ATL

Living the rural life

ATL member Nick Morgan is in the unusual position of teaching in both a maintained and an independent school in the same North Yorkshire village. Here he talks to Report about the realities and challenges of teaching in these two rural schools. Words by Charlotte Tamvakis

You wind your way through rolling hills and tiny one-street villages before arriving in the relative buzz of Ampleforth, population 1,500, with its two primary schools, shops, post office, pubs - and independent school.

Looking out over a valley in the Howardian Hills, it's no surprise that the village is a conservation area or that it is in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Most of the cared-for, rose-clad cottages and country houses are built in Yorkshire stone and the passing horseboxes and 4x4s add to an impression of affluence.

The sight of 600-pupil Ampleforth College, a Catholic independent school, and its prep school St Martin's, at the east of the village seems to confirm this. But ATL member Nick Morgan, who teaches at both St Hilda's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School in the village and at St Martin's, is quick to challenge this assumption.

Sitting in the nursery block at St Hilda's, which has 35 pupils up to the age of 11, he explains: "When you've got a school with £26,000 boarding fees, you would think this is a very affluent area, and there are some very rich people. But there are some middle-income people, there are some parents who don't drive and there are some people on income support and benefits. There is a big social mix.

"A lot of things are less visible here. You drive through and see the beautiful houses and countryside, and we all make an assumption. Yet Ampleforth was recognised as an area of social deprivation, and that's one of the main reasons why this nursery, which has places for 13 children, was funded to come into being."

Nick, 39, and his wife Kate, a music teacher, moved to the nearby village of Gilling East from East Dulwich, south London, in 2003. Nick and Kate are both from Yorkshire and when Kate learnt there was a job going at Ampleforth College, it seemed the perfect time for the couple and their two daughters to return.

Nick knew the village - in his previous job as a record producer he worked with the monks at Ampleforth on two CDs of liturgical chants. He also recorded the boys' choir at the college.

He says: "I knew I wanted a new career. When we moved up here I was going to be a house-husband and then decide what I wanted to do. I got involved with St Hilda's School, which was my eldest daughter's school, by becoming a parent governor. Then I became aware of the graduate teacher programme (GTP) and was taken on when I had completed my GTP."

Nick now spends his mornings at St Hilda's teaching the nursery class and helping older children with numeracy and literacy, and spends an afternoon a week teaching music at St Martin's. As his wife works up to 70 hours a week teaching at Ampleforth College, this leaves him time to look after his daughters.

Nick has thrived at both schools. He says: "The great advantage in a rural school like St Hilda's is that it's very easy to be aware of individual children's needs. I know every child in this school. Walking into the classroom, you've got that confidence that you can really make a difference."

The numbers at St Hilda's mean he can easily discuss problems with colleagues. "Instead of learning the theory of differentiating in class, you can actually think 'I'm not hitting the nail on the head with that child - why?', and you can immediately discuss it with an experienced teacher, and that's a fantastic way to learn," he says.

Nick also teaches nursery-to-Year 2 pupils at St Martins. "It's the same - small class sizes count for a lot", he says, before adding: "In early years, you have to build on children's own experience, so it's about knowing what those experiences are and what their terms of reference are. I was showing children pictures of the composer Scarlatti, who wrote for the harpsichord, and whereas at St Hilda's I explained it has a keyboard like a piano, and we listened to it and heard that it sounds a bit different, at St Martin's there was a child who had a harpsichord and they were able to explain what it looked like."

St Martin's has a wealth of its own resources, with a specialist music block that includes pianos, practice rooms and an electronic keyboard suite. The nursery at St Hilda's is equipped with instruments and the main school has a well-stocked music trolley. It also has a collection of orchestral instruments on loan from the County Music Service and broadens provision by using recording facilities at a nearby secondary school and taking part in choral outreach projects at Ampleforth College.

Nick says: "The challenge with primary is to deliver the breadth of the curriculum imaginatively. There's lots of resourcing in the independent sector, where it's easier to achieve. It's done in the maintained sector, and it's done very well - but it's always a question of struggling against the budget. It's about recognising what the children's backgrounds are and what they can bring to things, and that again is just getting to know your kids."

But he believes the challenges facing each school are different. He feels the "constantly shifting sand of legislation" is a problem for maintained schools and believes this is why recruiting headteachers is a challenge in North Yorkshire. He cites the changes in nursery funding models as a case in point.

"We're always at the mercy of the broad-sweep funding model changes, so something that seems quite minor for urban schools might actually mean job losses here, either in terms of teaching assistants or teaching staff. These assume that education is a competitive business, with schools being service providers, tendering for pupils - this is a long way from this nursery's experience, where it just doesn't apply," he says.

"Because we take children in the first term after they are three, either in September, January or April, it looks for half the year that we have redundant places, when in fact we don't. We're exactly the right size for our community, but we're not 'competing' against other providers. The worst-case scenario is that the nursery could close; it depends on how the LA decides to implement the changes."

Another challenge in the area is rural poverty, an issue Nick feels strongly about and that led him to get involved in an ATL specialist task group and to speak at the Conservative Party conference last year. He says, like most places, Ampleforth's households span the income scale and this is ignored by government policy makers.

He says: "If all the rural poor were in one area, there would be an outcry and investment would be thrown at it. Because they are spread out - but there's millions of families - the solutions are not easy and they probably won't get a lot of credit electorally. Any legislation needs to be looked at with a rural eye - even if it looks like it doesn't apply, the chances are it will. For instance, energy policy needs looking at because no one here is on mains gas - our fuel bill tripled when we moved from London and it's not because we're wasteful, it's because that's how much fuel costs here.

"For the government it's about checking the impact of legislation on rural areas and also realising that there is a disadvantaged 'underclass' growing up, whose needs are not being met."

Meanwhile, St Martin's and Ampleforth College face the threat of the credit crunch, which isn't something expected to directly affect St Hilda's. Another difference is school size. Nick says: "It's a far bigger organisation. Communication here is over a coffee with colleagues and everyone helps each other out. It's very different when you have a big staff team - the organisation is more tricky. That's just a big school/small school thing."

Nick says his experience in both schools is welcomed. "I talk with colleagues at St Martin's, sharing ideas. And at St Hilda's, they are very positive about what I'm doing," he says.

"The experience of teaching is different in the maintained and independent sector, partly the hours of work and the expectations about what you do. But my job at St Hilda's is probably more different to that of a teacher in the middle of York or Bradford - in an urban setting with classes of 30 in a triple-class intake-maintained school - than to somebody in St Martin's.

"The bottom line is there are fewer differences than I would have expected, because fundamentally, children are children."

Image (c) Rick Mann