Page 57 of A Class Act

A chorus of distaste and revulsion spread round the room like wildfire. (Similes, then?)

‘Who did this?’ I asked, glaring at the rest of these eleven-year-olds. ‘And all of you, stop that noise right now.’ Amazingly, they did, their eyes moving from me to the poor kid – Alfie, according to the curling name sticker on his blazer – snivelling in front of me.

Was he going to be a grass? The class held its collective breath.

‘Write down who did it?’ I suggested. ‘But first, go and put that trainer outside and we’ll deal with it later. And the rest of you, you have just five minutes to write down as many authors as you can think of.’

‘Come on, Alfie.’ Once he’d returned to the classroom, sans stinky trainer, I placed paper and pencil in front of him.

‘Little Shove Horn?’ I whispered, staring down at Alfie as he pushed the paper back towards me.

Alfie nodded, wiping his eyes.

‘It’s his baby sister, miss,’ the class chorused. ‘Siobhan. Little Siobhan. She’s really cute.’

Wanting to giggle, as well as thanking God I didn’t have to hunt out and bollock the perpetrator, I turned once more to the class. ‘OK, we have fronted adverbials on the menu today.’

‘Is that what’s for dinner, miss? I’m right hungry, me.’ A tall child who looked as if he really was in need of a good meal shouted out from the back.

‘Well, for a start, let’s not have any calling out. Jack, is it?’ I scrutinised his name written in childish lower case on his sticky label, which, after almost two weeks of wear, was looking pretty tatty. I turned to the class. ‘You’re at high school now, and you’ll have had St Mede’s behaviour policy explained to you? Yes? No?’

Several heads nodded at me in response, but it was clear some of the kids didn’t know what I was talking about.

‘C1,’ I reminded Jack and the rest of the class, ‘is a verbal warning issued if you shout out orwaste the opportunity to learnas well asdamage others’ opportunities.’ I’d learned this little homily off by heart the previous evening and could already spout it verbatim.

Blank faces all round.

‘Miss—’ a hand was raised ‘—d’you mean we’ll be in the doodah if we muck about?’

I wanted to laugh. At least he’d had the sense not to sayin the shit. ‘Absolutely, young man,’ I said with a straight face. ‘So, let’s get on. Sit up, you can’t listen and learn slouched over your desks. So, no, we don’teatfronted adverbials, however hungry we might be. We use them in our writing.’

‘I hate writing, miss,’ Jack shouted out, but at least had accompanied this with a raised hand.

Ignoring him, I went on, ‘You will have all been taught what a fronted adverbial is at your primary school. You’ll have needed to know them for your SPAG SATS exam, but let’s have a reminder. Anyone remember?’ I looked round hopefully but wasmet with a sea of blank stares, eyes dropping onto wooden desks as my own attempted to meet each one in turn.

‘No? OK, let’s break the phrase down. Fronted? Frontal?’

‘Full frontal, miss? That’s rude, my mum says.’ The tiny little girl on the front row sporting a perfect pair of blonde plaits looked most put out.

‘Just meansin the front.’ I smiled. ‘Now, we all know what an adverb is, don’t we?’

We obviously didn’t.

‘OK, a verb?’

‘A doing word?’ A red-haired lad raised his hand.

‘Exactly. OK, I want a doing word from every one of you.’

‘Eat.’

‘Munch.’

‘Chew.’

‘Doesn’thaveto be about eating,’ I remonstrated.

‘Breakfast.’

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