Loved up headteacher Paul Jackson was recently asked to write an article in the prestigious Times Educational Supplement about how to inspire in children a lifelong passion for learning.

Gallions Primary School headteacher Paul wrote: “Get the first impressions right, create the right atmosphere, encourage a child to find out more and they will enter the building in the right frame of mind every day.

“The best schools do it so well that the child is in the right frame of mind from the minute they wake up.

“After seven or eight years at a primary, that feeling is ingrained. If the atmosphere is positive, think of the lifelong effect.

“If it is negative, think of the lifelong devastation.”

Paul wrote about the need to engage children every day to build a strong learning relationship.

He continued: “Sometimes that engaging experience can be so simple it takes scarcely any energy: reading the end-of-the-day story outside under a tree: serving the actual food described in The Very Hungry Caterpillar while reading it. So simple, but incredibly engaging...”

Paul, who joined Gallions Primary School when it opened in 1999, transferred to Ellen Wilkinson School in Tollgate Road before re-joining Gallions as headteacher in 2007.

Paul concluded the article with: “As teachers, we have a great opportunity to change lives, to influence. It is an incredibly powerful position.

“It is part of our job to give every child we work with not just a love of learning, but also a love of learning that lasts a lifetime.”