Thirty years of teaching intellectually challenged boys has not dulled Sherry Hargreaves' sense of humour one bit.
She is enjoying her first day of retirement today, after running the Learning Support Unit at Whangarei Boys' High School for the past three decades.
While leaving friends and breaking long-established routines may be difficult
at first, Mrs Hargreaves is sure she will get used to it.
"It'll be hard, but I've got that sort of nature where I'll probably lie in bed instead of getting up at six in the morning. I'll lie in bed and say 'haha, you have to go to work'."
"I'm sorry but that's the sort of person I am."
Mrs Hargreaves, or "Miss" as she was known in the Learning Support Unit, said she will maintain her connection with Boys' High through the Old Boys Committee but she will miss the daily interaction with "her boys".
"It's definitely the boys that have kept me so long at Boys' High," she said.
"I've almost done 50 years of teaching, pretty close to it, and I can say almost all my teaching's been devoted to kids with certain learning needs."
"Some of them have a lot of home problems and we sort of consider ourselves a family, and they are treated just like your mother would treat you. If you want to get growled at, you'll get growled at."
"I'm an old disciplinarian, but if they needed defending, I'd go all out for them."
The LS Unit teaches special needs boys life skills and work skills, as well as an academic curriculum. Every Friday, the boys go out to work experience placements at businesses around Whangarei.
Mrs Hargreaves has negotiated most of those placements and she is grateful for the support businesses have shown the LS Unit over the years. The work experience placements had taught the boys as much, if not more, than anything they learned at school. she said.
"It's lovely to meet them downtown and some of them have progressed up the workforce from the menial jobs, and it's just fantastic when they run to you in the street and tell you they've got a promotion or they've just got married." She now looks forward to catching up on some reading and making a trip to her favourite overseas destination of Sweden.
