WHEN he retires at the end of this year, Orange Public School principal John Webb knows exactly what he’ll miss.
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“I’ll miss the kids, I really will,” he said.
“I’ve never wanted to go higher [in my career] because I love working with the children.”
Mr Webb announced his retirement this month after six years as principal at Orange public.
Since his first job at a school in western Sydney, he’s taught all over the state, in places as far away as Swan Hill, near the Victorian border, and Goondiwindi on the Queensland border.
Closer to home, he spent several years as a teacher at Forbes North Public School and four years as principal at Condobolin before moving to Orange.
“I remember saying when I came here, I think I’ll do six years of this,” he said.
“People often say you know when it’s time, and this is a big job.
“I thought, at the end of this year, I’ll be six months off 60 and I’ll retire.
“I reckon I’ll have a six month break and then find something to do two days a week.”
In his time at Orange Public School, Mr Webb has been part of some incredible changes to the way Orange students are educated.
The school has introduced new technologies, improved the way its two sites communicate and established programs such as Make It Count, a mathematics program that supports indigenous students that it runs in conjunction with Orange East and Calare public schools.
“The truth is I don’t do any of it on my own,” Mr Webb said.
“But we’ve done a lot.
“We had to move forward in a lot of ways in technology and programming.
“I gave every teacher a laptop so they were all using a computer.
“There’s been some amazing things.
“But all the things we’re doing with children, they’re the things that I love.”
Mr Webb said he’d had so many positive experiences as a teacher, he’d never be able to recall them all.
One memory that sticks is of a year 2 class he taught in Condobolin, after years of teaching older primary students.
When those students graduated, they recalled their time with Mr Webb, even though he’d long since moved to Orange.
“They had to fill out a survey and I got a phone call because so many of them wrote ‘the year I had with Mr Webb was so much fun’,” he said.
“Those are the kinds of things I really love.
“It’s about building a special rapport with the kids.
“Walking down to the infants site and having everyone come up and say hello, that’s the sort of thing that I’ll miss.”
