CLARE-Marie Burchall, 62, retired on Thursday as head teacher of both St Mary’s Primary School and St Catherine’s Catholic Primary School in Swindon. A teacher for more than 40 years, the widowed mother-of-three and grandmother lives in Swindon.

“I HAVE always known that what I’m doing is what I’ve been called to do,” said Clare-Marie Burchall.

“I have a very strong feeling of vocation – that’s what’s kept me going.

“It’s a very, very satisfying feeling to know that you’re not a square peg in a round hole, you’re a round peg in a round hole. You’re in the place you’re meant to be.

“That gives you courage in difficult times.”

If there’s such a thing as a genetic pre-disposition to teaching, Clare-Marie has it.

She was born in Aberdeen to a head teacher father and a PE teacher mother. She was the middle sister of three, all of whom became teachers. Clare-Marie once thought of becoming a nurse, but her vocation beckoned.

School was followed by teacher training college in Edinburgh, where Clare-Marie met Phil, the fellow teacher she would marry and be with until his death in 1999.

Her first job as a fully-fledged teacher, having qualified in 1973, was at a primary school in Johnstone, Renfrewshire.

“We both moved to Johnstone because Renfrewshire gave houses to teachers! That was the lure, if you like. So we got a nice little council house to start our married life.

“I think every new teacher relishes getting their own class. It’s exciting and it’s wonderful, because up until that time you’ve been doing your placements, and it’s somebody else’s class.

“You never forget your first class.”

Clare-Marie’s had 42 children, but Clare-Marie was undaunted, and soon developed the teaching philosophy she’s held to throughout the ensuing years.

“A good teacher really needs to know the child and make the child feel they are the most important to the teacher.

“If you can get that across, they’ll do nothing but want to please you. It’s creating that atmosphere and environment for learning.”

What differences are there between the children of the early 1970s and those today?

“There aren’t any,” said Clare-Marie with a laugh.

“Children today are surrounded by sophisticated technology and they were more active before - they used to go out in the streets to play, and were always out playing - but they’re exactly the same.

“Children are children are children, and what made children tick back in 1973 make the child tick in the present day.

“That is, you believe in the child and you instil that confidence. That has never changed.”

At the beginning of 1976, Clare-Marie left the school to have her first child. In those days, jobs were not kept open for mothers.

As the family grew, Clare-Marie worked stints as a supply teacher, which meant tackling new challenges.

“Being a supply teacher is more difficult in the sense that you go into somebody else’s classroom with their own routines, etcetera.

“I used to have my bag of tricks – there was no national curriculum then. I might bring in a poem and develop that for the day’s activity.”

In 1985 Phil was offered the role of head of maths at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic School. With the children older, Clare-Marie worked first in Chippenham. In 1988 she started at Toothill School. Armed with a degree in special needs education from Bristol University, her first role was to open that school’s pioneering special needs unit.

Clare-Marie readily admits that she knew little about Swindon before coming here in 1995, but has never regretted the move.

“I love Swindon. I never actually thought that I would be here for the duration, but I would never live anywhere else now.”

The headship of St Mary’s came nine years ago and the simultaneous headship of St Catherine’s a little less than three years ago. One of her pupils at St Mary’s is a grandson.

“He never takes advantage, but yes, I’m called ‘Grandma’..”

As a person with a strong faith, Clare-Marie has always taken a special satisfaction in working at faith schools. She believes they can instil Gospel values such as justice, truthfulness, peace and respect for others – although she’s quick to point out that other types of school can also instil these values.

“Jesus is a role model for everything we do and say and think.

“At St Catherine’s the mission statement is: ‘Jesus is the centre of everything we do. From that comes respect and from that comes doing the very, very best that we can.

“We have to do our best to make a difference to the people around us. I think it’s that sense of community, of pulling together, that we’re all connected in some way.”

At St Mary’s the mission statement is Matthew 18:20: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

Just as Clare-Marie evolved a philosophy for teaching all those years ago, so she has with becoming a head teacher.

“I suppose the crucial principle is to really get the message across to all the staff that children only get one chance at education, and it’s up to us to make that difference, and that we are in the profession not by accident but by choice.”