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Elaine Hopwood in the place she likes best – in the classroom with the children.

Gill Woods with children outside Askrigg school.

Our two neighbouring villages of Askrigg and Bainbridge will say goodbye to the head teachers of their two lovely primary schools at the end of this term.
Elaine Hopwood, 58, retires in July from Bainbridge C of E primary school which she joined 17 years ago and where she has been head for seven. In 2010 she had a heart attack, and says that made her rethink her priorities. “This is a wonderful place to teach but I wanted to go while I still felt well and on top of the job. It is stressful because you can never really leave it behind and relax, and the demands of headship do impinge on the enjoyment of being in the class with the children, there’s no doubt about that. I’ve recovered well from my illness, but you don’t know what lies ahead, and I’m looking forward to starting a new phase of my life,” says Elaine, who lives in Keld with her husband, Christopher. She says the 14-mile journey to school over some of the highest, but most beautiful, scenery in the country is a joy in the summer but in the winter is treacherous.
“It’s normally half an hour but in the winter if I can’t get over the hills it can take me as long as two hours,” she says. In her 17 years she has seen the school roll drop to as low as 27, but now there are 55 children on the register from Bainbridge, Aysgarth and Marsett. She has what she describes as a “wonderful, supportive” staff of eight; four teachers, three teaching assistants and a school secretary, and spends at least half her time in the classroom.  Elaine is looking forward to having more time for her hobbies which include lace-making, photography, particularly wildlife, and walking.“I may even do some teaching. Who knows? But at the moment I’m not making any decisions about that,” she says.
Less than two miles down the road, at Askrigg primary school, head teacher Gillian Woods, 55, is looking forward to a different challenge. After three years as head of the 34-pupil school, in September she will take on the headship of primary schools in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, Austwick and Clapham, with a total of around 140 children. Her appointment comes just as the authority is moving from a three-tier – first, middle and high schools – system to a two-tier one. “I shall be joining at a time of change for pupils, parents and staff so there will be a lot of consultation and quite a lot of reassurance needed,” says Gill.
Although times are uncertain for small rural schools, she is confident her leaving Askrigg is the right decision. Her husband, David, lost his engineering business in the recession last year and has been unable to find work. It is a familiar story for many families. “It’s a situation thousands of people are facing now, and it means you have to make difficult choices,” she says. The 36-mile daily round-trip from her home in Selside is an arduous one and, in the light of fuel price increases, expensive. Gill’s new schools are all within seven miles’ drive – one only a mile away.“I’ll be terribly sad to leave Askrigg but I am confident that I am leaving this lovely school in the safe hands of its staff and governors,” she says.
Gill fears that education is in danger of becoming too politicised and that there is a lot of misunderstanding about how children learn. “It’s not just a question of cramming their heads with facts and measuring progress by ticking boxes. Our role as teachers is to equip them for life, by giving them the tools to discover those facts for themselves,” she says. Through the nationwide Forest Schools programme, for example, they learn the core elements of the curriculum – maths, science and English – but in the context of exploring their environment.
“They also learn co-operation, leadership, decision-making and risk-taking. These are vital life skills that can’t be measured on a chart,” she adds.