School life, between the linesBy Eleven Plus Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
Parent life · Britain
At one primary’s summer fair the headteacher helped operate the human fruit machine, and called it a privilege. I volunteered as a reel at ours, and the privilege went to my head.
Parent life · Britain
Buy the uniform in June and the boy keeps growing. Leave it until August and the shop has a 26, a 40 and a queue.
School portraits · Dulwich, London
The garden club at James Allen’s Girls’ School turns its weeds into drinks. I spent Sunday putting mine in the brown bin.
School portraits · High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Wycombe Abbey runs a family tree made entirely of pupils, and once a year the whole thing turns out for House Dance. Ours turns out on FaceTime, facing the ceiling.
School portraits · Manchester and the Lake District
Manchester Grammar School stops lessons for a week each summer and sends hundreds of boys to camp. The old boys remember it in unusual detail.
School portraits · Kent
At Benenden only the final year may scoot round the site. In our house the eldest has asked for the same rights, and fewer of the duties.
The school archives · Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire & a national school project
In 1985 a ten-year-old in Oxfordshire wrote her day down for the BBC’s new Domesday Book, and nobody cut a word. Then my daughter got the same homework, and I was in charge of the pen.
The school archives · Thundersley, Shirley & Stoke Albany
For most of the twentieth century a child was put in charge of the school ink. I have just been put in charge of the PTA urn, and I have been reading the history.
School life · Britain
In 1970 a Dundee pupil reported that his whole class had passed the cycling proficiency test. His last sentence is the one that matters.
School history · Nottinghamshire and Berkshire
In September 1918 a Nottinghamshire village school went blackberrying for the Ministry of Food, and the log book kept score. I ran our Sunday on the same lines, and it rained.
School portraits · London
City of London School for Girls settles its new Year 7s with a Chocolate Biscuit Club. I tried the same thing on the new Year 7 parents, and overcatered.
School portraits · Edinburgh
In 1956 a first-year at George Heriot’s could see Edinburgh’s One O’Clock Gun from his biology lesson, if he leaned. I have now missed it from much closer.
