Letters July 30: Educational benefit of day at Great Yorkshire

I REFER to Sarah Todd’s recent article (The Yorkshire Post, July 15) about her family’s annual pilgrimage to the Great Yorkshire Show, which I found most interesting.

It is now 31 years since I retired from the teaching profession, the last 15 years spent as headteacher of quite a large primary school in a rural area of Lancashire. This, of course, was before teachers became swamped in the bureaucracy of today.

I recall one boy, Steven, whose father worked in the agricultural industry and who made his annual pilgrimage to the Harrogate Show every year. Steven, though not academically brilliant, was always interested in the great outdoors, so when the lad was seven-years-old his father came to ask if his son could have a day off school to go with him to the show. Without hesitation I just said: “Of course, go”. This request was made each year as the date of the Harrogate Show came around until Steven went to high school, but after each visit he would tell me what he had seen and most enjoyed.

I was in no doubt that such an excursion contributed to his education and I just wish that headteachers of today could use the same discretion that I had a generation ago.

So Sarah, do keep up your annual family pilgrimage.