As teachers across the land unwind after another 12 months that have seen them go above and beyond once again, the Tes team reflect on their own time in school and the teachers that inspired them - in more ways than one.

Whether it’s instilling a love of languages and music, encouraging attendance at rock concerts or passing on vital etiquette tips, it’s clear that great teachers don’t just help pupils pass exams or recite facts, but engage in a young person’s life in a way that resonates for years to come

Jon Severs

Mr Bailey was a short, thin man, who would walk as if battling an oncoming gale - stooped forwards with his hair stretched out behind him.

He was my history teacher for much of my secondary education and he taught me how to form an argument, how to articulate myself and how to back down gracefully.

He did it, mostly, through respect. He expected the most from us and he expected us to keep up with him. We tried, but he was a man with a formidable intellect.

Alongside Mrs Blake, who never taught me directly but who championed me like no other, he formed and honed the skills I have used to build a career. But both gave me something even more valuable: faith in myself. And for that I will be forever grateful.

Helen Amass

Starting a new school is never easy but being the new kid in a foreign country is especially tough. That’s why I was so grateful that Mrs Hochster welcomed me into her fourth-grade (Year 5) classroom with open arms.

I was the weird British kid endlessly confused by Texan conventions, but she never made me feel like I was different, or special; to her, I was just one of the gang.

She was petite and peroxide blonde and always smelled of mint chewing gum. In her class we learned to use algebra, wrote and bound our own books and still found time to throw the odd pizza party. If you crossed her, she was ferocious, but what I remember the most is her huge smile.

Dan Worth

I was lucky to have many great teachers at school but a clear favourite was one of my English teachers, Mr MacDonald.

We studied writers such as Iris Murdoch and Philip Larkin and he helped bring their works to life with lively, interesting discussions that treated us as adults with something important to say. In doing so, he helped me to understand the power of words and the art of interpretation - skills that have served me well ever since.

Another great teacher was Ms Neale, also an English teacher, whose powerful lessons at both GCSE and A level on poetry and First World War literature also made a lasting impression.

Grainne Hallahan

I went to Millfields Primary School in Wivenhoe, and art was my favourite subject because of my teacher in Year 3, Mrs Allerton. She taught us about Impressionism and invited local artists in to teach us watercolour.

She had the most wonderful way of bringing energy and excitement to everything we did. She had very high standards, and I very much wanted to impress her - but I didn’t always manage it.

Once, she found out that I had hidden half-finished work in my tray and made me come in each morning until it was complete. I was so cross at the time, but I learned an important lesson about deadlines.

Simon Lock

My best teacher was my resistant materials teacher, Mr Rose. Going into his class was like entering the underbelly of the school or joining a secret cult.

He had a thick beard, owned at least one armoured car and smoked a brand of rolling tobacco he claimed would have knocked any of us into next week. It was a million miles from the “mainstream” subjects and everyone who entered Mr Rose’s classroom came in on an equal footing.

There were certainly no teacher’s pets - as long as you didn’t get blood on any of his machinery, you were alright.

Mark Hibbert-Foy

I will forever be grateful to Mr Schofield, my English teacher at my secondary.

He was so passionate about his subject, he encouraged my love of books and, as a plain-speaking Lancastrian, he was a breath of fresh air at my school, Radley College, near Oxford.

I remember I had a ticket for a Metallica concert two days before my A-level exam. Knowing he was a rock fan, I asked him whether I should go - and he said I should because it would be a healthy break from all the revision. So thank you and rock on, Mr Schofield!

Kate Parker

When I stepped into Mr Walsh’s maths classroom in Year 9, I was terrified. He had, let’s say, a certain reputation as tough, no-nonsense and uncompromising.

But actually, underneath of all that, he was the most encouraging teacher I ever had. He was patient, with a brilliant mind and a wicked sense of humour.

As we walked into our maths GCSEs in Year 11, he’d blast out a playlist across the hall including hits like We Are The Champions, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and Simply the Best. And he really was.

Charlotte Santry

Miss Venus was my GCSE music teacher and sticks in the mind for all kinds of reasons, including her unusual name. Like all the best music teachers, she was both eccentric and completely devoted to her subject.

Even though I was far from a prodigy on either of my instruments, she recognised how much I loved music and gently encouraged her rather shy student to perform in all the school concerts until it stopped being a terrifying ordeal and became something I took pride in.

She also used to send me home with homemade compilations of handpicked samples. One week, she handed me a cassette tape and said with a knowing look, “I think you’re going to enjoy this one.” She was right; it was the beautiful Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, which I played over and over again, and eventually chose to accompany me up the wedding aisle. I always think of her when I hear it.

Aga Collis

The teacher who had the biggest impact on me - and remains vividly in my memory to this day - was my Russian teacher, Mrs Cwiek. Russian as a foreign language was mandatory at schools in Poland in the 1980s. We were learning from books with stories about Lenin and the “wonderful” Soviet Union.

Mrs Cwiek was very strict but also very passionate about her subject and loved by all the pupils. She made sure that all of us were fluent in reading Cyrillic in our first year.

Apart from teaching us Russian, she also taught us discipline and etiquette. I remember her being very flamboyant with immaculate manners, as she taught us to “shake hands firmly at elbow level”, and that “one should always pass salt and pepper together and never separately”.

Melissa Harteam Smith

I was very involved in music while at school. I was a saxophone player (not a “saxophonist”, I can hear my sax teacher’s voice saying), so naturally I joined the jazz band.

The conductor was Lucy Gardner, one of the music teachers, and we rehearsed after school on Wednesdays.

After rehearsal, or in the gap between the end of the school day and the start of an evening performance, Miss Gardner would sneak us all upstairs for tea, biscuits and a chat in the music department staffroom.

Some of the other staff disapproved of this but we loved it, of course - it felt transgressive and grown-up.

Richard Jordan

It takes a special kind of patience to herd a bunch of hungover Year 12s around Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Luckily, my Spanish teacher, Mrs Daiko, had the knack of being strict when she needed to be, but also had a great sense of humour.

Not only did she develop my love of language and culture, but also, as a young film buff, she introduced me to the world of arthouse cinema via class screenings of Pedro Almodóvar’s movies - albeit fast-forwarding through all the naughty bits.

Years later, when working as a film journalist, I was lucky enough to get to fly to Madrid and interview the Spanish auteur. Being able to send Mrs Daiko the article (and a photo with the man himself) was a very proud, full-circle moment.

Mary-Louise Clews

There is a clear standout candidate for the teacher who made the most memorable positive impact on my life but, embarrassingly, I can’t remember their name. However, the anonymous teacher I want to pay tribute to sent a story that I wrote, aged 7ish, to the headmistress to read. I can remember being called to visit the head like it happened yesterday.

She told me that I had a wonderful imagination and storywriting skills and placed a smiley sticker next to my work. That one small event has pretty much shaped my academic and professional choices ever since.

Eliza Frost

Mine is a triple-threat of best teachers. The first is my first-ever teacher, Mrs Waugh, who I remember wearing ridiculously big banana earrings and bigger Doc Martens. She trusted three five-year-olds with a stapler for the first time and it ended with the first aid kit.

The second is my kindest teacher, Mrs Hanet, who supported a class transitioning between schools.

Then there was an English teacher called Mr Shea. I wasn’t even in his class but, during those formative GCSE years, he helped to mark our first essays and his feedback on mine was simply, “You should be a writer,” so perhaps I have him to thank for my subsequent career choices.

John Roberts

The teacher I remember having the biggest impact on me was an English teacher at Driffield School called Miss McLaren.

English was always my favourite subject throughout school, but her lessons and encouragement definitely gave me more confidence in my writing and in being able to contribute in class.

I didn’t really excel in many other subjects in school, but I always felt confident to be able to express an opinion in her class. I think discovering how much I enjoyed writing in my latter years at school definitely played a part in me deciding to pursue a career in journalism.

Henry Hepburn

Softly spoken but with a stern countenance, Mr Gibb was my guidance teacher and ran Oldmachar Academy’s chess club. He believed vehemently that state-school pupils had as much potential as those in independent schools.

So when we beat Aberdeen’s only all-boys private school 4-0 at chess, I witnessed the most exultant celebration since Marco Tardelli lost his mind in the 1982 World Cup final.

Meanwhile Mrs Petrie, my registration and drama teacher, told me not to worry about my insecurities, that university was where I’d really flourish. However, her usual warmth gave way to seething disapproval when I didn’t bother to learn my lines for a Christmas show rehearsal. She cared but enforced high standards - a motivating combination. I never forgot my lines again.

Helen Chapman

I enjoyed my Year 2 lessons so much I invited my teacher Ms Todd to my 7th birthday party. She politely declined, but it was testament to how much we loved her as a class.

Her classroom doubled up as an animal hospital where we could bring our teddies to get sewn and patched up. She even taught us the alphabet in sign language, which I still remember today.

She also ran the after-school writing club. Although it was intended for the older children, Ms Todd said that I could join. She walked with me from the infants’ building across the playground to the juniors’ building each week. I discovered my love of writing there and I have been writing ever since thanks to her.

Nigel Jones

My favourite teacher was David Smith who was my form teacher, my technical drawing teacher and part-time woodwork teacher.

He was also my much older brother’s best mate but I never got special treatment - the git. He was a top teacher in his subject and he helped me get a grade C in technical drawing, which is amazing considering how terrible I thought I was at it.

He was a top bloke, too, and could take a joke. He also looked a bit like Bamber Gascoigne of University Challenge fame - well, he didn’t really, but 25 15-year-old boys are never wrong - so that ended up being his nickname.

An old school friend and I met up with him in the pub a couple of years ago (see photo, above) about 40 years since we last saw him.

Emma Seith

Mrs Devaney was impossibly glamorous - at least she was to me, age 9(ish). She was petite and always made-up.

She would pile her curly hair up on the top of her head and keep it in place with a neat scaffold of combs. She wore peep-toe shoes with stiletto heels and skirts - never trousers. She played the guitar and taught us Lily the Pink but she didn’t take us for PE. I’m not sure she could have stomached putting on a pair of trainers.

Mrs Spence took us for gym. She was Mrs Devaney’s antithesis - a redoubtable lady, from the shot put school of PE teachers. But one that could pull off a mean teddy roll, too.

William Pitt

My favourite teacher isn’t actually a teacher but two of the dinner ladies at my old primary school: Ms Austin and Ms Brookes.

Ms Austin was wonderful. I remember that she had an encyclopaedic knowledge of wrestlers, which to a boy of my age seemed like the coolest thing ever.

Ms Brookes, although lacking in wrestler chat, was just lovely. She was always smiling and chatting with us - and always happy to sneak an extra sausage on your plate. Wonderful.

Joshua Morris

As an awkward teen, riddled with self-doubt and anxiety, one teacher made school a comfortable place for me to be: my English literature teacher, Miss Tufail.

You would think Miss Tufail would be guaranteed to be the butt of an unfortunate name pun, but she never was. I remember her as kind, compassionate, funny and extremely competent.

She garnered the respect of every class she taught through her passion for the subject and her ability to engage in a way that made hard work feel easy.

She is absolutely the reason I began to develop my own love of writing and studied journalism at university, which led me to where I am now.