1) The Famous Singer Who Used To Be A Teacher – Sting
Sting is perhaps one of the most famous singers ever to have been a school teacher! Sting or Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, rose to prominence as the chief songwriter, lead vocalist and bass player of The Police. As a member of The Police and a solo artist Sting has won an incredible 17 Grammys second only to Sir Paul McCartney (for British artists) and has sold over 100 million records.
But long before he was performing on world tours and accumulating a net worth of £320 million he was honing his skills in front of a very different audience, that of primary school children! Mr Sumner was a qualified teacher at St Pauls Primary School in Cramlington Northumberland. Sting has stated “ that teaching is one of the most important jobs in our society”. What subject did Sting teach? He taught English for two years and still thinks fondly of his former students, posting a tribute in 2021 to one of his former pupils Paul Anderson who very tragically died.
2) The Successful Writer Who Used To Be A Teacher – JK Rowling
One of Britain’s greatest writing exports. The creator of the ultra-successful Harry Potter series has sold over 600 million books and has seen her works translated into 87 languages. After graduating from Exeter University with a degree in Modern Foreign Languages Rowling worked in a range of different roles including that of interpreter in French Speaking Africa for Amnesty International. Eventually, she trained as a teacher and taught languages at Leith Academy in Edinburgh during the 1990s. It was during this time that she penned the hugely successful Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone, a huge achievement given the demands that accompany the early stages of a teaching career.
3) The Famous Rock Guitarist Who Was Once A Former Teacher – Brain May
The famous guitarist and member of Queen who has played on the roof of Buckingham Palace and took part in one of rock history’s most iconic performances at Live Aid in 1985 is considered by many to be a national treasure. But, before he achieved his axe-wielding rock god status Mr May was a physics teacher! His academic achievements are almost as impressive as his back catalogue with a PhD in physics and maths from Imperial College London.
After graduating May taught at London’s Stockwell Manor School. He recalls teaching the second form rectangles, pentagons and hexagons. “I had this idea of letting them cut up coloured paper with scissors. The other staff said “Are you seriously going to take scissors into the second form?” Half an hour into the lesson, they were all attacking each other with scissors – ears, feet and hands were getting cut and there was blood and paper everywhere”. Like all good classroom practitioners, he reflected and didn’t try that exercise ever again.
4) The TV Presenter Who Was A Maths Teacher – Romesh Ranganathan
The presenter, comedian and actor has become a much-loved staple of British television in recent years. But long before his Bafta-winning performances on TV screens, the English-born son of Sri Lankan Tamil parents spent almost a decade in the classroom. After studying mathematics at Birkbeck – University of London he became a qualified teacher of mathematics and taught for 9 years at two schools Hazelwick School and The Beacon School in Banstead.
Although, he once said he chose to be a maths teacher because the marking would be easy. Romesh was very honest in saying “that I’ve never had a day in my entire comedy career that was anything like as stressful as teaching”. Romesh is a big advocate for the incredible work that teachers do and appreciates that many are working at the absolute peak of their capacity. Another interesting fact is his wife Lessa, a former Drama teacher, trained with Did Teach Co-Founder Katie!
5) The Comedian Who Once Taught – Greg Davis
Ironically Greg Davis got his big break playing the role of a teacher as head of sixth form in the cult Channel 4 comedy series The Inbetweeners. He certainly stacked up the credentials to play a teacher given that before his success as a comic actor, he spent 13 years teaching Drama in a range of secondary schools including Langleywood School in Slough, Orleans Park School in Twickenham, and Sandhurst School in Sandhurst.
His days teaching have provided him with a wealth of material and he frequently shares anecdotes with his audience relating to his days in the classroom. From a student providing an excuse for being late because he was doing the Livin’ La Vida Loca to the time he forgot to remove a microphone transmitting to the receiver of a partially deaf child before an explosive bowel movement in the toilets. Mr Davis’s teaching days were certainly colourful.
6) The Renowned Comic Who Was A Drama Teacher- Dawn French
Yet another comedian that was a teacher is the much-loved comic and everyone’s favourite Vicar Dawn French. She trained as a teacher at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama this is also where she first met her comedy partner in crime Jennifer Saunders. But before the duo achieved national fame French embarked on a career as a Drama teacher in the early 1980’s at a state secondary in North London. She had a laid-back approach and allowed students to call her Dawn! So much fun were her lessons that students at Parliament School would get down on one knee and beg her to teach them such were her entertaining qualities.
7) The Award-Winning Actor Who Was Once A Teacher – Bredon Gleeson
Bredon once told Variety magazine that school teaching is a bluff and it prepared me for my life in acting. The Irish actor who has worked with some of the most high-profile actors of his generation including Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman was actually a school teacher until the age of 35. Mr Glesson taught English and Irish at the now-defunct secondary school Belcamp College in North County Dublin during the 1980s. He describes his first encounters with students as a baptism of fire and although he enjoyed the role he learnt quickly the importance of maintaining professionalism. “At first, I tried to treat students reasonably, like they were human beings. And they ate me alive. So I did learn to keep my distance”.
8) And Finally Shakespeare!
Britain’s favourite playwright and a man so revered as to be famously declared by Ben Johnson to be ‘not of an age, but for all time’ may have once been a humble rural school master. The Bard was educated at a Grammar school in Stratford Upon Avon and although had no university education through sponsorship by the Earl of Southampton possibly became a teacher under his patronage. It was during the time between 1589 and 1592, a period referred to as his lost years, that local historians in Titchfield near Southampton believe he worked as a schoolmaster. It’s likely the school itself was run as a monastic school and quite a small one at that with a maximum of 12 pupils. Although contested by some, if he was indeed a teacher then he would likely have taught Latin, religious studies, grammar and a bit of maths!
