Mick Keeshan

WATCH OUR ONLINE POLITICS CHANNEL, PEEPS, ON YOUTUBE

A PE teacher hanging up his whistle after 35 years at the same school has told how his pupils inspired him all along the way.

Mick Keeshan, who was born in Dalby Street – which as fate would have it is now home to Talacre Sport Centre – will be well known to anybody who went to William Ellis School over the past three and a half decades.

As a newly qualified teacher from the Polytechnic of North London now known as the London Metropolitan University in 1989, Mr Keeshan also taught maths early on in his career and even drama in his early years at the school in Highgate Road.

He said: “35 years, all at Ellis, all in that one building. The thing with teaching is each year is a different year. My love was always sports, coaching and working with young people so it was a natural decision to go into teaching.”

Mr Keeshan as a boy lived on the Maitland Park estate and on Castle Road in Kentish Town and said he had always been interested in sports, playing football in the Queen’s Crescent area or at the back of the Parliament Hill Lido in the summer.

His first year of teaching at Ellis was a time of change, when the National Curriculum had just been introduced in 1988 giving teachers, particularly in PE the opportunities to create syllabuses for subjects that had previously had none.

Mr Keeshan leading William Ellis to play a schools final at Highbury

Mr Keeshan said: “35 years I’ve gone through seven headteachers and you know what happens to a school is it changes and the changes at Ellis have been very progressive.

“It’s quite a unique school, a small school, and the teaching has transformed over the years and it is very refreshing to see. It keeps you on your toes.

“In 35 years you learn a lot. The one key thing I learned after all these years is the emotional connection you make with the boys, simple things like students asking me how I am and vice versa, and making the young lads feel like they’re worth something. I think that’s very important as well.”

He added: “The pressures that boys come into school with, the socio-economic pressures from families. Everyone has baggage, and you know it’s not 100 per cent smiles all the time and after 35 years you detect that and you learn a lot about human nature. When these kids learn empathy you notice it.”

Mr Keeshan said he’ll miss the “banter” of the Ellis boys and will look back on moments like winning several cup finals at the old Arsenal stadium.

Mick Keeshan grew up in Maitland Park

He said: “When we did get into the final and played St Aloysius and Holloway seeing the boys go out on the field it was a moment of dreams. It was a dream moment for them playing on a hallowed turf like High­bury, having that experi­ence and seeing that.

“When you see the delight on someone’s face when they perform a somersault for the first time on the trampoline in a routine and it looks like an Olympian somersault.

“And when you see the boys start sports for the first time you see the joy in their faces. “I can’t help but reminisce about it all. I’ve seen past and present teachers and the new teachers who have come in. I’m thinking, to those teachers: look after yourself, emotionally, mentally, physically, look after yourself and make sure you enjoy it.”

WATCH OUR ONLINE POLITICS CHANNEL, PEEPS, ON YOUTUBE