Retiring nursery head Mary Hart with Cllr Dave Poyser who said her knowledge of policy was ‘second to none’

A “LOCAL legend” headteacher is retiring after more than 35 years of leadership at a Stroud Green school.

Mary Hart held her final assembly at ­Margaret McMillan Nursery on Friday. She had first started working at the school in 1985.

Staff collected donations for the Water Aid charity as part of her send-off.

Suzie Rosenberg, a long-standing teacher at the school, said: “I first met Mary when I was a young teacher new to nursery education. She was the Islington Early Years Advisory Teacher and made inspiring visits to schools, including mine. Her ideas and approach led me to reflect on and develop my own teaching style. On a return visit to her class I was particularly taken with seeing the children wearing dog ears and tails and playing in ‘kennels’. This gave me an insight into how a truly child-centred approach can be implemented.”

Praising her “vision and energy”, she added: “Despite her headteacher’s management responsibilities, Mary gets stuck in to the everyday practicalities of how to make things work for children. She thinks nothing of climbing into the loft to retrieve Santa’s outfit and Christmas decorations or trying out a bike in the garden.”

Labour councillor Dave Poyser, who has been a governor at the school since 2015, paid tribute to the work Ms Hart had done with the All Party Parliamentary Group, where her expertise was sought by cross-party MPs on education policy.

“She lives within half a mile of the school and the school is her life,” he said.

“It’s on a lovely big site so she has to know where every single bit of heating is and every bit of tile that could go wrong – you realise that as a councillor. In addition to all of that, her knowledge of government policy is second to none. She’s been listened to by loads of people.”

Ms Hart spent her final week hosting endless ice-cream tea parties with the children and was presented with special tea towels with a word cloud covered in adjectives about her. Written by the parents, they included “heroine” and “dynamo”.

Parent governor Charmian Walker-Smith said: “She’s a bit of a ­legend locally. She completely puts the kids first and sees very young children as individuals. It feels like the end of an era. I find it hard to believe that she is retiring as she’s so energetic and hands-on. I imagine it will be quite hard for her to let go. It’s really hard to imagine the place without her.”

She added: “Resilience is something she’s fostered in the children, they know she’s leaving and are OK with change – maybe it’s the parents that need more support. We knew that nothing that brilliant lasts for ever.”