Turning to the words of the great poets, a County Durham teacher has teased out the untapped potential of a group of special needs children. Marjorie McIntyre talks to Janet McHugh about her methods, which may soon become a benchmark learning system for the rest of the country.

IN A SPECIAL school tucked away in a back street of a former County Durham mining village, an inspirational teacher is transforming the lives of a small band of pupils.

Janet McHugh had nothing to prove when she took on a part-time post at Glendene School for children with special needs in Easington Colliery.

The dynamic mum-of-two had already attained senior posts throughout her teaching career.

But it was at Glendene that her abilities to draw every ounce of potential from her charges came to fruition, producing remarkable results.

It was at her previous post at a regional comprehensive school that this gifted modern languages expert found the key to overcoming children's natural resistance to learning a foreign tongue. In no time, she had her mixed ability 30-strong class conversing in French with consummate ease.

"In my first session, I showed how I could memorise each of the pupils' names, along with a small piece of information about each,'' says Janet. "This established not only a mutual respect between us, but illustrated how easy it was to remember fairly large pieces of information.''

But it was her own childhood experiences of learning which made Janet decide to revert to the old-fashioned rote system.

"I also decided against the current trend and went back to the formal declension of verbs. By constant repetition I found the children were enjoying the sheer familiarity of repeating the same phrases and adding new ones, with the additional ability to understand the actual structure of the French language," she says.

After a term, all the pupils were able to speak French with little inhibition.

"We rapped in French, sang in French, told stories in French and even though I was often using new words they did not understand, they quickly got the gist by my facial expressions and intonation,'' she says.

Janet has always been convinced that the use of rote, and felt her confidence in it was borne out at the comprehensive school, where most of the pupils were overwhelmed by their achievements.

Convinced of her methods, her next challenge came at Glendene school, where she was made responsible for six children and charged with boosting their literacy.

That was three years ago and no-one could have ever believed that under her devoted guidance this shy, diffident group - two couldn't read and another was undergoing constant speech therapy - would eventually take to the stage at the Sunderland Empire and for 20 minutes entertain their audience to the most mesmerising performance of classical poetry and extracts from Shakespeare.

It all began when Janet read the group Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, A Railway Carriage. Her expert and animated delivery held them spellbound and the little group moved on to William Blake's Tiger Tiger.

"One by one, they memorised the lines and on we would move to the next poet. Somehow the words of these classical poems, which had such a great impact on my childhood, were simply liberating them.''

The children's parents were stunned at what was being achieved and soon arrived at the school to seek out their children's muse. The two who couldn't read were beginning to recognise words from the poems they had been taught and both were literate within the first year.

The children's eagerness to learn knew no bounds, as they mastered more and more poems, their confidence grew and they were constantly seen wandering around school clutching their growing numbers of poetry books.

With so much new learned information Janet had to do little to persuade them to take to the stage and perform for their schoolmates. From there, they were selected to take part in the prestigious Lighthouse Awards gala evening at the Sunderland Empire, where they stole the show.

The pupil with speech difficulties no longer needed therapy. Another's work has improved to the point where he is taking up some of his studies at the local comprehensive. At the end of the SATS another of her little group went on to study GCSE English Literature at Janet's former comprehensive school and two of the others are to attend Peterlee College where they will study dramatic arts.

The results of Janet's careful and sensitive tuition are spectacular but required a great deal of self-discipline on the part of the children.

The additional spin-off was a marked improvement in behaviour and, as the children's own self-respect grew, their attitude to others improved markedly, says Janet.

Among the many performances the children have now given has been one to the County Director of Education Keith Mitchell who told the audience: "Nothing could have prepared me for what I have seen. It was certainly one of the most professional performances ever.''

Praise indeed for this empathetic, capable, caring and pioneering teacher whose ability must surely now be recognised and acted upon by the LEA's higher echelons.

In the meantime, members of Easington's Education Action Zone have made a video recording of Janet's burgeoning performers, who will now tour other schools in the region.

It is a performance audiences are unlikely to forget.