JAMESTOWN Primary School pupils bid farewell to their beloved head teacher Allyson Tucker last week after 34 years of service.

Mrs Tucker, who has been teaching for 38 years, said goodbye to the staff and pupils at the Main Street school following a special assembly in her honour.

The 59-year-old has spent 26 and a half of her 34 years at Jamestown Primary in the role of head teacher. She said: “I was saying to parents just recently that there have been so many changes. When I started as a teacher here in 1978 there weren’t even any classes of children in our main sandstone building.

“It wasn’t until 1994 that the main building was renovated and that, I think, was one of the major changes here.

“Another change was that there weren’t any toilets for the children in the annex so they had to be walked over to our main building as a class to use the toilet. It seems almost archaic now and it was something that really needed to be fixed.”

Although she will miss the school, the dedicated teacher feels now is the time to go, saying: “I think the time is right. We’re going to be amalgamated with Haldane Primary in the winter of 2017 and I think the head of Haldane is keen to continue on as head teacher afterwards. This will give her the chance to get to know the staff and kids at Jamestown.”

“I’m disappointed that I’m not going to see the new school but it’s time.”

All of the staff and pupils at the school will miss their head teacher whom they have grown fond of over her many years of service. Depute head, Linda Clephane, said: “We shall miss her greatly. We had a great day on Thursday at the assembly, a lot of fun with the kids performing for Mrs Tucker and she really enjoyed it.

“We’ll really miss her but we wish her the best with her retirement.”

The proud educator will look back fondly on her time at Jamestown Primary but is also looking forward to the next chapter of her life: “The work of the school goes on. I’m excited about what the future might hold. I’ve worked for 38 years straight and so it’ll be nice to get some time to myself.”

There won’t be too much time alone though as Mrs Tucker’s husband, Stephen, 62, who was a nurse for 12 years, before which he spent 28 years as a sub mariner, also retired last week. They will be having adventures together in the years to come. Mrs Tucker added: “We have a few things in the pipeline for what we’d like to do. We have a caravan so we’ll have a lot more holidays planned with that.”