A retired veteran teacher has called for classrooms to have no more than 13 students.

Former Heron Bay Primary principal Alan Leigh also told The Royal Gazette he would like to see education officials return to the classrooms regularly and parents, particularly males, play a more active role in their children's schooling.

Relaxing in the backyard of his Warwick home, Mr. Leigh recalled the days when Bermuda's first Chief Education Officer Kenneth Robinson visited schools to evaluate teachers.

"If he could do his job and evaluate us, why can't this be done today?'' he asked. "Are we more concerned with paperwork than action?'' He also noted that the Department of Education has grown from ten people to about 120.

"I would like to see some of the Point Finger Road staff come into the regular classrooms and teach so that they don't lose touch with reality.'' As a former president of the Association of School Principals, Mr. Leigh said he tried to get the Education Department and principals to work closer together.

"But that seems to have gone by the wayside,'' he said, citing disagreements over setting up an alternative school as an example.

The ASP recommended that an alternative school be set up by September 1, 1996.

It stressed that the school should have a positive alternative learning environment and should be designed to allow students to develop basic skills, social skills and their self-esteem.

Government, last year, opened at the Bermuda Regiment an alternative school which can accommodate up to 28 students.

This, Mr. Leigh said, was "too little, too late and in the wrong place''.

"They need to have somewhere where they can say `I'm here because I need help', but there's no stigma attached,'' he explained.

Stressing that the emphasis in education should be placed on children at an early age, Mr. Leigh said: "I would like to see an emphasis being put on five year olds and six year olds.

"I would dearly love to see classes of 12 to 13 students. I've taught all ages. I used to teach GCE level Maths in England and I've taught five-year-olds.

"It is difficult to teach 25 five-year-olds. I've always believed in early intervention.'' While Mr. Leigh noted that students today have access to more material resources, he lamented that the focus on students had become blurred.

"Staff training seems to be the in thing,'' he said, "but people (teachers) are constantly taken out of the classroom. I think people have forgotten that schools are here because of the students. We're not into empire building, the focus should be purely on the child.'' Regarding the integration of special students into regular schools, Mr. Leigh said: "Inclusion is OK, but it is not for all children. There should be a place for certain children to be in classes of five or six.

"For instance, some children function better in a small group. And not all schools are accessible.'' And even though a screening process existed for five-year-olds, Mr. Leigh said often there was not enough staff to help those identified with learning problems.

"My former reading recovery teacher was dead keen on this (screening youngsters), but she was also my special education teacher,'' he said. "She had to devote half of her time to reading recovery and therefore could not concentrate on the other.

"If you're putting in the (assistance) programmes but do not have the staff, it is in vain.'' Parents also have to be more vigilant in terms of their children's education, he said.

"We as a society have gotten to thinking an awful lot about the material things, like a TV in every room,'' Mr. Leigh stressed. "That's not as important as sitting with a child and talking or reading to each other.

"Society needs to think about itself and we need to stop babies from having babies. We need to have responsible parents. This makes the difference. If you have a parent who cares, that child will be a winner.

"Fortunately at Heron Bay the parents believed this.'' Mr. Leigh, who has been teaching since 1957, began his local career on April 1, 1960 at Gilbert Institute.

He taught two classes, Primary Six and Primary Seven, in the same room at the same time.

"We had two blackboards across from each other,'' he recalled.

After teaching at Gilbert for three and a half years, he returned to the UK and the same school he was teaching at before.

But longing for sunny skies and balmy breezes, he came back to Bermuda eight months later and taught for three years at Northlands Primary before moving back to Gilbert.

As acting deputy principal of Gilbert for three years, Mr. Leigh said it was obvious that anyone who wanted to become a principal would need a teaching degree.

He therefore travelled to Kingston, Ontario where he taught during the day and took courses at Queen's University at night.

In 1979, Mr. Leigh applied for the post of principal of Port Royal Primary School and was successful.

He was there for eight years when Education Permanent Secretary Marion Robinson asked him to be principal of both Port Royal and Heron Bay Primary School.

"I did that for two years,'' Mr. Leigh noted, adding that at the time Heron Bay only had 97 students and was predominantly black while Port Royal was mainly white.

But he said: "Slowly the school changed. It became a general reflection of the community. The teachers believed in themselves. I reached out to parents and they responded.'' While he welcomed the experience of heading two schools at the same time, Mr.

Leigh said after two years he told Dr. Robinson "enough was enough''.

He was then placed in charge of Heron Bay where he remained until his retirement -- which became official last Monday.

He will be replaced by former Language Arts Coordinator at Purvis Primary and West End Primary, Laverne Simons.

Asked if he had any regrets about the profession in which he invested some four decades, Mr. Leigh said: "If I had to do it all over again, I would not do anything different. No-one has had to force me to get out of bed everyday.

I did it gladly.

"My PTA in the last three years were extremely supportive,'' he added. "If all the schools had such a great PTA, they would be fine.'' Even though the active members of the PTA were predominantly female, fathers also did their part.

For example, Mr. Leigh said, they organised an annual barbecue at which they did all the cooking and serving.

Mr. Leigh admitted he will miss such events. But he said he is looking forward to having more time to spend on two passions -- golf and woodwork.

Admitting he is no Jack Nicklaus, the jovial Welshman said: "Mervyn Moorehead (retired principal of St. George's Preparatory) and I will do some golfing.

He's quite good at it. But I'm so bad that my PTA have sent me to golf school for a week in Tampa, Florida!''