Knowledge Day, 1 September 2015
A first-of-September greeting for a year when a number of children in the yard had arrived from somewhere else.
A good first day of school to every pupil, and to the teachers waiting in the yard.
In a good many schools this morning there are children who were not here last year and did not choose to be here now. They have arrived from the east, with an accent, mid-story, into a class that formed without them.
Whether that goes well is decided almost entirely in the first fortnight, and almost entirely by a teacher who has no additional resources and was not trained for it.
To those teachers particularly: what you do in the next two weeks matters more than most of what happens this year.
A good year to everyone in the yard, including the ones who arrived recently.
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