A HIGHLY successful Indian school - funded largely by small communities in North Yorkshire and East Cleveland - is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Roseberry School, based in Darjeeling in India, was set up by retired teacher Helen Jones, from Great Ayton for children from chronically deprived backgrounds. Now, a decade on, it has earned a reputation as the best school in the district.

She started the primary education establishment - which is named after Roseberry Topping near Great Ayton - after going on a package holiday to India to look for flowers and striking up a lasting friendship with one of the guides, Bijey and his wife, Rachana.

Helen, who formerly worked as a physics teacher at Stokesley School, said everywhere they trekked she came across young children walking great distances through the mountains to reach a school. She also heard about the many barriers to education that children from poor backgrounds encountered and was determined to do something to help.

After several more trips back to the mountainous region she decided to start up her own school in Darjeeling with Rachana and Bijey for children from the most deprived backgrounds and slums. It is funded by her charity School Aid India.

They brought a rusty, corrugated iron building on a steep hillside and set about creating Rosesberry School. It now stands as a four-storey high, modern building.

“People said we had to employ an architect to build the school, but he proved completely useless,” said Helen.

“In the end it Bijey and Rachana oversaw the building project. There was plenty of labour round there so we had guys from the tea plantation and women who worked as Sherpas who built it on this steep slope by hand. That’s how we got started. It’s just unbelievable.

“The building was full the first year and so then we were thinking, “What do we do now?”

“I started a building fund to raise £50,000 for a three storey building. I gave us four years to raise it and we made the money in two years and we ended up with a four storey building.”

What makes the charity unusual is that as well as covering the cost of uniforms, books and materials, it also oversees high standards of teaching within the school.

The school has turned around the life chances of its pupils, who come from some of the most poverty-stricken areas of Northern India and may not otherwise have received a consistent education.

After her last trip, Helen brought back essays written in English by the primary-aged students, who wrote confidently about their ambitions to become solicitors, journalists and teachers.

Helen said enrolment in the school is limited to those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

“Parent earn about £1.50 a day; that gives you an idea of the levels of poverty,” she said.

“They come from the slums and some walk for one hour or more to get there every day.

“Now they come from all over Darjeeling. There’s a lot of slums just behind the school where there will be four bunkbeds in one room and no running water or inside toilet.”

Now many of the children who attended Roseberry School are doing well at secondary school and on course to qualify for a secure government job if they complete eight years of secondary education.

They include Diksha who climbed 1,500ft every day to attend Roseberry School and is now top of the class in her lessons in secondary school.

Helen said one of the driving forces behind the school’s success was its teachers, who are paid about a third of the average teaching salary in India but are strongly dedicated to the school and its pupils.

“Everybody now agrees it’s the best primary school in Darjeeling,” she said.

“When you think of all the expensive private schools in the area, none of them can touch it because we have loyal staff who are so good at what they do.”

Local churches in and around Great Ayton have raised thousands of pounds over the years for School Aid India. Helen recently held a free thank you event for local donors, where she provided homemade scones and tea. Despite the event being held purely as a thank you to local fundraisers and donors, Helen discovered people who had attended had donated over £1,000 to the charity through the course of the coffee morning.

“We have raised over £210,000 in ten years,” she said.

“People have just been incredibly generous.”