In Praise of Small Schools

I went for a job at Glasbury School last week. I didn't get it, but I did get to see round a lovely little school that any child should think themselves lucky to attend.
The school buildings themselves are right out on the edge of Glasbury, on a hill with a magnificent view of the Wye valley. Just above the road that runs above the school on the slope is Glasbury Common, where the children are taken out for walks regularly. Just below the school is woodland, with a path leading to a log circle where they can light a fire and toast marshmallows - there were photos on the hall wall. They also do what I would call nature rambles, looking for insects and collecting leaves and so on. The teacher I spoke to said that they try to do as much as possible outdoors. There was a row of wellington boots, neatly pegged together, outside the infants' class, and a notice on the door about the recent trip out with the National Parks.
There's also a little garden, where even the nursery children get to plant seeds and watch them grow.
There are only seven children on the nursery rolls, and not all of them come in every day. For even younger children, there's a playgroup in the hall once a week.
With such a small intake, it means that there are only about 40 children in the school, so they have one mixed-age infants class, and one mixed-age junior class. It's an English medium school, but they encourage Welsh, and work on the walls in the hall was labelled in both Welsh and English. One of the projects was on 'obedience' and 'signs you must obey' designed by the children. A theme running through these was 'No Kicking in the Playground', which must have been on the children's minds when they were doing it.
I actually went to a village school like this for a short time, (apart from the Welsh), in the 1960s. I didn't know that they still existed. I started off in the youngest class, and moved up to the top class with the eleven year olds pretty quickly because I was so forward with my reading. It's quite something to be three books behind an eleven year old when you're six!
The school itself was built in 1816, and was extended and restored extensively in 1991, so it's a nice mix of old and new - and it's a Church in Wales school, which means it's fairly safe from closure. Or at least, I hope so. Thank goodness it's not in Herefordshire, where the Council have just backed down from a plan to close or merge 37 schools after a huge protest from parents, staff, children, and just about everyone else. (Over 1,000 people - about one third of the entire population - turned up for a meeting in Bromyard to oppose the closure of their school).