World, and is almost in despair about finding suitable lodgings for the new teacher in the village.
'I shouldn't cross that bridge yet,' I told him. 'We may not get any applicants for the post.'
'Oh my dear Miss Read! Please, please!' protested the poor man, beating his leopard-skin gloves together and creating a light shower of moth-eaten fur in the classroom. 'I cannot bear to think what the future holds for Fairacre School. Whatever happens it must not close! It shall not close!' Here the vicar looked and sounded as militant as Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy when he too faced the extinction of a body much-beloved. 'But, sometimes, I wonder—poor Springbourne, you know. I hate to pass that little empty school, with its dreadful blank windows. And dear Miss Davis, they tell me, is finding that large school in Caxley much too much for her, and is struggling with nearly fifty six-year-olds!'
I said how sorry I was for her. She is an elderly gentle woman, who smoothed the path of her little flock at Springbourne for many years. The bustle of Caxley, as well as a tiresome bus journey must exhaust her considerably.
'And I have heard,' added Mr Partridge, with horror darkening his benevolent countenance, 'that some of those children-young as they are—as Openly Defiant!'
He looked round at our own meek lambs who were busy colouring border patterns in a somnolent way, and his expression softened. I hoped that he would not notice the pronounced bulge in Ernest's cheek, which, I guessed, harboured a disgusting lump of bubble-gum. His eye travelled lovingly over the class, and he sighed happily.
'How fortunate we are here!' he said, 'they are dear, good children, all of them!' And, heavy with bubble-gum guilt, as some of them obviously were, I could not help but agree with him.
It would indeed be a tragedy if Fairacre School were to close, but I do not think it will happen here, as we maintain a steady number of about forty, which makes a good workable two-teacher school, with Mrs Annett taking the infants, and the juniors being taught by me, until the age of eleven. But alas! Springbourne's fate has been shared by several others in the neighbourhood, and more are scheduled to close within the next few years.
This closing of small village schools is a controversial and debatable problem. There is no doubt that some of the really small schools of, say, eighteen, or fewer, children on rod, under the sole charge of the head teacher, should be closed for several very good reasons. The biggest difficulty in these one-teacher schools is the age-range from babes of five years old to children ready for secondary education at the age of eleven. Conscientious teachers who have tackled this type of school single-handed, year after year, realize how impossible it is to do justice to every child. A newly admitted baby of five, homesick and mother-sick, can demand vociferously, urgent and immediate attention, for perhaps a week or more before he really settles in to his new environment. It is disconcerting, to say the least of it, to the rest of his schoolmates, some of whom may have the added anxiety of the eleven-plus examination hovering over them.
It is well-nigh impossible too, to organize team games, which junior children so much enjoy, and which will play so great a part in their later school life. Stories, poems and songs, broadcast programmes, films and classroom pictures must be chosen with the interests of five as well as eleven-year-old children in mind; but perhaps greater than all these teaching problems is the human one. It can be a very lonely life for a teacher, and the care of even such a tiny band of children can be a responsibility, which in some cases becomes too heavy to be borne. It is small wonder that these lonely women, devoted and conscientious, are often the prey of nervous disorders such as rheumatic pains, headaches and neuralgia. Maybe the cross-draughts that play so merrily between Gothic doors and
'I shouldn't cross that bridge yet,' I told him. 'We may not get any applicants for the post.'
'Oh my dear Miss Read! Please, please!' protested the poor man, beating his leopard-skin gloves together and creating a light shower of moth-eaten fur in the classroom. 'I cannot bear to think what the future holds for Fairacre School. Whatever happens it must not close! It shall not close!' Here the vicar looked and sounded as militant as Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy when he too faced the extinction of a body much-beloved. 'But, sometimes, I wonder—poor Springbourne, you know. I hate to pass that little empty school, with its dreadful blank windows. And dear Miss Davis, they tell me, is finding that large school in Caxley much too much for her, and is struggling with nearly fifty six-year-olds!'
I said how sorry I was for her. She is an elderly gentle woman, who smoothed the path of her little flock at Springbourne for many years. The bustle of Caxley, as well as a tiresome bus journey must exhaust her considerably.
'And I have heard,' added Mr Partridge, with horror darkening his benevolent countenance, 'that some of those children-young as they are—as Openly Defiant!'
He looked round at our own meek lambs who were busy colouring border patterns in a somnolent way, and his expression softened. I hoped that he would not notice the pronounced bulge in Ernest's cheek, which, I guessed, harboured a disgusting lump of bubble-gum. His eye travelled lovingly over the class, and he sighed happily.
'How fortunate we are here!' he said, 'they are dear, good children, all of them!' And, heavy with bubble-gum guilt, as some of them obviously were, I could not help but agree with him.
It would indeed be a tragedy if Fairacre School were to close, but I do not think it will happen here, as we maintain a steady number of about forty, which makes a good workable two-teacher school, with Mrs Annett taking the infants, and the juniors being taught by me, until the age of eleven. But alas! Springbourne's fate has been shared by several others in the neighbourhood, and more are scheduled to close within the next few years.
This closing of small village schools is a controversial and debatable problem. There is no doubt that some of the really small schools of, say, eighteen, or fewer, children on rod, under the sole charge of the head teacher, should be closed for several very good reasons. The biggest difficulty in these one-teacher schools is the age-range from babes of five years old to children ready for secondary education at the age of eleven. Conscientious teachers who have tackled this type of school single-handed, year after year, realize how impossible it is to do justice to every child. A newly admitted baby of five, homesick and mother-sick, can demand vociferously, urgent and immediate attention, for perhaps a week or more before he really settles in to his new environment. It is disconcerting, to say the least of it, to the rest of his schoolmates, some of whom may have the added anxiety of the eleven-plus examination hovering over them.
It is well-nigh impossible too, to organize team games, which junior children so much enjoy, and which will play so great a part in their later school life. Stories, poems and songs, broadcast programmes, films and classroom pictures must be chosen with the interests of five as well as eleven-year-old children in mind; but perhaps greater than all these teaching problems is the human one. It can be a very lonely life for a teacher, and the care of even such a tiny band of children can be a responsibility, which in some cases becomes too heavy to be borne. It is small wonder that these lonely women, devoted and conscientious, are often the prey of nervous disorders such as rheumatic pains, headaches and neuralgia. Maybe the cross-draughts that play so merrily between Gothic doors and
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