Following the acrimonious interviews, I promised Mr Harrison that I would return before half-term, accompanied by my colleagues, to undertake a more thorough inspection. In the interim, I told him, I would see the Chief Inspector of Schools and discuss with her the possibility of starting competency proceedings. I advised the head teacher to keep a careful and thorough record of all incidents, infringements, conversations and refusals to carry out instructions on the part of the two teachers. I agreed with him that it would prove difficult to dismiss either of them, particularly since both teachers were so established and well connected locally. Neither lesson I had observed was disastrous but neither was good. The teachers were not incompetent: they prepared their lessons, albeit scantily, marked the work, albeit over-zealously, they were punctual, had few absences and had good discipline. It was just that their teaching was lacklustre and short of challenge and they both had an unfortunate manner with the children.
‘I should point out, Mr Phinn,’ said Mr Harrison, as I made a move to leave, ‘you made similar comments in your last report, before my time, of course, and you promised to return to the school to see if progress had been made, that your recommendations had been implemented and to offer support and advice.’
‘I did, yes,’ I replied, feeling decidedly guilty. ‘It’s just that there were quite a few pressing matters and –’
‘And you never got around to it.’
‘No, I never got around to it,’ I repeated. ‘I should have followed things up.’
‘It’s just that had you done as you had promised,’ said the head teacher, ‘things might not have turned out quite as badly as they have.’
‘Well, I can assure you, Mr Harrison,’ I told him, ‘that I will follow things up this time.’
‘I hope so,’ he murmured. ‘I do hope so.’
When I reached the gates of the school I found two boys sitting on the steps, their elbows on their knees and their heads cupped in their hands. It was Charlie and the lad from Mrs Sidebottom’s class called William. I stood behind them and eavesdropped.
‘I’ll tell thee what, our Charlie, I can’t get mi ’ead round all this stuff abaat speykin’ proper what we’re a-doin wi’ Missis faffing Sitheebum. We say “path”, she says “paath”. We say “grass” and she says “graas”. We say “luck” and she says “loook”. We say “buck” and she says “boook”. It’s reight confusin’.’
‘Tha dooan’t wants to tek no notice, our Billy. I ’ad all that carry-on when I were in Missis Sitheebum’s class, and she nivver changed me,’ his companion told him.
‘Nay, we’ve got to practise it for t’next week. Dust thy know then, our Charlie, dust tha say ‘eether’ or dust tha say “ayether”?’
The elder boy thought for a moment before replying. ‘Dunt mek no difference ’ow tha says it, our Billy. Tha can say owther on ’em.’
4
I arrived at Ugglemattersby Infant School, the other side of the village, just as the bell was sounding for the end of lunchtime. I watched for a moment from the gate as the small children, who had been running and jumping, chasing and chattering, skipping and playing games, suddenly lined up obediently in the playground at the shrill sound of a whistle. Dressed identically in their bright red jumpers, white shirts and grey shorts or skirts, they resembled a miniature army as they marched smartly into school behind their teachers, swinging their arms backwards and forwards. This looked a happy and well-ordered school.
‘Did you want something?’
I was jotting down a few first impressions in my notebook, and the loud and strident voice behind me made me jump.
I swivelled around to be confronted by a hawk-faced woman in an ankle-length fluorescent yellow coat, black peaked cap pulled down over her eyes and substantial leather gauntlets. With one hand she was wielding, like a weapon, a large red and yellow lollipop sign with ‘STOP!’ painted across it. The other hand was resting on her hip.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I began, ‘I didn’t quite –’
‘I asked you if you wanted something?’ demanded the stout harridan in luminous yellow. ‘Because I’ve been watching you watching the kiddies and writing things down.’
‘Ah, I see,’ I said. ‘Let me explain. I’m a school inspector.’
‘You’re a what?’ she snapped.
‘Would you mind awfully not pushing your lollipop in my face,’ I said. ‘I am a school inspector, here to visit the school.’
‘And I could be the Queen of Sheba, for all you know.’ I couldn’t quite see the relevance of this retort but there was not the slightest chance of this woman being mistaken for the Queen of Sheba. ‘Where’s your identification?’ she asked sharply.
I reached into the inside pocket of my suit and produced my official card with photograph and details of my profession. It was plucked unceremoniously from my hand and scrutinised in detail, the woman screwing up her eyes and running a gloved finger over it.
‘Mmmmmm,’ she hummed.
‘All right?’ I asked pleasantly.
‘Yes, well, you have to be very careful these days where kiddies are concerned. I’m always on the look-out for strange men standing at the school gates taking an unnatural interest in children. We’ve been told to be very viligent for weirdos and perverts and paediatrics.’
‘Well, you have most certainly been very viligent,’ I told her, smiling at her inventive use of the language, ‘and I can assure you that I am not a weirdo, pervert or, for that matter, a paediatric.’
‘I mean,’ the woman informed me, still eyeing me suspiciously, ‘they don’t all come in dirty raincoats, you know.’ She inspected what I was wearing. ‘Some of them come in suits.’
‘I’m sure they do.’ I was minded to say that some may very well come in long fluorescent yellow coats and peaked hats but I resisted the temptation to do so. ‘And now, if you will excuse me,’ I told her, ‘I have an appointment with the headteacher.’
With that I left the belligerent old woman and proceeded at a swift pace up the path. At the entrance I turned. She was still standing stubbornly at the gate like a sentinel, watching. I waved and smiled theatrically but she remained stiff and static, clutching her lollipop like a halberd.
Because I had spent most of the last hour talking to Mr Harrison at the Junior School, I had had no time for lunch and was conscious of my grumbling stomach.
In contrast to the Junior School, Ugglemattersby Infant School was a modern, attractive and spacious building con structed in warm red brick with an orange pantile roof and large picture windows. It was set amongst open fields, enclosed by silvered limestone walls, with views stretching to the nearby moors that rose to purple heather-clad domes. A coloured mural depicting rows of happy children, arranged as if posing for a school photograph, had been painted on one exterior wall and a great coloured sign above it proclaimed: ‘We learn to love and we love to learn.’ It was a cheerful, welcoming environment with trees and shrubs, flowerbeds, bird tables and benches. Everything about the school looked clean and well tended.
The headteacher, Mrs Braddock-Smith, a young woman in a very stylish black suit and elaborately frilly white blouse, took me on a tour of the school, proudly telling me about the interesting work the children were undertaking and their apparently considerable achievements. She bubbled with enthusiasm as she tripped along a corridor resplendent with the pupils’ paintings, sketches, drawings, poems and stories, all of which were carefully double-mounted and clearly labelled. Shelves held glossy-backed picture books, small tables had vases of bright flowers, corners had little easy chairs and large fat cushions where children could relax and read. Each child we passed said, ‘Hello, miss,’ cheerfully, and in all the classrooms I could see busy little people hard at work. What a difference, I thought, from the Junior School!
I explained to Mrs Braddock-Smith that I wished to spend the first part of the afternoon with the top Infants listening to them read, looking through their exercise books and asking them a few q
uestions about their work. Then I would join the youngest children for the remainder of the day, meeting with her after school to report back.
‘Certainly,’ trilled the headteacher. ‘I think you will be very impressed with what you see and hear, Mr Phinn. Our standards are extremely high, even if I do say so myself, and this last couple of years have been so very successful that we have attracted a growing number of “G and T” children.’
“G and T” children?’ I repeated. Did she mean gin and tonic? Was this some kind of description of children from middle-class homes?
‘Gifted and talented,’ the headteacher explained before babbling on. ‘An increasing number of parents from the professional classes have moved into the executive houses on the new development at Waterfield on the edge of the village, and we have had an influx of very bright and interested children with most supportive and ambitious parents. We’re getting quite a reputation. Indeed, there’s a long waiting list for places for children who live outside the catchment area. Perhaps I shouldn’t blow our own trumpet but we do very well here, very well indeed.’
‘It’s a most impressive building,’ I said, thinking of the dark brooding grey stone school down the road.
‘We are very lucky,’ said the headteacher. ‘The PTA has raised quite a substantial amount of money, while the library has been sponsored and paid for by a parent-governor, and it was his company that built the new housing development. Of course, this being a church school, we get so much help from the vicar. You will be meeting our chairman of governors, Archdeacon Richards, later today. He’s calling in to take the assembly.’ She didn’t pause to take breath or give me the opportunity to get a word in edgeways. ‘I have to say, Mr Phinn,’ she warbled, ‘we are so very fortunate here to be blessed with the lovely building, dedicated staff, supportive parents, interested governors and delightful children.’ Her enthusiasm was overpowering.
There were twenty bright-eyed six-year-old pupils in the top Infants, in the charge of a plump, red-faced teacher called Mrs Hartley. They listened attentively to her as she finished reading the fairy story of ‘The Princess and the Pea’. She then set them to write about the story she had read them, and to draw pictures to illustrate their work. I sat in the small reading corner and, in the course of the first hour, heard one child after another read to me from his or her own reading book. The headteacher’s proud boasts were certainly not unfounded since all the infants read clearly and accurately and answered my questions politely and with enthusiasm.
When it came to Joshua’s turn, he scurried over to sit down next to me, clearly eager to demonstrate his ability. Before I could open my mouth he informed me that he was a ‘free reader’ and that he was not on a reading scheme book like the other children in the class.
‘Mrs Hartley lets me choose my own books,’ he informed me immediately.
‘Really?’
‘I’m between books at the moment so haven’t brought one to read to you.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘we’ll pick one from the shelf.’
‘I’ve just finished a novel.’
‘Have you?’
‘It was by Enid Blyton.’
‘I remember reading Enid Blyton when I was young and I always –’
‘I’m top of the top table, you know,’ interrupted the child enthusiastically.
‘My goodness!’
‘I could read before I came to school.’
‘Could you really?’
‘I didn’t bother with phonics and reading scheme books.’
‘Really?’
‘And I know all my times tables.’
‘Good gracious!’
‘Do you want me to do the eleven times table? I can if you want.’
‘Not at the moment,’ I told him. ‘I would like you to read to me.’
I had become quite accustomed to precocious young children on my travels around the county schools. I was tickled by their serious humour, impressed by their exuding confidence, intrigued by their responses to my questions and amused by their sharp observations on life. But on a few rare occasions, like this one, I was somewhat lost for words. Clearly here was one of the headteacher’s ‘G and T’ pupils.
‘Now, let’s see,’ I said, ‘what we have on the shelf, shall we?’
‘I’d rather not have a fairy tale, if you don’t mind. I’ve read all those and I don’t like stories about princes and princesses. I think they’re very soppy and you always know how they are going to end. Everyone always lives happily ever after.’
The boy started busily rummaging through the bookcase behind him in search of a book to his liking. ‘May I have this one with the snail on the front?’ he asked. ‘I like snails.’
He presented me with a brightly coloured pop-up picture book called Little Snail’s BIG Surprise.
‘This looks interesting,’ I said.
‘Snails are called gastropods, you know,’ he told me seriously. ‘That’s a sort of mollusc with a shell. I learnt that at the Natural History Museum in London. I went there with my father during the summer holidays.’
The boy opened the book and began to read with gusto.
‘“Sandy Snail lived in a beautiful garden filled with delicious plants. One day Daddy Snail said, ‘Go to your Mother. She has a big surprise for you! Go straight there. Look both ways. And don’t talk to strangers!’” You’re not supposed to start a sentence with “and”, are you, Mr Phinn?’ he asked, looking up at me with wide, inquisitive eyes behind the glasses.
‘Some writers do,’ I told him.
‘Mrs Hartley told us never to start a sentence with “and”,’ he persisted.
‘Would you like to continue, Joshua?’ I said, not wishing to engage in a debate about the technicalities of the English language with a six-year-old.
The boy read on: ‘Sandy raced off. Let’s follow his tracks.’ He stopped again, his finger beneath the sentence he had just read. ‘Mr Phinn, snails can’t race. They’re very slow creatures.’
‘It’s supposed to be funny,’ I told him. ‘The writer knows snails move slowly and has used “raced” to make us smile.’
‘Oh,’ said Joshua, his small brow furrowing. He was clearly not amused. He shrugged and continued reading: ‘“Good morning, Mrs Dragonfly. I can’t stop now. I’m so excited! Mother has a big surprise for me!” “Lucky you!” whirred the Dragonfly. “Maybe it’s a munchy mosquito.”’ Joshua paused again. ‘This writer uses a lot of exclamation marks, doesn’t he, Mr Phinn?’
‘He does,’ I agreed.
‘Mrs Hartley says we shouldn’t use too many exclamation marks.’
‘Does she? Well, let’s not worry too much about that at the moment, Joshua. Shall we get on with the story?’
And so the saga of Sandy Snail continued with our little slimy friend meeting a whole host of interesting mini-beast characters in the course of his travels, including Mr Caterpillar who chomped his way through the juicy cabbage leaf, and Mrs Bee who had a liking for poppy flowers filled with nectar.
‘I don’t think bees like poppies that much,’ said Joshua, looking up from the book. ‘They much prefer foxgloves.’
‘I wonder what creature Sandy will meet next?’ I asked, anxious to change the subject. I wasn’t very informed about bees.
‘It better not be a Frenchman,’ he said.
I was intrigued. ‘Why not a Frenchman?’ I asked.
He looked at me as if I were simple-minded. ‘Because they eat snails,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Didn’t you know that? When we went to a gîte in France last year, my father ate some snails. They’re called escargots in French. Disgusting!’
The child read on until he came to the final page where Sandy Snail meets his mother. ‘“Here I am. Where’s my BIG surprise? Can I have it now, please? I’m so excited!” “See if you can find it!” said Mother Snail. Two little snails, one with a blue shell and the other with a pinkshell, popped up from behind a leaf. “We’re your big surprise, your new broth
er and sister!”’
Joshua snapped shut the book and shookhis head.
‘You read that very well, Joshua,’ I told the boy. ‘You’re an excellent reader. And wasn’t it a delightful story?’
He scowled. ‘I didn’t think much of it.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked.
‘Well, for a start, snails don’t have blue and pink shells. They are more of a greeny-brown colour. And for another thing, snails and those other creatures can’t talk.’
‘No, but then neither can Peter Rabbit, nor Mole and Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, or Mickey Mouse or some of Enid Blyton’s animals. It’s only a story.’
‘And another thing,’ said Joshua, not really listening to me, ‘you can’t have boy and girl snails.’
‘Why not?’ I asked innocently.
‘Because everyone knows that snails are hermaphrodites,’ he said.
I smiled but said nothing; I thought of the words of Oscar Wilde who once observed that a child ‘has a disgusting appetite for facts’.
At afternoon break, the teacher told me that Joshua was a mine of information on natural history. ‘Of course, you would expect as much,’ she told me, ‘his father being a professor of biology.’
The Chairman of the School Governors, Archdeacon Richards, a cheerful little cleric with a round red face and white bushy eyebrows which curled like question marks below a shiny pate, was in the headteacher’s room when I arrived there at afternoon break.
‘I believe you know Mr Phinn, Archdeacon,’ said the head-teacher as I entered the room.
‘Yes, indeed,’ chortled the Chairman of the School Governors, extending a small plump hand. ‘We met at Manston Hall a few years ago, did we not, Mr Phinn?’ He turned to the headteacher to explain. ‘We were on a planning committee chaired by Lord Marrick, set up to organise the event to mark the five hundred years of the establishment of the Feoffees.’ The archdeacon spoke with the same lilting, birdlike trill as the headteacher.
The Heart of the Dales Page 6
