Not only is Ingleton Middle School losing its much-loved deputy head at the end of this school term, it is also saying goodbye to its hugely successful “globetrotting” teddies project.
Chris Leeming is bidding farewell after 19 years at Ingleton. As well as his enthusiasm for teaching, he will also be remembered for drama.
He has written the school plays and has at least 36 productions under his belt that he intends to publish.
Originally from Preston, Mr Leeming took his degree in Sheffield and his first teaching job was in Swanley, Kent. He moved to Suffolk where he taught for 10 years in two middle schools before heading “back north” to become deputy head at Ingleton.
He and his wife Judy, who is headteacher at Clapham and Horton-in-Ribblesdale Primary Schools until she retires at Christmas, settled in Austwick.
“I have absolutely loved it at Ingleton,” said Mr Leeming. “Nice children, supportive parents, great colleagues. I enjoyed it so much I had no desire to move. I certainly didn’t expect to stay 19 years when I first moved there, but I did because I enjoyed it so much.
“I have always been interested in drama, but always used other people’s material. When I got to Ingleton I decided there wasn’t the material around for the 10-to-13 age group so I began to write my own and produced two plays each year. Retirement will be writing a book incorporating the plays and another book on the teddy project.”
That project was also his idea in 1996, when the school joined an exchange scheme with other schools in Europe.
“We wanted to think of something that would grab the children’s attention and came up with the idea of sending a teddy on holiday with pupils who were visiting Europe,” said Mr Leeming. “Our idea was to visit every country in Europe in a year. The problem came when the teddy was away for several weeks, so we expanded to five teddies and then 10.”
The project soon went global when more teddies were given to the school and they started going to countries all over the world, including Mongolia and Antarctica, plus some obscure places no one had heard of.
The 25 school teddies, plus 10 at the Walks World-Wide company in Ingleton, have visited 121 countries and each visit is logged in a diary with photographs.
And there has been more than the occasional adventure too.
One pupil had a brother in the Army and one of the teddies went with him in a tank when Iraq was invaded. A picture shows it in a tank heading for Basra.
Another was flown in the cockpit of a fighter jet on a secret mission over Afghanistan.
The project is now coming to an end and the teddies are being raffled to raise money for Derian House Children’s Hospice, in Chorley. Tickets went on sale priced at 50p and the draw was to take place today.
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