The Heart of the Dales (7 page)

I felt like saying something but I bit my lip. It would wait until later.

I found Hyacinth poring over a large picture book at her desk.

‘Hello,' I said.

The girl wiped her nose with the back of a finger and eyed me apprehensively.

‘Let's see what you are doing, shall we?' She didn't object as I slid her reading book across the desk and started to examine it.

‘Is it a good book?' I asked.

She eyed me suspiciously but didn't answer.

‘Would you like to read a little of your book to me?' I asked.

She shook her head, gazing at me now with unabashed intensity. She wiped her nose on her finger again and then told me in a loud voice, ‘I'm special needs.' Perhaps she thought that this revelation might convince me to leave her in peace. When I didn't move, she added, ‘Don't you know? I'm special needs.'

‘I do, but what do you think it means, special needs?'

‘If you know what it means, why are you askin'?'

It was a fair question. ‘So, will you read to me?'

‘Are you the infector?' she asked.

‘Inspector,' I replied.

‘What's t'difference?'

I thought of the earlier comment from Ruby about the Leprosy Hour. I reckoned her teacher would not have considered that there was much difference between the two words.

The girl reluctantly read to me, slowly and with fierce concentration on her face, her finger following each word on the page. There was no expression in her voice and not once did she pause for breath but read on, determined to get the ordeal over and done with.

‘Hyacinth,' I said, when she snapped the book shut, ‘that was very good, but what do you do when you come to a full stop?'

‘What?'

‘When you get to a full stop, what do you do?'

She eyed me like an expert in the presence of an ignoramus. ‘You gerroff t'bus,' she replied.

I chuckled. ‘Of course you do,' I said.

She shook her head again and I saw a slight tremble on her bottom lip. ‘Are you goin' to put me in a special school?'

‘No, I'm not,' I told her.

‘I don't want to go in no special school.'

‘Don't worry,' I reassured her. ‘I'm just here to look at your book, to hear you read and to see how you are getting on.'

‘Oh,' she said. Then, after a moment's thought she sniffed noisily, ran the full length of her index finger across the bottom of her nose and asked me, ‘So, what are you for?'

Before I left the school at the end of the morning, I spoke to both the teachers, one after the other, before seeing the head teacher. Incomprehension crept across Mrs Battersby's face when I gave her the feedback on her lesson and my assessment of the work in the pupils' books. This soon turned to a wary resentful look.

‘Goodness knows, I try my best,' she told me, shuffling uncomfortably in her wing-backed armchair. ‘And let's be fair. You can't expect a lot from these children. I can't be expected to make silk purses out of pigs' ears. I mean, they're not going to end up brain surgeons or nuclear scientists, are they now? They're country children and all they're interested in are sheep, cattle, pigs and farming. All they want to do when they leave their senior school is work on their parents' farms and that's all their parents want them to do as well. It's a losing battle getting them to write about anything other than about farm animals.'

‘That is my point, Mrs Battersby,' I told her. ‘I think your expectation of these children is too low and the work they are expected to do lacks challenge and variety.'

She gave me a brief hostile glance. ‘I believe in discipline, Mr Phinn,' she informed me brusquely. ‘Give them an inch, and they take a mile. Some of these children can be very difficult. They were well behaved because you were in today and they know how to turn it on for visitors. Take Charles, for instance. He can be a real nuisance at times.' The teacher was now looking decidedly resentful. ‘And another thing, I
don't know how you can judge anything after seeing just one lesson and talking to a few children.'

I reminded her that I had observed her teaching before and explained that I had examined the children's books and looked at their test results, and had also spoken to the head teacher who had expressed his concern about her work. I told her that I therefore felt my comments were valid.

‘Well,' she said, with a slight smirk, ‘and I make no bones about it when I tell you, everybody thinks it was a mistake to have appointed Mr Harrison. He's a southerner and doesn't understand our ways.'

The reaction of Mrs Battersby's colleague to my comments was aggressively defiant. Mrs Sidebottom sat before me tight-lipped, straight-backed and steely-eyed with her thin hands clasped on her lap and her thin legs clamped together. As diplomatically as possible, I told her that, in my opinion, it was misguided to try and change the children's natural way of speaking with one lesson a week in which they chanted doggerel. Children, I informed her, should not be expected to leave the language of the home at the wrought-iron gates of the school and speak some kind of artificial argot.

‘There is a widely held misconception,' I said, ‘that dialect is a corrupt form of what people imagine to be normal English. Far from being a deviation of the standard form of the language, dialect is an earlier form of English and has its own vocabulary, syntax and grammar. Children do need to learn standard forms of English but trying to change their accents is undesirable.'

She gave me a glance like broken glass. ‘Mr Phinn,' she said with slow deliberation in her voice, ‘I do not intend to sit here and listen to a lecture on the English language. I am of the considered opinion, formed over many years, I have to say, that it is my job to eradicate the slovenly, lazy and inaccurate way the children speak. You may call it dialect if you wish. I call it bad English.'

I then ceased to be tactful and told her straight that I was surprised and, indeed, very disappointed that very few of my recommendations contained in my last report had been
addressed, and that I was not impressed with what I had seen that morning.

The teacher's eyes bulged in indignation and her lips drooped in obvious displeasure. I rather expected a spirited defence of her teaching but Mrs Sidebottom glanced up at the clock on the wall and, with an air of ingrained disapproval, informed me that it was her lunch hour and it was in her contract that she should have a one-hour break in the middle of the day.

As I saw her head for the door, I knew it would prove very difficult to dismiss such a teacher. The more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of the words of Mr Nelson, the headmaster of King Henry's College in Brindcliffe. When, the previous year, I broached the possibility of instituting disciplinary proceedings against a member of his staff, he had leaned back in his chair and remarked: ‘As you will be well aware, it is very difficult to do anything about a teacher in terms of disciplinary action unless he runs off with a sixth-form girl or steals the dinner money.'

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.'

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.