Some years it’s been dry-retching, whilst other years have witnessed me trying to speak but only croaks and rasps have come out. One unforgettable year saw me doing my best to look professional and welcoming as drips of snot emerged with increasing regularity from my nostrils. Yep, it must be Open Evening time again, when prospective pupils and their parents come to look around “big school” and admire the cleaner’s scrubbing techniques after they’ve worked their magic on the scrawled-on desks and walls.
In fact, I don’t think there’s much to admire if you think of it all from the perspective of a Year 6 child who has spent years rolling around in sand pits with colourful books and bright wall displays and “reading corners” and wendy houses, and climbing frames in the playground, where they spend most of their day with its frequent breaks and play-times. The shock of being dragged along soulless corridors on a damp autumn evening, meeting hundreds of new teachers all promising you PowerPoint displays and shiny books (dragged out especially for the occasion) would be enough to put me off going up to senior school, that’s for sure. Even more so if I was a ten year old used to the cosy life of a small school with its nativity plays and nature trails.
The teachers (us) who are begrudgingly giving up their evenings to smile and answer awkward questions must
look like ogres to these children, as Open Evening usually comes at the time of year when fighting off the
flurry of germs that besiege us from every direction from about 8 days into term is no longer working. By
this time teachers are falling by the wayside, sick from the constant barrage of tummy bugs and sniffling
colds that children drag to school with them. The first few weeks of term are manageable as adrenalin and a
stamina built up from years of practice keep you going, but then after a month or so the cracks begin to show
and it’s into these chinks that the germs manage to sneak, infecting the stuffy classrooms and all those who
inhabit them.
So what better time to schedule an Open Evening, when the nights are drawing in, and all we all want to do
is rush home to spend the evening marking the piles of books in front of a glowing radiator? When headaches
and belly aches are bowling us all over like skittles, and coughs and sore throats prevent us from smiling
welcomingly at potential pupils and their parents?
The summer would be a much better time to show pupils the school: if Open Evening was at the end of Year 5, then primaries would benefit too, because their pupils would have had a glimpse into the future, and seeing the enormity of big school would make them appreciate their final year in primary all the more.
But in the meantime, welcome to the primary school children and their parents, and please accept our airborne germs as graciously as we offer them.
added 7/10/06
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