A FORMER Tamar Valley teacher has published an uplifting book about his 30-year teaching career.

Dr Nick Smith, who lives at Brentor, has taught at four comprehensives, one further education college and a grammar school before attaining the role of headteacher at Torquay Girls’ Grammar School in 2007.

Originally studying medicine, Nick decided to switch to teaching after gaining experience doing undergraduate teaching.

Nick said: ‘I wasn’t passionate about medicine, I thought I’d give teaching a go and it was something I really loved’.

Since then Nick has climbed the ladder from trainee to headteacher, being in the headship role for 14 years at Torquay Girls’ Grammar School before his retirement in 2021.

During his teaching career, Nick worked at two schools in the South West, with one of those schools being a comprehensive in the Tamar Valley.

Nick’s newly published book, Head Trauma documents his teaching years including the challenges and joys of being a headteacher today.

In response to asking why he wrote the book, Nick said: ‘Firstly I wanted to point out the challenges for teachers nowadays, but secondly I also wanted to encourage people into headship and taking over one of the most important jobs you could do.

‘I read Adam Kay’s book, This is going to hurt, and thought I could do something similar about the mad, bad, sad and crazy things that happened during my times as a teacher.

‘When I was thinking of doing the book, I had a plastic monster which whenever pressed it would say, “Oh, beggars belief!.” It would be pressed when something happened in the day, be it good or bad. When it got pressed, I would write down what happened.’ The book recounts some of these typical days of working within education.

Head Trauma, which was released on August 18 follows Nick’s journey from trainee to headteacher, documenting all those moments that have made his career and shaped him as a teacher, whilst providing a frank look at the education system.

This humourous and uplifting account is a book for all, a particular highlight being the stories of those students that eventually found their way. Nick explained that these were the ‘empowering and uplifting moments’.

‘Students who were challenging and you stick with them and years later you meet them, or they write to you and they have turned into really good people’.

Aside from the tales of students, Head Trauma provides an honest account of the education system over the past thirty years from the perspective of a headteacher.

In the book there is also a chapter about Ten Tors. Nick was involved with over 50 Ten Tors events over the years and ‘became obsessed’ with visiting all the rocks on Dartmoor, all 365 of them.

Nick said: ‘I always loved the moors. I saw a book by Ken Ringwood and I ticked a few off, then it became an obsession.’ Starting in 2016, Nick completed all the rocks and tors in nine months and made a scale model of the rocks, with the model featuring at Princetown museum for a short while.

Following the successful release of Head Trauma, Nick has some ideas in the pipeline with hopes of releasing a second book.