The Heart of the Dales Read Online Free PDF Page A

as a school inspector and remembered it as a modern, spacious building with endless views across the ever-changing moors. When, a number of years earlier, the village had begun to increase and the pupil population accordingly, it had been decided to split the Juniors from the Infants, then currently in the one school, and the new school had been built on a large open site just outside the village. I also recalled the extremely confident and effusive headteacher who spent most of our meeting singing the praises of her wonderful school.
    â€˜Well,’ I said to the obviously unhappy headteacher, ‘perhaps you ought to consider moving.’
    â€˜To be honest, I have been looking for other jobs.’
    â€˜I meant moving house,’ I said quickly.
    â€˜Oh, I see. To be frank, it’s not the fact that I live in the village that’s the real problem,’ Mr Harrison continued disconsolately, resting his hands on his desk. ‘I can just about cope with the twitching curtains and the lack of any privacy. It’s the people I work with.’ He shook his head again, took a deepbreath and lowered his voice. His gullet rose and fell like a frog’s. ‘The two teachers I inherited are not exactly incompetent but, my goodness, they can be difficult. They do the very minimum, and are not the most enthusiastic or accommodating of colleagues, either. In fact, they spend most of the day complaining, as you will no doubt discover. Mrs Battersby, who teaches the top Juniors, has been here all her teaching career. Not only that, she attended the school herself as a child, went to school with most of the grandparents and taught most of the children’s mothers and fathers. She’s part of the furniture. In fact, the wing-backed armchair she sits in in the staff room, she brought from home. Her husband, another former pupil, owns an antique shop in the village. He’s a parish councillor, churchwarden, treasurer of the Pigeon Fanciers Society, a stalwart of the community. He knows everything and everybody. Mrs Battersby leaves school two seconds after the bell to help her husband in the shop. You would think from her reaction when I suggested that she might like to produce the school play or attend an additional parents’ meeting that I was making some grossly improper advance.
    â€˜The other teacher, Mrs Sidebottom – which she prefers to be pronounced Siddybothome – well, I don’t know where to start with her. She, too, has been here many years and is far far pricklier. It’s like dancing through a minefield every time I speak to her. We never hit it off from the start after I mentioned that I felt her manner with the children was rather sharp. Of course, as soon as I took over as the headteacher, I followed your recommendations to send them both on courses but it was wishful thinking to imagine that a couple of days of in-service training at the Staff Development Centre was going to change the habits of a lifetime. They came back saying what a complete waste of time it had been and I later discovered the science guidelines, recommendations and notes given by Dr Mullarkey, the tutor, had been deposited in a wastepaper basket. Again, as you suggested in the report, I did insist that they planned their lessons more carefully, which they now do – more or less, anyway – and to mark the children’s work morethoroughly, which they have done with something of a vengeance, but I have got nowhere with my requests that they should contribute rather more to the life and workof the school. Mention out-of-school activities and they look fit to faint. They are forever reminding me that it is not in their contract. I am sorry to say that many of my efforts have fallen on stony ground.’
    â€˜Perhaps you should have contacted the Education Office before this,’ I said. ‘The situation sounds serious.’
    â€˜I did think of doing just that, but a newly-appointed