Wealthy benefactor has been Peter's salvation (From Stroud News and Journal)

Wealthy benefactor has been Peter's salvation

TWO years ago this week, profoundly deaf schoolboy Peter Schofield feared he would have to struggle along in a mainstream school - until Harrods' boss and multi-millionaire Mohammed Al Fayed and TV dream-maker Esther Rantzen stepped in.

Before he knew it, Peter was lunching at Harrods with Mr Al Fayed, who waved his magic chequebook and made it possible for him to attend the school of his dreams.

Since then he has blossomed almost beyond recognition and this term he picked up the school's prestigious science prize.

Reporter Ben Falconer caught up with him this week and found out how he has been getting on

PETER Schofield is as confident and intelligent a 14-year-old you could ever wish to meet.

With a positive attitude towards his schoolwork and the sort of good manners all parents pray for in their children, it's clear he is one of life's more able youngsters.

Despite the fact that Peter relies on hearing aids to listen to everything but the very loudest noises, and suffers from Dispraxia and a growth disorder, he's drawing up his own web-pages and has written a foreign exchange computer program, to name but two of his projects.

But two years ago he was destined to realise very little of his potential because education officials said he should be taught in a mainstream school.

For the two years previously his mother and father, Valerie and Paul, of Bussage, had tried to convince Gloucestershire County Council that it should pay for Peter to go to the Mary Hare National Grammar School for the Deaf in Newbury, Berks.

With fees of 19,000 a year, the council refused.

The case almost made it to the High Court but the Hares knew the council would not budge. It argued Peter could be 'included' so he attended Kingshill School at Cirencester.

But he could not be included in all lessons. One-to-one tutoring took him out of some lessons and he felt he was missing out.

Add to that his increasing frustration at not being able to hear properly in classes and that he could not even have lunch with his friends because the noise in the dining room overloaded his hearing aids with background noise, made him a very unhappy 12-year-old.

His sister Alison, 13, who also has the same congenital hearing problem, attends Kingshill and is doing very well - but it soon became clear it wasn't the right environment for Peter.

At their wit's end, Valerie and Paul wrote to Esther Rantzen to see if she could help. She recommended approaching Mr Al Fayed.

His son Karim, then 14, was at Mary Hare and he knew exactly what it was like to have to deal with the problems that Peter had.

The big difference is, of course, that Mr Al Fayed had the funds to do something about it.

But when he heard Peter's story he was swift to act. In the blink of an eye, Peter was off to Mary Hare Grammar School.

"I thought he was going to help us fight our case," recalled Valerie.

"Then he said 'I'm going to speak to the school and you are going to start next week'.

"We were so shocked. Peter has never really looked back."

He is a boarder at Mary Hare with children who are all in the same boat - almost deaf but intelligent enough to go to grammar school.

In small classes of ten, they sit in a horseshoe shape, so everyone knows what is going on. He is in the top set for science and English and has just embarked on his GCSE's.

He will probably go in to the sixth form and Mr Al Fayed will continue to foot the bill.

"All the teachers are teachers of the deaf," explained Valerie.

"They know they are having to turn away from the blackboard to talk and they use a special headphone system."

Peter's hearing loss is classed as 'severe'. A congenital problem which cropped up when he was six. It is getting progressively worse. Peter was lucky in that he had learned to speak before the problem kicked in and conversing with him in a quiet room is no problem at all.

He is now profoundly deaf in his left ear, which cannot pick up sound below 115 decibels (db) and his right ear cannot pick up anything below 70db.

Valerie explained just how much he can hear.

"If I go in to his room in the morning and I put my mouth to his right ear and shout, he can just hear me," she said.

Dispraxia affects his co-ordination and movement, making it difficult to come to decisions - and it must be hard to cope with a growth disorder on top of that. To look at him, you wouldn't know he has a growth disorder.

But he knows it, yet he does not appear to be self-conscious in any way.

At Mary Hare he receives the help he needs to make the most of himself.

"Mary Hare has made a massive effort to cope with his other needs," said Valerie.

What is has done is let him get on with being a schoolboy, and a good one at that.

"Chemistry is my favourite subject," said Peter, "I enjoy it but I don't want to do it as a career.

"I really would like to go in to software engineering - I've written a cash converter programme and I've got a couple of websites going."

He proudly admits that games is his least favourite subject and that homework is a drag at times. Two hours a night, five days a week is tough going after a long school day.

Peter admitted to the very odd bout of homesickness but his mother probably feels it more.

"We have him home for seven weeks in the summer holiday and then he goes away," said Valerie.

"I find it very hard - he's not a very good communicator, like most teenage boys.

"At least he comes home every other weekend and sometimes he brings his friends too. We can have four deaf children in the house sometimes which can be interesting!"

It does comfort her to know that he is getting the very best education available.

And she feels especially vindicated in her and Paul's attempts to get the council to send him to Mary Hare, now that Peter has won the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory science prize, for the best science pupil from each school in Berkshire.

"I'm very pleased because he was so far behind," said Valerie. "I'm optimistic that with another good two years ahead of him, he will come out with good GCSE's."

"When I'm at school I can do things I can't do at home," explained Peter. It really is as simple as that.

All of this success is being bankrolled by Mr Al Fayed who is committed to seeing Peter to the end of his sixth form days.

Although the Harrods boss is quite a controversial figure the Hare's can only praise him.

Peter believes he does not deserve the treatment he receives from the Establishment and the media at times.

"He's got a heart of gold," said Valerie.

"Because he's larger than life, people tend to jump on the unfortunate comments that sometimes get quoted.

"He spoke to Peter and Alison, not to me when we went to see him at Harrods. It was an act of kindness. He understood our problem and said he would do it," said Valerie.

And she added: "I won't hear a word against the man, he's changed our lives."