Elizabeth (Liz) Hillyard: ‘I don’t think in 24 years I’ve ever had a boring day’

A HEADTEACHER is saying farewell after 21 years at a school in Pimlico, leaving a lasting legacy for children with special educational needs and having helped introduce free school meals for under-fives across Westminster.

Elizabeth Hillyard, who has worked in early years education for 28 years, has been at Tachbrook Nursery School, Aylesford Street, Pimlico, since 2003.

And she told Extra: “I just always sort of had an affinity with children and got on very well with friends and siblings.

“I always thought teaching was really interesting and I remember at 15 in secondary school doing my two weeks’ work experience in a school in Latymer Road and I loved it.

“And then that really put me on the road to getting a teaching qualification.”

As a newly qualified teacher from Roehampton University, Ms Hillyard had her first teaching job at St Peter’s Eaton Square, Belgravia, where she stayed as a reception teacher for three years.

Starting at Tachbrook nursery in 2003 it was here that Ms Hillyard really developed her skills and knowledge in early years provision.

She said: “I really developed my understanding about enabling an environment for child initiated play and child led play. And we always have a big conversation about interacting, not interfering with children. And that’s always been something that’s been quite innate to me, how to be with children, join in with their play.

“And I’ve always had a little joke that, if I were to be on a game show my specialist skill would just be just working with children.”

Becoming headteacher of the nursery in 2014, Ms Hillyard sat on schools’ forum panels and began playing a pivotal role in how education funding was spent.

She said: “I realised, if you’re going to complain about something and say it’s not working, then you need to be involved in changing the processes or helping them evolve, because if you’e just going to complain, nothing’s going to change.

“So… that’s where after my second year of headship, I realised if you want to support change then you have to sit on panels that can actually change that. So they now call me the early-years warrior in Westminster, because I am always asking ‘what about early years’?”

Ms Hillyard said she was most proud of implementing free school meals to children in Westminster under the age of five, something she helped steer-through while sitting on the schools’ forums.

Ms Hillyard said: “Things like getting free school meals, and we’re in our second year of getting these meals for the children, and hoping to go into our third year, is really life-changing for those families to have that extra money.

“We know that cost of living now has a strong correlation with our children who are in our child protection register and social housing which is incredibly challenging.

“I just love being a teacher. I always think you see those adverts on TV, I just don’t think they do us justice as we’re just so passionate.

“I love what we do, and you just get so much back from the children. The children are just so joyful to be around, they’ve always got something interesting to show you, to tell you, and I don’t think in 24 years I’ve ever had a boring day.”