An all-day surprise tea party was held for the headteacher of an Ipswich primary school who is retiring after more than 21 years.

Ipswich Star: Headteacher at Dale Hall Community Primary School, Alison Beckett.Headteacher at Dale Hall Community Primary School, Alison Beckett. (Image: Sarah Lucy brown)

Alison Beckett joined Dale Hall Community Primary School in April 1994 as deputy headteacher and was promoted the following term.

The 60-year-old will leave the school today and pass the baton to deputy headteacher, Anna Ledger.

Mrs Beckett said: “It’s been like a journey. Like when you are out on the road, sometimes you are travelling down the motorway and make progress, other times it’s like travelling down country lanes, you never know what turning is next.

“It’s a fantastic school I have enjoyed every minute of it.

“It’s a lot like moving away from a family, but I know they will continue to get stronger.”

Qualifying as a teacher in 1977, Mrs Beckett worked as an officer in the Metropolitan Police for a year and half before starting her first teaching role at Bucklesham Primary School in Suffolk.

Becoming a headteacher at the age of 39, Mrs Beckett said she believed she was the youngest in Suffolk at that time.

She has spent most of her career in Suffolk primary schools, teaching in Sidegate, Murrayfield, Kesgrave Heath and Melton, but she also taught in London for a period.

However, Mrs Beckett said Dale Hall was the school she had enjoyed working in the most.

She added: “I feel like it’s my school, I have developed it the way I think I wanted it to be.

“You employ the staff you think are best for your school. There have been so many changes and initiatives, some I have agreed with and some I haven’t, but that’s the way it goes and I will miss it hugely.”

Mrs Beckett lives in Kesgrave and has two children – Olivia and Ben – and five grandsons.

She has recently been made a governor at Kesgrave Heath Primary School, at which she attended as a pupil and two of her grandsons now attend.