Talgarth and district
Victorian school days
  A lonely mountain school  
  Victorian schools were visited each year by the School Inspector, and their official reports were copied into the Log Book. They indicate the lessons which were seen as the most important, but also sometimes include very revealing comments.
This one, from Pengenfford School in 1885, calls it a "lonely mountain school" with children who are shy of strangers !		 School inspector
28th October
1885
 School diary entry "There has been a change of teacher during the year and an epidemic of measles, yet the school maintains its character of thorough efficiency, as far as circumstances permit. The expression of the Reading and Recitation seems to be improving, a particularly creditable feature in a lonely mountain school where the children are timid in the presence of strangers"...
 

"By making a little allowance the higher rate can be recommended for English, Geography and Singing".
The Inspectors usually took into account some of the problems which many schools had to deal with, such as illness and changes of teachers. The children here can't have been all that timid, because they impressed the government Inspector with their English, Geography, and Singing.
The amount of money provided to run the school depended on how well the children did in different subjects during the examination, and was paid at either the higher or lower rate. Sometimes they received no payment at all if a subject was done badly !

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