For more than three decades, Alexander Bell (60) has instilled his love of art in North Otago's primary school children, but when pupils return to Oamaru North School on May 2, Mr Bell will not be coming back.
He is retiring after 36 years in teaching, 18 of them at the Oamaru school. Born in Dunedin, Mr Bell went north to follow his wife Tracey, who is now deputy principal at Fenwick Primary School in Oamaru.
When Mrs Bell hears the school bell ring, her husband will be focused on other things.
"I am going to go swimming in the morning when Tracey goes to school,'' he told colleagues at a farewell tea on Friday.
"And then I am going to walk along and have a coffee and then go home and do jobs at home, and focus on my art ... and ride my bike, and go fishing.''
Mr Bell actually spent the past year away from the school as well.
Through Teach NZ, he was paid a salary to study and earned a graduate diploma in printmaking from the Otago Polytechnic Dunedin School of Art.
For the first time, he said, his art was moving beyond being simply pretty - it had meaning.
"I have all these ideas racing around in my head, but the nature of teaching means you go home and you are absolutely shattered,'' Mr Bell said.
And the Ngai Tahu tribe member, who is a "sucker for the underdog'', has had his life's path twist in front of him before.
"I was the naughty boy at school who mucked around,'' he said.
Working at a steel foundry left him unimpressed.
"And I had a really good mate who said to me, ‘Well, you've got no qualifications, so what are you going to do?' And it was a big wake-up call.''
Aged 20, Mr Bell returned to high school to get his university entrance and he took up teaching.
As well as Oamaru North School, he taught at the old Oamaru South School, Ardgowan School, Pukeuri School, and Weston School.
At Weston School, about 25 years ago, Mr Bell took inspiration from a friend and started telling stories about the Cheezel Witch.
"She lives out in Weston, and she drives a Volkswagen Kombi, and she doesn't have a broomstick, she has a vacuum cleaner. And then, she just craves Cheezels.
"I'd make up these stories about her going to the Cheezel factory and getting stuck in a bag ... and the vacuum cleaner always saves her from a dire strait.
"You look at these kids and their eyes are as big as saucers and you think ‘this is great!' and you just keep adding to it. It's great. It's lots of fun.''
Mr Bell is not a fan of national standards, which "force [children] to be in a box''.
He likes to encourage children to find their own success.
"I have a firm belief that kids come to school and want to be successful,'' he said.
"I think that it's wrong to quantify kids - they're not a commodity.
"Kids want to be successful and it's up to you to provide them with opportunities for success at the level they're at. You get far more results with honey than with the stick.''
Mr and Mrs Bell have two adult children, Kimberley (32), who now lives in Melbourne, and Sam (30) on the Gold Coast.
