Annie McSeveney died on August 23, aged 64, of complications following surgery to treat a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage.
Warmth, compassion, intelligence and vision are qualities to which Annie gave real meaning in all her interactions. The breadth of her interests was matched by her enthusiasm and wholehearted commitment to everything she did. She was a truly inspiring person.
Annie was born on July 22, 1946, in Bradford. Teaching first in Shotts, then in Biggar, she later moved to Leadhills as headteacher, before returning to class teaching at Braidwood Primary, Carluke.
In 2005, she was in the first group of teachers to attain chartered teacher status. She accepted an invitation from the General Teaching Council for Scotland to become an assessor and supervisor for other chartered teachers. A combination of counselling skills, learned as a breastfeeding counsellor for the National Childbirth Trust, and wide professional knowledge helped her to oversee the successful passage of many more teachers to chartered status.
And she did not slow down in retirement. As an assessor and supervisor, Annie recognised the range of experience and skills being shown by chartered teacher candidates and, with the support of the GTCS, she began the work that would lead to the birth of the Association of Chartered Teachers Scotland. As chair, she continued to drive forward the development of ACTS into new areas, with energy and vision.
Meanwhile, her own professional development continued. Having gained a masters in education, she was about to submit the final draft of a doctoral thesis when she took ill. She had shared some of her work on this at the Scottish Educational Research Association conference in 2008. Annie would have presented the findings of recent research work with Margery McMahon, of Glasgow University, on evaluating accomplished teaching, at the European Educational Research Association conference in Helsinki last month.
To this rich professional life, Annie managed to add interests in music, sailing and running. She played the clarinet and, with her husband Sach, organised several recorder groups. She was thrilled when her father also took this up, describing her great delight in playing recorder with him.
After seeing her children’s pleasure in sailing, she became a member of St Mary’s Loch Sailing Club, took part in three national championships and won the Knockout Cup in 2001. She completed the Run Glasgow 10K in May, in 1hr 12mins, and was planning to run the Glasgow half-marathon.
She had five children and four grandchildren, all much loved, with whom she was very involved.
