This week we heard from our site manager Gary McCarthy about the character traits he feels have led to success in his chosen work.
Gary told us all about his schooling here in Barking and about the work he did when he left school. He reflected on the lessons he learnt as a ‘van-boy’ delivering groceries to shops across London, among them the importance of punctuality and reliability, and the value of hard work.
He went on to tell us about the time he spent working as a painter and decorator in the Park Lane Hotel and the skills he learnt there and later when worked as a plumber and heating engineer. Gary told us that it was his curiosity that drove him to continually seek out new challenges and new learning. It was this character virtue that led him to look into the role of site-manager and then to apply for and succeed in obtaining that role here at Monteagle (beating one-hundred other applicants in the process!)
The children loved hearing how Gary had overseen so many changes to our school. He said he valued the opportunity to exercise his creativity in this role and this was clear from the examples he shared.
Asked to pick the character virtue from our five school virtues that he felt most supported his work at Monteagle, Gary picked integrity. He said it was knowing that what he did truly had a positive impact on the children and families of the school that motivated him to work as hard as he does to keep our school looking great and to create an environment that moved our learning forward.
Thank you Gary for a great assembly and for all you do for our school.
