First impression

MY NEW SCHOOL IS A VERY LARGE ONE compared with the primary school that I was at. It has an old building and a new one, which is very large indeed. There are many things which are different from my old school and I am only going to tell you a few. The first thing that is different is that we have different teachers for each lesson and we go into other rooms. Before, we didn't have a loud-speaker for announcements and pips for the end of each lesson or period.

The new building consists of gyms, woodwork shops, science labs., as well as classrooms, and near the new building is a tuckshop. The old building is old compared with the new one which was built somewhere around 1955. The Lower School is for the first and second year boys, and it has a Gym which is called the Lower School Gym.

For dinner you have to wait in the playground until your form is called out, and then you go and line up. The dinners are very nice, and as soon as you have finished you can go out to play. In the playground you can see the boys all lining up for their dinner. Some classes have a late dinner and have to miss some of the lesson.

There are only four women teachers at this school, and there are no girls. My old school was very close to our house but now I have to get up earlier and cross the park to get to school by train.

We did not wear a uniform at my old school, and I am not used to wearing a tie. I was in the football team but now I have to learn rugger which is quite different. But I like the Gym and the showers after P.E. At my other school we went swimming all the year round at the Public Baths which are warm, but here as it is an open air bath we cannot swim in the winter.

I expect it will take some time to get used to the school but I probably will.

FIRST-FORMER, who is now 12, wrote this account of his new school, one of the biggest in London, during his first fortnight there last autumn.