Traffic is getting heavier in the mornings. WH Smith has bogoffs on cartridge pen refills. Young parents curse as the needle stabs them for the third time, blood shedding on the Cash’s Name Tape.
It is “Back to School” time, with or without exclamation marks.
In my Sixth Form College the quiet rhythmn of the summer months has slowly speeded up. Course guidance, followed by enrolements. More enrolements, Emergency frantic Late Enrolements. Finally, today, Timetable De-clashing.
This is, at its simplest, twenty tutors locked in a room with 200 students until someone gives in and solves the problem of needing to be in two different places at the same time for different courses. Unlike an infinite number of monkeys, the tutors have never reproduced the works of Shakespeare, but they always get the timetable sorted out in the end.
In the library we have been quietly moving, sorting, polishing and laminating. Lots of laminating. (Though not quite as much as the Great Laminating Fever of A Few Years Ago. This epidemic of en-plasticisation was brought on by an imminent OFSTED Inspection. In an effort to impress, any piece of paper larger than bog roll was laminated. When the sun shone whole corridors glinted. Eskimo glare shields were hastily improvised. Those of us in charge of Stationery started dealing in Laminate Futures. It is believed one of the older members of staff was laminated where they stood…)
We are ready for tomorrow, when our new students arrive. This year’s cycle is about to begin again.
Stay tuned for more on this channel…
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