The noblest of professions

It was wonderful to present this year's graduates of the Bourton Meadow Teacher Training programme with their certificates on Wednesday evening. While the England football team heroically but sadly lost to Croatia later that evening, here in Buckingham and in the rest of the UK we keep winning the most fabulous teachers to educate our children and build the future!!

Here is the speech I made to the graduates, their families & friends, school governors and, of course, all the teachers & staff who run and support the programme:

Like last year, it is my greatest of pleasures and huge honour to be here this evening for the awarding of certificates to the new graduates of the Bourton Meadow Teacher Training programme. 

Just to begin: thank you, deeply, thank you all. Whether you are a new teacher, a seasoned one, a member of the admin team or indeed a family member who has supported one of the students throughout this training course - you are all helping to change children’s lives for the better. And through them a better Buckingham and a better world. There is no nobler occupation, in my opinion. (Although I must admit to some bias as both my parents were teachers) 

Last year, my theme as Mayor was ambition. And of course, you are all in the ambition business. This year, I selected imagination as you cannot have ambition without it. 

So I have been spending my time looking for ways to praise, recognise and celebrate the boosting the Imagination Quotient here in Buckingham. And we have a very high #ImQ (as I call it) here in our town. And you here are making it rise even higher!  

As it happens, tomorrow evening, I giving a speech to the annual prize-giving event at my old school in north Portsmouth. They challenged me to remember the highlights of what I learnt from when I was school. Obviously I won’t read out my whole speech here but here are some of the highlights - centring on the word imagination. I will be telling them that I learnt about:

• A sense of I and my uniqueness from Ms Stothers who taught English
• The need to trust in maths, numbers and science from Commander Foster, the Maths teacher 
• A focus on ambition from Mr Le Min the headteacher
• The importance of games and fun from Mr Davies, the Gamesmaster
• Innovation and elegant solutions from Mr Overton, the Physics teacher
• The value of nature from Mrs Munday my Biology teacher
• The importance of activity from Mr Kent who organised badminton in the evenings (and taught French)
• The need to always be tactful and courteous (there is a longer story here..)
• Investment and how you get out what you put in from my Chemistry teacher, Dr Race
• The huge importance of creating opportunities for all from Miss Stuart who taught history (and about the work of Oxfam)
• And the delight in the now - and how the future of everything begins now. And I learnt this from the Latin tenses of my teacher Miss Wood. 

All of which spells Imagination! 

The most precious piece of learning that I have taken from my school days is a valuing of my own imagination and my respect for everyone else’s. With our imaginations we can all create new worlds and new lives for ourselves. And no one can take your imagination away from you. Our imagination liberates us, inspires us and drives us forward. And it was Mrs Baker, my English teacher who taught me that with novels and with poetry.

It never ceases to intrigue me how I can remember the names of all my teachers. Never forget that your names will be the on the credits of the films of the lives of the children you teach! You will be helping them increase their ImQs as well.

So I am here to wish you well in your careers as teachers..

So may I thank you again sincerely for being such amazing imagineers - helping young children construct their future lives.