Teachers' champion Ted Wragg remembered
Professor Ted Wragg, the noted educationist who helped Lord Puttnam found the Teaching Awards, was remembered recently at the Sheffield schools where he was once a pupil.
Ted, who was chair of the national judges until his sudden death in November 2006, was a pupil in the 1940s and '50s at Hunter's Bar infant and junior schools and at King Edward VII School, before gaining a double first in languages at Durham University and training to be a teacher.
Both school sites were visited by Judith Wragg, Ted's widow, Fred Jarvis, a close friend and former general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, and Sophie Byatt, managing director of the Teaching Awards. They presented a framed photograph from the Ted Wragg Memorial Fund and talked to pupils.
At King Edward VII, which is set in a listed building and now has a languages specialism, the picture will hang in the newly named Ted Wragg Library.
At Hunter's Bar the visitors also met class teacher Shirley Harrison, who won the 2007 BT Award for Teacher of the Year in a Primary School.
'Ted's experience at Hunter's Bar always stayed with him because, aged 10, he was taught by a truly inspirational teacher,' said Judith. 'He became a man who fought for teachers and who knew their worth. Ted was their champion.'
Lord Puttnam, founder of the Teaching Awards said: 'If Ted Wragg had not been a supporter of the Teaching Awards from the outset, life would have been very, very different for us. Ted's heart was in the right place – it was like a magnet that always takes you back to true north.'
