A LONG-SERVING headteacher has said that the profession has ‘changed so much’ as she edges closer to her retirement.

Jane Simpson, who has been at the helm of Northern Primary School in Weir for the last 14 years, is set to step down at the end of term.

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The 61-year-old, who has had an almost 30-year career in teaching, has said that while the profession has been transformed over recent years, the focus is still ‘always about the children’.

She has said that the new term in September will be strange as for once she will not be preparing to greet a new cohort of pupils and instead will be joining the school run in Darwen as her youngest grandchild Harry starts school.

The mum-of-two and grandmother-of-three said: “It is true that schools these days are very different to when I first started teaching, and everyone is held accountable for what they do.

“Northern has been my life for 14 years and teaching has changed so much with the curriculum.

“The one thing I’ve noticed from teaching this long is that everything does go in circles, but at the heart of it all is always about the children and trying to get the very best possible from them.”

Before getting the head’s role at Northern in 2002, she was a deputy headteacher of Wolfenden Street Primary School in Bolton.

Her husband Malcolm is semi-retired and she has already set herself the challenge of renovating their home and they are looking to buy a home in France to retire to.

Mrs Simpson said: “It feels very very good to reach retirement.

“It is quite rare for a headteacher to have a school that has grown up with you if you like, and I know the school will be in good hands when I leave.

“It has been my privilege to work with the children whom I think of as my grandchildren, the staff who have been like family and the parents who I’ve had a very good relationship with on the whole.”

Former deputy headteacher Jackie Marr has been appointed at headteacher from September.