Pearson National Teaching Awards: Mary Compton, shortlisted for Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School, on her 30 years at Herts and Essex High School

Thirty years of teaching, and all of it at the same school, is enough to wear out even the most resilient and committed of professionals, but not Herts and Essex High’s Mary Compton.

The physics and maths teacher’s enthusiasm for the work – and the school – still shines brightly after helping what must add up to thousands of youngsters on their learning journey (though those going back to her early years would have known her as Miss Cooke).

And some of her former pupils have even turned into colleagues, which is not a bad measure of what she has been doing for the past three decades.

Such long-lasting energy and positivity demonstrate why Mary, assistant head teacher: STEM (that’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics for the uninitiated), has been shortlisted for Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School in the Pearson National Teaching Awards.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Mary, who lives in Much Hadham, ventured into the world of education, with teaching very much in her blood: a physics teacher dad and a mum who taught English.

Family life in a village outside Dungannon in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland, would veer between the arts and the sciences.

Mary, the eldest of five children, recalls: “Having teachers as parents, we grew up in that environment where working with young people was always a big priority in our household.

“But having a dad who was a physics teacher meant that every meal time it would jump between Pride and Prejudice from my mum and the moment of balancing a fork on the top of a bottle. There was always a physics discussion going on in the background, so that was always the norm.

“As a girl studying physics then at A-level that was the norm, whereas it wasn’t the norm for a lot of people. It was accepted that you could be a girl and be really good at physics and maths.”

And it was science that won out in the end, with Mary going on to study physics and astrophysics at Queen’s University, Belfast, in 1990 – she was one of only three female students among a cohort of 100 – and graduating in 1994 with a BSc with commendation. This was followed by a PGCE teacher training qualification at St Mary’s College in Twickenham, south-west London.

A link between a convent school in her home area and St Elizabeth’s Centre at Perry Green, which supports people with complex needs, resulted in work there during the summer holidays while at school and university.

So when it was time to find a teaching role, the Bishop’s Stortford area, with all the colleagues and friends she had acquired during her holiday work, looked like the perfect place, and the Herts and Essex the perfect school.

Mary says: “I went to a girls school and I discovered the Herts and Essex, a girls’ school. It was the perfect place for me to teach because getting to teach girls physics and maths on their own where they’re not influenced by any of the stereotyping, that has meant we’ve always been very successful in encouraging girls to study physics and maths.”

The world of teaching has of course changed over the past 30 years, but it has been Mary’s approach to embrace the change and look for the opportunities rather than fight it.

She says: “I remember when we first got email at school, that was incredible. When I started we had chalk and rolly-boards, and then we upgraded to whiteboards with pens. Now we’re doing things through Teams and they all have a OneNote exercise book and they can do everything online.

“I love using technology for teaching, I think you just have to embrace it and evaluate it. I think it has great prospects for efficiency. One of the things I love to do is to try to find things that are inefficient for teachers. I think since I started teaching I would say the workload for teachers has definitely increased, so anything we can find that gives us a more efficient approach that is not replicating work for people is good.”

There are 16 categories in the Pearson National Teaching Awards. Nominations are made by schools, apart from the Unsung Hero category, for which nominations are accepted from the public.

The winners of the latest stage – silver awards – were announced last Wednesday (June 18), which was Thank a Teacher Day. The silver award winners are now put forward for the final judging. The gold award winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on Saturday, November 29, though some will be revealed on BBC TV’s The One Show during the preceding week.

Mary says of her nomination: “I wasn’t expecting it at all, I was really bowled over. I know from nominating other people how much work goes into it. I couldn’t believe how everyone had worked really hard to put together a nomination for me.

“I feel I’ve been gifted in life this job I love, that is celebration enough, but then I was a bit embarrassed, and then I thought, you just have to embrace it, so I had to embrace the love of my colleagues and the children and I just had to accept it.

“I think it’s also really important to celebrate teaching and for the general public to see teachers being celebrated. I think that’s very important if we’re going to invite enthusiastic and passionate young people to come and join this wonderful profession and to celebrate it publicly.”

We all remember our great teachers and Mary was fortunate to have someone who was both her father and her first inspiration.

“I always think my dad was my first physics teacher, but I had a wonderful woman, Mrs Farrell, who taught me physics A-level and she was incredible, such an amazing role model.

“The teachers who make an impact you just never forget them. The teachers who were at Herts and Essex when I started as a teacher, the impact they made on me as a young teacher is phenomenal. They impacted me and maybe that hopefully allows me to impact on some of our new teachers coming through. That’s so important; trying to bring that wee bit of wonder and awe into every lesson when you have that opportunity to trigger their imagination.”

And it looks like a third generation is likely to enter teaching, as Mary’s son is keen to follow his mother’s profession. And, who knows, he may even end up working at the Herts and Essex alongside her.

Apart from academic teaching, Mary takes an active role in staff training and continuing professional development, running various activity groups and also playing the violin with the school orchestra.

In addition to maths and physics, Mary teaches astronomy as an afterschool class which can lead to the GCSE qualification (perhaps an apt subject for a school whose motto is Sic itur ad astra – Reach for the stars).

What would Mary have done had she not been a teacher? Perhaps with her interest in astronomy and astrophysics she might have wanted to be, say, an astronaut?

But the question fails to take off: “I can’t imagine an alternative life, and to be honest I can’t imagine a better life. I can’t imagine a job I would rather be doing.

“At the moment on social media there’s a lot of negativity around teaching and there are real challenges that we are facing in recruiting young teachers, but for me it is the perfect job, I have joy every day. I love teaching my subject, I love being with all the youngsters, I love all of the challenges. I get energy out of it; it doesn’t leave me feeling tired at the end of the day. I feel energised.

“I can’t imagine retiring. I couldn’t imagine not doing this. It’s just great.”