By Lucy Tinker
In September 2018 I started teaching in a small primary school in Hemel Hempstead. I was a newly qualified teacher and was excited and a little nervous to discover that one of my students, Emily Stockley, just happened to have Down’s syndrome. I knew I would have to adapt my teaching style and Emily would require differentiated work, but I was assured that the progress she would make throughout the year would be extremely rewarding… which was certainly true.
I did not grow up dreaming of becoming a teacher. I studied drama at university and in my third year I took a module called drama within education and absolutely loved it. It taught me how to use my creativity and talents in drama through teaching the primary school curriculum. I went on to write my dissertation about the same topic and found the research extremely interesting.
Having Emily in my class was the best learning experience I have had to date.
I received a great deal of training about teaching children with Down’s syndrome as well as other Special Educational needs. This training and experience will help me throughout the rest of my career and I would love to be able to adapt this training to teach another child with SEN in the future.
I think myself and the rest of the children benefited from having her in our class.
Emily had joined the school in the nursery and had grown up with most of her peers. I observed their relationship and they taught me lots about her and I was able to understand how to develop our own relationship. Emily had a fabulous 1-2-1 who worked closely with her, but I found the times we worked together really rewarding. Emily was a little ray of sunshine, and she would never fail to make you smile and brighten up your day.
At the start of a new school year, I received the tragic news that Emily had passed away on 2nd September 2019 due to complications of Type 1 Diabetes.
This condition had gone undiagnosed by doctors, it is easily confused with other childhood conditions and Emily had become very ill very quickly and despite intensive care treatment she had fallen into a diabetic coma and never recovered. Emily was nine years old and about to start year 5.
When Emily died, I knew I had to do something in her memory.
I was not a keen runner and never thought the Great North Run (GNR) was anything I wanted to do but I felt I wanted to do something and am a big believer in raising money for charity. The GNR is 13.1 miles and was nothing like I thought it would be. I was dreading the run, but it was uplifting, and the atmosphere was electric. There were certainly times where I had to dig deep and remember why and who I was running for.
I knew little Em would be looking down smiling (or laughing) at me, which gave me enough motivation to keep going.
In the end I raised £3,048 for the Down’s Syndrome Association which I am extremely proud of.
We’re so grateful to Lucy for her amazing fundraising efforts and to Emily’s Mum, Sarah, for helping make this article happen.
If you want to know more about Type 1 Diabetes in children who have Down’s syndrome, you may want to download our Health Series publication on the topic, produced by the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group (UK & Ireland).
You can download the publication here.
If you’ve been inspired by Lucy’s story to take part in this year’s Great North Run, the open ballot closes on 21 February. We also have a few charity spaces. Find out all the details here.