‘Everyone’s mum’ at Buxton Community School steps down after 34 years

Jackie Cruse joined Buxton Community School in 1992 after just completing her PCGE in Sheffield.

For the next three decades she has taken on many roles in the school.

The 57-year-old said: “It’s strange not being at school this term. I’ve even got a holiday booked in term time which has never happened.

“I have loved my job, all the children I have met but the time felt right to step away.”

She says she still has the little books she made for her teddies when she was young and playing teachers.

“I always knew I wanted to do this vocation and it has been brilliant.”

Throughout her time at BCS Jackie has taught English, drama, film studies, was head of Year 11 and most recently for nine years has been head of sixth form.

She said: “I have really enjoyed the pastoral side of teaching too where you are helping students with everything from applying to university to taking pregnancy tests.

“One of my students filled in his UCAS forms and put me down as a contact and when it said relationship he put ‘school mum’ and it made me feel so proud.

“I like to think that I have been everyone’s mum here and I’ve loved them all whether they have gone on to Oxford or to prison!”

She says the best moments are seeing a child reach their full potential and thrive.

“There were students a couple of years ago who failed their GCSEs but I took the chance on them and let them do A levels and they worked so hard and went on to great things and it just makes me so proud.

“There will always be the pupils who go on to great things, but the ones who really worked hard for it and have changed their life because of their determination just makes me so proud..”

Buxton Community School is where Jackie met her husband Paul and where her two children Leo and Lucy went to school.

“I’m like a stick of rock with BCS in the middle and it will always have a huge place in my heart.

“I can’t go anywhere in town without someone saying ‘Hi Miss’ and that’s just wonderful.

“This job has been a privilege and I am now teaching the second generation of families but I wanted to leave before someone said you taught my grandma!”

At a special leaving assembly in July the school contacted past pupils who sent in messages to their favourite teacher.

Jackie said: “There was one student who had gone on to be a lecturer at New York University and another who is acting at Shakespeare’s Globe and they all remembered me which was lovely.

“It’s so nice to think that even after all these years I’ve made a lasting impression on the students.”