As director of education at Creative Education Trust (CET), she tells her heads to see the challenges some pupils face at home as giving them “superpowers”, and to always have “very high expectations” of them. Nicole McCartney as a little girlThe one you didn’t mess withGrowing up in Michigan, USA, McCartney was every teacher’s worst nightmare. Nicole McCartney as a childFierce tribesBut McCartney does not want sympathy. But I won’t let you do that… because I do have high expectations of you.”When she was 17, McCartney’s mother died from self-inflicted injuries. Nicole McCartneyFaking itAfter teaching at secondary level in the US, McCartney “fell in love” with Ireland on a creative writing holiday.