Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hero teacher delivering food & hope to families
“THANK you, Mr Powles, for dropping off my sandwiches and saving the world,” Lewis, eight, shouts after his primary school’s assistant head teacher.
Zane Powles, 48, had left five paper bags full of food for Lewis and his siblings. He checks they have all been doing their work online before heading off.
The dad-of-three is loaded down with 12 bags of packed lunches, and donated laptops.
The lunches are topped up with extras because he was “horrified” at the rubbish that was allocated to his pupils.
He says: “I can’t believe a company is profiting from our vulnerable children.”
The assistant head teacher from Western Primary School in Grimsby got an MBE after the first lockdown, when he delivered 138 meals a day, walking a total of 550 miles, delivering 7,500 meals.
Now, like many other teachers, he is back helping kids in lockdown, this time doing his rounds with a limp that he needs knee surgery to correct.
We join the former Grenadier Guard on his special tour of duty.
On little Lewis’s doorstep, mum Maria Tebbutt, 34, with her other children Reece, six, Connor, five,
Kayden, three, and
Mayzee, one, around her, says: “What Mr
Powles has been doing is amazing, he’s our hero.”
Lewis says: “I think everyone should be more like Mr Powles.
He’s 100% nice and really helpful.”
Mr Powles’ next stop is mum-ofthree, Joanna Kesson, 36, who bursts into tears when he tells her: “I’ve got a present for you. I’ve got a laptop.”
Her youngest Phoebe, five, squeals with excitement and gives her upset mum a big hug.
Joanna’s two boys, Paul, 11 and Alfie, nine, grin with delight when they spot the laptop.
Asked why she’s crying, Joanna says: “It means my kids are not going to get left behind.”
But she says she still has no internet, so Mr Powles promises to bring a dongle the next day to get them online.
She says: “What Mr Powles does is outstanding, he’s served the Queen and now he’s serving children in Grimsby.”
Mr Powles says: “Some families have been trying to educate six children using one phone.”
He has a list of the pupils who teachers worry are not coping with remote learning.
At one house, he asks about a pupil’s work and is told: “She doesn’t want to do it.” He says: “Tell her I want to talk to her.”
The girl reluctantly comes to face the music and promises to try harder. Parents are also getting some much-needed support from Mr Powles.
One tearful mum blames herself and tells him she is dyslexic. She says: “I’m finding out I’m really, really not smart.”
He tells her, “That’s not true” and says she is doing really well.
Further down the road, Lisa Jones, 38, has seven children to home-school and tells Mr Powles that they are struggling.
Speaking about one of her sons, she says: “It took him six hours to do one piece of work. He just doesn’t know how to focus when he’s not in school.”
Tanya Leonard 44, who has five kids, has one broken tablet and one which is painfully slow.
As Mr Powles hands a laptop to her son Olly, four, she says: “This is amazing.”
Mr Powles stresses he is just part of a “great team”, the other heads driving to families who live further away and all the staff helping put the lunches together.
He says: “Our motto is, ‘It is the school that cares’. I think we have proved that.”