A FORMER north Cumbrian French teacher whose 44-year career saw her work at six schools has finally been awarded a degree – more than 50 years after she qualified.

Sandy Kinvig, 74, began her teaching career in 1968 at Irthing Valley School in Brampton before she then joined the languages department at Trinity School in Carlisle, where she worked from 1978 to 1994.

Incredibly, her three years of tough professional training at Westminster College in Oxford earned her and fellow education students only a “Certificate of Education” and not – as later became the norm – a degree.

Officials at the college recently decided to rectify that, finally recognising that the study done by student teachers in those years would today earn students a degree.

Thus officials at her old college – now Oxford Brookes University – have awarded BA degrees to hundreds of former student teachers, including Sandy,

The mum-of-four, who now lives in Birmingham, was among 200 former student teachers who travelled to Oxford on Saturday to don their mortar boards and gowns so they could formally graduate.

“I studied for three years – but all we got was a Certificate of Education through the post,” said Sandy, who was Head of French at Irthing Valley School. “People who’d got a ‘Cert Ed’ were considered very much the poor relation compared to those with a degree. But we’d done three years of hard grind, learning what makes children tick. When they made the profession all-graduate, they used the same syllabus we’d used; taught the same materials and set the same exam papers.

“But those later students got a BA while we got a cheaper version.” Oxford Brookes had wanted to stage a graduation last year but the pandemic scuppered that plan.

Looking back on the graduation ceremony on Saturday, Sandy said: “It was absolutely amazing.”

During her three years of study - six months of which was spent in Paris - Sandy only missed only three lectures: one as she lost track of time watching Buddy Holly perform in the student common room; one as she was queuing for tickets to see ballet stars Margo Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in Oxford; and finally when she queued to see Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor during a visit to Oxford.