School bell rings on Joyce's 42 years of service

Published on Wednesday 27 May 2009 09:37

Joyce Mudie OBE, the long-serving headteacher of Pilrig Park School who was honoured for her contribution to special educational needs in Edinburgh, is retiring.

Mrs Mudie, 63, was born Joyce Morris on 30 July 1945, the daughter of science teacher James Stewart Morris and his wife Margaret, a secretary.

After completing her exams at Morgan Academy, she left to pursue her childhood ambition of being a nurse, but after two years of nursing training decided to switch careers.

She said: "Although nursing is a very admirable career, it wasn't satisfying for me and I went looking for something more. I enrolled in teacher training at Dundee's College of Education in 1966 and married my husband Alexander the following year.

"At the time he was a trainee quantity surveyor and he'd just got a job at the Edinburgh headquarters of Scottish Special Housing, which later became Scottish Homes, so we moved here that year."

She started work at Muirhouse Primary and in 1972 the couple's first child Fiona was born.

Mrs Mudie scaled back her teaching duties by working part time at Fort Primary and expanded her hobby of yoga into teaching night classes at the Leith Adult Centre.

Her second child Graham was born two years later and in 1979, with both of her children at school, Mrs Mudie decided to return to teaching full-time.

However, rather than return to primary teaching she pursued a more challenging role of teaching special needs children at Lugton School.

She added: "Teaching special needs children isn't vastly different to teaching more able children, but there is a greater focus on their individual needs.

"I spent a couple of years at Lugton before being appointed assistant head at St Nicholas' School in Gorgie Road, and then I became head teacher at Pilrig Park in 1988.

"It's been a wonderful 21 years and the most fulfilling thing in that time has been watching young adults go on to greater things. With special needs children it's not always into the world of work, but it's fantastic to see them progress.

"Personal highlights would have to include being awarded the OBE in 2007. It's wonderful to know that my colleagues and the parents had such a high regard for my work that they would bother to contact the honours people to nominate me."

During the OBE ceremony Mrs Mudie had the double thrill of being greeted at the door by her son-in-law, Palace of Holyroodhouse high constable Alasdair Burnet, before being led through to meet the Queen.

Mrs Mudie has already booked a weekend break to Paris to celebrate her retirement at the end of this school term, marking the first of what she hopes will be many holidays with her husband now that she is free from the restrictive school timetable.

She also plans to spend her free time golfing, fishing, walking and cycling, as well as spending more time with her grandchildren Sophie, seven, Emma, five, Robin, two, and one-year-old Lily.

Her retirement marks the end of a career in teaching lasting 42 years.