Innocents facing the old world ...

The school's closed for half term - 

The car park is empty - no nervy Skodas are lined up outside the Music Classroom - no long limbed boys carve lewd graffiti in steamy classrooms - the corridors are silent - in the school hall are nests of polypropylene chairs - 

Walking to the sports centre, I remember my first year of teaching - 

I'd enter my classroom, burdened with exercise books I'd marked the night before - I'd written good or see me in desperate biro - 

I'd get out my register, with its lists of names - 

I'd put up another poster of Julius Caesar  - 

I'd check my time table for the day - 

The hands of the classroom clock would start to go round in syrup - 

The bell would sound - then I'd hear them, my class, their young voices, full of artless bravado, innocents facing the old world - 

10.15

Friday 19 February 2016

Purbeck Sports Centre 

Purbeck School

Wareham

Dorset