At the chalkface The last lesson


THE PRESIDENT of the NUT is giving it both barrels at the Easter conference. She’s not happy and zooms through a grim list of teacher grievances, which ends with “and work until you’re 68, die at your loom, sorry, desk!” Quelle horreur! Croaking in the classroom. A nightmare... I’m at my


desk – aged 168 – droning through Mice and Men for the trillionth time. April sunlight dances over snoozing faces. A savage torpor looms over the classroom, because we’re still on winter heating. Health and Safety forbids us to open the windows more than a millimetre – otherwise the mites, or myself, might hurl ourselves out of the National Curriculum to the playground far below. I plough on. And on. And


on. Boredom blooms. Some of us are losing the will to live. Like me, rather literally. I pass out. Then on. I shuffle off this mortal coil and go to meet my performance manager in the sky. I slump over the desk, clutching Mice in a dangling hand. There is little conspicuous change in the classroom. Discipline may be marginally better. There’s a minor lull in proceedings. Perhaps the lesson has technically finished? “Where are we, sir?” trills


a flummoxed Rhapsody. Hell probably.


Shaka wanders in and waves


a late slip at the heap on the desk. “Sorry I’m late, sir. Dogs! Chill!” I am chilling rather


comprehensively, what with the rigor mortis. “Can I read?” says Crumlin. Why start now, Ronald? The pips go. Ask not for


whom, they pip for me. The class gets up and shambles by. Bits of me are now blue. Mice slithers from my skeletal grip onto the floor. A limb twitches and


swings. “He gone! He brown


bread!” shrieks Decibelle. “Close his eyes,” yells Sidney Lunk. “Yeah – respect!” says


Crumlin, removing his hood. “‘Ere, sir, sign my report slip


then!” says Shaka, who really should give up that skunk. Sunlight glitters in my


eyes. Sabrina gasps. Seth faints. Lily blubs. And Ms Mumps of Management ticks her clipboard with chill fingers and writes “unsatis”. The lesson was a bit thin on interactivity, what with being mostly posthumous. It lacked a plenary, what with the pulmonary. The door bangs open. It’s


the Ofsted Dead-On-The-Job Squad. They’re busy these days. I am carted out in a wheelbarrow, whizzed down dark corridors and cremated in a large incinerator. Flames leap up in the April skies. Quelle horreur indeed! Quelle


nightmare – but for some of you youngsters it might one day be real.


• Ian Whitwham is a former secondary school teacher.


News Olympians, pupils and the Bard By Pete Henshaw


A group of students got to meet some London 2012 hopefuls in the stunning surroundings of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre last week. The occasion was aimed at


promoting the Globe to Globe Festival, which is presenting every one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays in a different language between now and the Olympics. It also provided a showcase for


Globe Education’s Lively Action student workshop programme and a chance to celebrate the impact that National Lottery funding has had on both sport and the arts. Olympic hopefuls Jo Calvino


and Sarah McKay joined the students from Maria Fidelis School in north London. Ms Calvino is a weightlifter who returned from the European Championships last week after she hit the Olympic B Standard and Ms McKay is a basketball player. The group was treated to a Lively


Action workshop with a Globe Education practitioner where they explored part of the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lively Action offers students the


chance to visit Shakespeare’s Globe and enjoy practical workshops using some of the same techniques as the actors and directors working at the theatre. Shakespeare’s Globe and the


athletes have all benefited from National Lottery funding and both parties will be playing their part in London 2012, with the athletes


Treading the boards: British basketball player Sarah Mckay with students from Maria Fidelis School on The Globe’s stage


aiming to compete at the Games and the Globe hostsing the Globe to Globe festival in the run-up. Ms Calvino said: “With the


Olympic Games coming to London it is nice to go and see what other projects are going on outside of the sport and to meet London kids who will be watching and cheering on Team GB come July 27. The Globe’s artistic director,


Dominic Dromgoole, said: “As Shakespeare’s theatrical London


home, we want to celebrate this international affection by welcoming Shakespeare enthusiasts to experience his work in their own languages and dialects.” For details of the Globe to Globe


performance schedule, visit http:// globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe. com/ For more information on the


Lively Action workshops, go to www.shakespearesglobe.com/ education/learning/at-the-globe


Bard times: Weightlifter Jo Calvino during the Globe’s Lively Action workshop


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SecEd • April 26 2012


Photos: Leo Wilkinson


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