Sharon Griffiths Meets...

CAROLE Connolly loves small schools. Not surprising then that she's headmistress of Forest in Teesdale School, just 11 pupils in one of the small whitewashed buildings scattered high up in the North Pennines.

It's the smallest and most isolated in County Durham, and quite possibly, in England. But it's far from parochial.

As you swirl in with the wind off the snow covered hillside, you can tell immediately that although the school is isolated physically, it's still very much part of the wider world.

In the entrance hall is a large map with arrows pointing to countries with which the school has links - Germany, Romania, Malta, Ireland, Australia... Carole is determined to expand horizons. Which is one of the reasons why this tiny school has won a string of top awards for everything from heritage to internationalism.

It's four-and-a-half years since she came to Forest in Teesdale - from Rookhope at the top of Weardale, another small school.

"It was already a good school with lovely children doing well," she says. "It would have been very easy just to sit back and have lots of calm, organised days." She sighs at the blissful thought of it.

Much too easy, of course. "And it wouldn't have been very exciting, would it?"

Many of the children live in isolated farms. Because of the nature of their parents' work there is not much opportunity for trips and travel.

"I realised when we went to a maths day at Durham and went to have our picnic that many of them had never even been into a park before. They were lovely kids - open, country children in a wonderful part of the world yet deprived of a lot of experiences just because of where they live."

So she set about introducing them to the world with links to schools in other countries - so successfully that at the end of last year, the school won an award from the British Council for its work to promote international goodwill, the smallest school in Britain to have international status.

The children have staged an exhibition, concert and international buffet for parents and friends in the Upper Dale. They've had visitors from Germany, Malta and Italy - all from much bigger schools.

"They're intrigued when they see how small we are here," says Carole.

And the bonus here is that she gets to travel too.

"When I went to the first meeting of the Comenius Project, which organises all this, I thought it would be in London or Manchester. It turned out be in Malta."

Carole comes from Manchester and was working in Oxfordshire when she and her husband decided to come north. "And I've never regretted a moment," she says.

They used to live in Stanhope, which gave Carole a fairly hairy drive over the wilds of Bollihope Common every day. "But I've only missed a couple of days in four years - though I made it up here one day to find the place looked like the Arctic," she says.

When we just had a light dusting of snow in Darlington and Richmond last month, in Upper Teesdale the road a few yards beyond the school was blocked. And the wind whips round the fell tops.

"On really bad days it can take two adults to accompany each infant to the taxi - otherwise they'd get blown away," says Carole.

There is a team of four part-time teachers. "As many as we can get, otherwise the children would get sick of the same old faces for six years."

And they have good links with the bigger primary down the dale in Middleton in Teesdale - shared sports and activities every Wednesday afternoon - and with Teesdale Comprehensive, which welcomes the school at all sorts of events.

They have supportive parents and a local community. And although they reach out into the world, they love their own back yard too.

"So much of what we learn can be based on our surroundings here. We'll soon be starting a big geology project. The children won't just learn about it, they'll be out there doing it, experiencing it," says Carole.

They won an award for replanting junipers near the school and their Langdon Beck story book trail won a them a national competition because of the community involvement.

"Four children and I flew down to London for the presentation. We were in business class - for some reason, that was the cheapest ticket for the children - and the businessmen were a bit sniffy about us at first," says Carole.

"None of the children had flown before. It was an early morning flight and we flew up through the clouds just as the sun was rising, turning the clouds that amazing gold colour all around us and then one of the children got terribly exited and said: 'This is it! I've seen it! I've seen God's house!' After that, the businessmen just melted."

In an Ofsted report that was liberally scattered with words like "outstanding" and "excellent", the inspectors had one tiny criticism - that the school didn't do much to reflect Britain's multi-cultural society. Well, no. It's a bit tricky really right at the top of Teesdale.

So now they have links with a school near King's Cross in London - lots of different nationalities and languages.

"And they're coming up at Easter to stay in Langdon Beck youth hostel and we're going to have lots of expeditions together, which should be fun and interesting for everyone," says Carole.

There really is a family atmosphere in the school. "Boys and girls play together, big ones and little ones, because there's no-one else. They don't know any different. They have to get on and help each other."

Some of the children will probably not leave the dale. But Carole and her staff hope to equip them for wherever they are. Among the subjects they teach is philosophy. "If they can think things through and think for themselves, they're off to a good start, wherever they end up," says Carole.

Despite the limitations, there are lots of advantages to a small school - the atmosphere, the flexibility. "When you can get the entire school in one minibus, it makes planning expeditions very easy." And, above all, the glorious setting.

"Every now and then we get parents who've read the Ofsted report and think they'd like their children to come here. Then they drive up, see how far we are from everywhere and think again," says Carole.

"But this is an absolutely wonderful place to be. Sometimes I just stand outside and take deep breaths of the air and think how lucky I am."