Most children begin school when they are five years old , or just before but Matilda's parents forgot to send her . She was five and a half when she went for the first time . Crunchem Hall school had about two hundred and fifty children and the head teacher was called Miss Trunchbull . She was a terrible woman who frightened the children and the teachers.When she came near you could almost feel danger coming from her and if four or five children got in her way she crashed straight through them pushing them right and left