Our People: Sheree James

Sheree James with the artwork presented to her by the school

Whoever coined that "rooted to the spot" expression will never know how perfectly it embraces Sheree James (nee Grant).

She has lived in Glenhome most of her life and for 40 years has taught at Glenholme School, where her own primary school days were spent.

That association with the school theoretically came to a close for Mrs James when Glenholme's gates closed on the 2013 school year on Wednesday.

"Theoretically" is the operative word. For her sights are already set on relieving work there once she has taken a break from virtually the only workplace she has ever known, although she did do her probationary assistant's (PA) year at Rotorua Primary.

She readily admits to being drawn to Glenholme like a magnet and cannot visualise either living or teaching anywhere else, although she does have a "second home" at Maketu. It's somewhere she goes to reflect on her "very, very happy years" with her late husband, Maori All Black Alf James. She lost him to cancer six years ago.

Rotorua Boys' High inducted Alf posthumously into its Sportsmen's Hall of Fame recently. The honour had Mrs James buzzing. Sport was their shared passion; her code of choice was netball, known as basketball when she played it.

Before we get to that, we'll backtrack a wee bit. Her earliest years were spent in a transit camp for returned servicemen waiting to have their families allotted a state house. It was where the Youth Centre now stands and, although she has no memory of it, she does recall the day the Grants moved to Miller St.

"I stuck a penny into the footpath. That was when the roads were just gravel, when it rained we floated boats made of matchboxes down the gutters, we swung from the trees, made our own games, we had such wonderful times."

Her Glenholme Primary days bring more retrospective thoughts. "There was this expectation that you came to school to learn, to soak up all you could and do something with your life, for me it was teaching."

Before entering Hamilton Teachers' College, her secondary school years were spent at Girls' High. "I didn't leave until after I was 18, netball was the main attraction, the school had a very, very strong netball team."

Naturally, she was in it. Girls' High and a team from Papakura were the joint winners of the 1968 Kurangaituku Netball Tournament "the only school team to ever win it".

The feat's unsurprising. They were coached by Taini Jamison before she moved on to the same role at national level.

She was also in the Taini-led Caravel team, coming home from Hamilton at weekends to play. It was during one of those weekends that she met Alf ... "at an end-of-season sports do."

After their marriage they lived in Hamilton until her student days were done and her Rotorua Primary PA posting bought them back "to where we really belonged, our two sons were born here".

Dedicated as they were to home turf, there was a two-year break in the early 1980s when the James tasted life across the Tasman.

"My husband had finished playing rugby, he was a dedicated Waikite man. He said: 'Let's do something different, let's explore the world', but we only got as far as Sydney, our boys missed not having whanau close by."

Having taken leave of absence from her beloved Glenholme, Mrs James was back in a flash.

Since then she has spent time as deputy principal, but a health scare saw her step back into the classroom after treatment for an acoustic neuroma, a benign growth that affected her hearing and, later, her voice.

How, we wondered, could a person without the loudest voice in the world and whose hearing is no longer razor sharp control a classroom full of rambunctious kids? The super-stern look Mrs James shoots back says it all.

"I only have to give them this face and they know I mean business and, yes, I'm still pretty good at hearing whispering down the back."

How a person who admits to being too vain to wear hearing aids does that remains a secret, as it has to the host of kids she has taught.

On the subject of her pupils, she has played her part in shaping a number who became big names in their fields.

Olympic cyclist Sam Bewley, singing star Elizabeth Marvelly and Rhodes Scholar Sally McKechnie are in the line-up.

Reflecting on their post-Glenholme successes, Mrs James insists every child that comes into her classroom is as important as the next.

"If you do spot someone who's got talent in an area, you nurture and encourage it, although I must admit at times I have pushed it. My teaching style's been to develop strong relationships with pupils."

One of her proudest achievements is founding Glenholme-based Young Leaders' conferences. "Each hosted 500-600 children with speakers who have made their own career successes, they were so inspiring."

Surely there must have been times she's been tempted to move elsewhere?

"Absolutely not. I've always felt very fulfilled here, to me it's the jewel in the crown of local schools. I guess I've become the school's elder. My husband used to say they would bury me under the flagstaff."

This is the final Our People profile for 2013, the series will return next year. If you have someone you wish to nominate email their name and background details to news@dailypost.co.nz marked attention Jill Nicholas. Please be aware it is essential you have candidate's permission first.