She looked like a little roundabout bobbing up and downI I thought she was waving. I did not know what she was trying to say.” These were probably the most poignant words at the inquest into the deaths of Rochelle Cauvet and Hannah Black at Stainforth Beck, north Yorkshire, on October 10, 2000. Recalling Stevie Smith’s poem “Not Waving But Drowning”, one of the girls’

classmates from Royds school in Leeds somehow encapsulated the lack of communication that characterised the tragedy.

The three-week inquiry at Harrogate magistrates’ court made me recall my own nightmare of some seven years earlier. My school had organised an annual activities event in which everyone took two days off timetable to experience adventure-style activities. I was drafted into the cycling option at the last minute and, looking at the route planned by my two colleagues, I felt some misgiving at the inclusion of a steep bank. As the senior of the party, I suggested that two of us cycle to the top of the bank and hold up traffic while the other did the same at the bottom. We would then send down the pupils in pairs, advising them to freewheel.

All went well until the final pair, whom I set going and then followed myself. I watched with horror as the girls approached a hairpin bend and one of them lost control on loose gravel. I watched helplessly as she skated several feet on the side of her face.

When I turned her over, the flesh on this pretty girl’s face was flapping loose on her upper lip, cheek and eye socket. Acting much calmer than I felt, I told her partner to fetch my first-aider colleague from the bottom of the hill. I then rode to the nearest farmhouse and rang the emergency services.

That evening was possibly the most fraught of all our careers. Although the girl’s injuries were not life-threatening, she would need cosmetic surgery for years to come. How would her parents react? The only positive in the situation was my NUT membership; at least I would be spared crushing legal debts.

In the event, her parents were forgiving and understanding. “It could just as easily have happened in the holidays when no one was there,” was their philosophical stance. Like me, Royds school teacher Andrew Miller was a last-minute recruit when the designated trip leader became ill. At the inquiry, he admitted he had not heard “anything” about government safety guidance on outdoor activities. He told the inquiry he’d actually caught hold of the right shoulder of Rochelle’s jacket in the stream and together they were swept over a waterfall.

Then came the moment which created a recurrent nightmare. “I managed to grab hold of a broken branch which hung over the stream. I held on, but unfortunately I could not keep hold of Rochelle. I cannot tell you how it felt.” He had clambered out to remove his waterproof trousers, only to see Hannah, the other victim, being swept downstream in the middle of the beck.

But would the ending have been happier if he had studied the relevant guidance? Certainly, river walking was regarded as a low-risk activity, although a year earlier the BBC’s 999 programme had used a stuntman to show that he was unable to stay on his feet in just 12 inches of water travelling at six miles an hour. Evidently, the force of the water is more significant than its depth.

The Royds party, which undertook the walk before lunch, ought to have forewarned the after-lunch party of difficulties. But there were four teachers with no individual leader among them. Marcus Bailie, the head of inspection services for the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority set up after the 1993 Lyme Bay canoeing tragedy, remarked at Harrogate: “If one teacher had been in control they may have decided not to go aheadI it is possible each had their doubts but did not voice them and therefore they went ahead. That’s a very common situation of joint leadership.”

Youthful bravado can often blind people to the danger of a situation and make it difficult for the teacher in charge to prefer the “spoilsport” option. Balance this against what can be achieved when pupils are freed from the tyranny of bells and classrooms. Outside the school, they come to perceive Sir and Miss as people rather than teaching machines, and learning takes its rightful place as an integer of living.

Alan Combes taught for 35 years and now works as an education consultant