Once they were just boys

As a teacher and headteacher, and I spent over thirty years working in primary schools across the north of England. During that time, I taught and led in communities marked by resilience, generosity, and strength, but also by poverty, trauma, and long-standing social disadvantage. The children I worked with brought their whole lives into school each day, and it was a privilege to be trusted with them for even a short time.

My work was never limited to the classroom. I believed, and still believe, that to support a child properly you must understand the world they are growing up in. Over the years, I built relationships not only with pupils but with their families—parents, grandparents, siblings, and extended networks. I made it a point to learn family histories and connections, to understand loyalties, fractures, and patterns that shaped each child long before they entered school. This knowledge was not used to judge, but to care more effectively.

Throughout my career, I fought to secure the best possible provision for the children I taught—academically, socially, and emotionally—often in the face of limited resources and high thresholds for support. I wanted each child to experience success that felt real to them, and I wanted their parents to feel pride, sometimes in small but hard-won achievements. Many families carried their own histories of exclusion and mistrust of institutions; earning that trust mattered.

This blog grew out of those years. It is written from the perspective of an educator who knew these boys first as children in a classroom—not as cases, not as statistics, and not as future outcomes. My professional life showed me both the power of sustained care and the painful limits of what even committed schools can do when wider systems fail or intervene too late.

The stories I will share are based on real experiences, but all individuals have been anonymised. Names, identifying details, locations, and timelines have been changed, and in some cases elements have been combined or altered to protect privacy. Any resemblance to specific individuals is unintentional. The purpose of these accounts is not to document exact histories, but to explore patterns, questions, and moments that many educators and practitioners will recognise.

I have written with care and respect, holding in mind that the boys described here are now adults, still living complex lives beyond these pages. This is not a story about blame. It is an attempt to reflect honestly on what we see, what we miss, and what it means to work with children whose lives are shaped by forces far beyond the school gate.

Once, every one of them was just a boy. That truth remains at the heart of this book.