| 1 | 1 | | Sarah Heritage was nervous on her first day at school. And as she sat at her desk, she |
| 2 | | suddenly froze. Dozens of boys appeared at the window, all of them pointing and staring at |
| 3 | | her. 'It was horrible - like being in a zoo. I just started crying,' says Sarah, who's 12. The |
| 4 | | boys weren't being nasty, however. They were simply curious because Sarah's the only girl |
| 5 | | among the 100 pupils at Maple Hayes Hall School, in Lichfield, Staffordshire. |
| 2 | 6 | | Her parents, Val, 38, and Keith, 36, moved from Gloucestershire to Birmingham last |
| 7 | | September, especially to send their daughter there. Sarah is dyslexic and they knew |
| 8 | | Maple Hayes has an excellent record for helping children with problems like hers. |
| 3 | 9 | | What they didn't realise was that she'd be the only girl there. 'The principal told us |
| 10 | | there was another girl at the school,' explains Val. 'Unfortunately this girl left just before |
| 11 | | Sarah started. We asked her if she still wanted to go, and she said yes. She was very |
| 12 | | unhappy at her other school because she couldn't cope with the work.' |
| 4 | 13 | | Maple Hayes has had only a few girls since it opened in 1981 - dyslexia affects six |
| 14 | | times more boys than girls. 'The way I saw it,' Val says, 'Sarah would be one in 100 at this |
| 15 | | school, whereas at her first school she was one in 800: the only one recognised as dyslexic.' |
| 5 | 16 | | At break times and lunch, Sarah stays inside school and reads, while the rest of her |
| 17 | | classmates run about in the playground. When there's a games lesson, Sarah goes to the |
| 18 | | girls' toilet to change by herself. And instead of hockey or netbalI, she joins the boys for |
| 19 | | football and basketball. 'They don't pass the ball to me very often, but I'm not that |
| 20 | | bothered because I don't like football much,' says Sarah. |
| 6 | 21 | | 'What I miss very much,' she continues, 'is having a best friend to talk to.' Sarah's |
| 22 | | loneliness is only noticeable if you watch her closely. The day I visited the school, a group |
| 23 | | of boys were chattering and laughing about what was on TV the night before. Sarah |
| 24 | | watched and smiled at their jokes, but didn't try to join in. 'She's naturally shy and |
| 25 | | probably wouldn't want to be the centre of attention, even among girls,' says her teacher, |
| 26 | | Jennifer Mason. 'At first the boys didn't know how to approach Sarah. Some of them |
| 27 | | thought they'd be teased if they became friendly with her.' |
| 7 | 28 | | Sarah's father says:'We found out about her dyslexia four years ago, when her |
| 29 | | teacher said she had a problem. Yet she had a good IQ and a brilliant vocabulary and |
| 30 | | memory. So we enrolled her into a school with a dyslexie unit.' |
| 8 | 31 | | Sarah may not be a star on the football pitch, but she regularly comes top of her |
| 32 | | class in spelling tests and gets excellent marks in English and science. 'Sarah's doing |
| 33 | | extremely weIl,' says the school principal, Dr Neville Brown. |
| 9 | 34 | | As for the boys, although they admit Sarah was a novelty at first, they say they've |
| 35 | | now accepted her as just another pupil. 'If anyone said anything horrible to her, we'd |
| 36 | | defend her,' says one classmate, Matthew. 'Actually, it can be quite nice having a girl |
| 37 | | around.' |
| 10 | 38 | | Sarah, too, is getting used to being the only girl in the school. 'There are some good |
| 39 | | things about it. For a start, everyone knows my name - and there's never a queue for the |
| 40 | | toilets.' |
