an MBE. I do so. What? And it was just out of this world. I think the nicest thing about that was I was nominated by staff from Junction Farm, pupils from as far back as as Whinstone primary School that I worked at when I was 24-25. They'd all put nominations in as well because people have to nominate you and have to put why they would nominate you for… Paul (Interviewer) So it spans your career then? Karen (Interviewee) Totally. Yeah, totally. I was very proud. My parents…you know, when you think of their background and you know, I was the first person to go to university. So to be the first member of the family, to get anything like that. Yeah. It was very, very special. So I'm going to Windsor in July. There's a bit of a backlog from COVID so…you're allowed three guests. So my partner's coming and my two children are coming. Yeah, very special. Paul (Interviewer) I was going to ask this question last actually, but I think it follows on quite nicely from this: How would you describe your legacy? Karen (Interviewee) That's difficult because my career changed so much, but I think it should be the partnerships. And how close people work together. So that it's supportive, it's not all about being a leader sitting in an ivory tower. You need to be with people on the ground and you need to be there for everybody, not just hiding away in your office. You need to be out and about with everybody mingling, talking. And getting involved in things. Paul (Interviewer) And err yeah Karen (Interviewee) It’s difficult when you're going to schools where the systems aren’t in place with things like that, and you know, and there's blockers in place. Paul (Interviewer) Yeah. Karen (Interviewee) And it's trying to break down those blockers Paul (Interviewer) Yeah. Karen (Interviewee) Because once in place, it's very difficult to break them down. Paul (Interviewer) Yeah. OK. Could you describe a typical day now for you? Karen (Interviewee) [Laughs] Yeah, typical day now. I get up probably earlier now than I did when I went to work, I'm up at half five [0530]. I have 3 grandchildren from my side of the family and I care for them at different periods. I have one I have five days a week. So this morning, for example, I was at his house for 7 o’clock [07:00] this morning. He's 2 [years old] this weekend and his mum's teacher, so she leaves to go to work at 7:20. So I'm there to help with the breakfast things and everything. She leaves. So, for example, today my first part of the day was a toddler exercise class. In Sedgefield. So that was this morning. Then from there going to see my parents, parents are elderly now and Mum's got Parkinson's disease. So my dad looks after Mum. So I go around and help with that as well. Then back with my Grandson. I dropped him off at his Dad's and then his Dad's on nights tonight. So I'll take him back over at 3 o’clock [3:00] this afternoon and Mum won't get in till after 6pm tonight. So I'm there till 6pm, then drive home. [Laughs] Paul (Interviewer) And somewhere in between that take the dogs for a walk? Karen (Interviewee) Well I’ll take the dogs for a walk when I come back in after 6pm round the village. Paul (Interviewer) So still a busy time with life? Karen (Interviewee) Oh it’s madness. Madness. Paul (Interviewer) Last question then -what are your hopes and dreams for the future? Karen (Interviewee) Sleep. [laughs] I'd like to sleep. I think that's the nice thing about retiring. You don't have as much playing on your mind as you do when you're working. And you can switch off, which is nice. I like holidays. We've bought a static caravan in Keswick and Keswick's my heart place, so…we go there quite a lot and I want to continue doing that as much as I possibly can. OUTRO: Thank you for listening to Periplum’s Trailblazers Podcasts funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. To listen to more of the series, and follow our projects visit our website at periplumheritage.com