DESPITE being resuscitated at birth, a Cheshire boy has not missed a single day throughout his whole time at primary school.
11-year-old Ned Martin will be leaving Cherry Tree Primary School, Lymm, this year with 100% attendance during his seven years there.
“I am really proud, he has been so resilient and has embraced everything about school,” said his mum Clare Martin.
Ned was born nearly two months early and was footling breach which resulted in a difficult and dangerous labour – meaning he was resuscitated and then ventilated when he was born.
He spent a month in neonatal before he stopped breathing again and had to return to hospital for another 10 days – which makes his achievement even more special.
Ned and his family know they are ‘very lucky’ that he has good health and immunity and has been able to avoid sick days at school.
Besides good health, Ned has enjoyed school so has never wanted to take a day off.
Clare said: “He enjoys it so much that he never wants a day off plus I'm a teacher and know how important high attendance is to social and academic development if you are lucky enough not to be ill.
“Ned has been really fortunate to have good health and immunity.”
Talking about Ned’s time at Cherry Tree, head teacher Helen Graham said: “Ned has loved school since the day he started in 2015.
“He puts maximum effort into all areas of the curriculum and has several ‘responsibilities’ as one of our oldest pupils.
“It is extremely rare of a child to achieve 100% attendance across all seven year of primary education which is why we felt that Ned needed public recognition for this.”
Ned said he has enjoyed his time at the Lymm primary school and doesn’t want to leave – but he is looking forward to high school and hopes to continue his perfect attendance.
He will also be missed by the staff at Cherry Tree.
His teacher Anita Bottomley said: “During his time in year six, Ned has volunteered in the school office, he has helped to run ‘Sports Crew’ which offers games for younger children at lunchtime and he has been a superb ‘buddy’ to our reception children.”
And reflecting on her son’s time at Cherry Tree, Clare added: “Ned has loved every minute of it, bring a buddy, doing sports crew, cross country, karate, Cricket, class events, PTA events, fantastic teachers who work really hard to ensure school is a really positive experience, trips and so on.
“His class is fantastic, all so lovely and supportive of each other."
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