'On my first sonne': A GCSE English Literature mock exam.

Hi again

I started work last September as a 'Learning Support Assistant' in a local high school. Yesterday, as the title suggests, I sat in on an English Literature mock exam, to check that the cheeky buggers didn't cheat and to help with any problems that might crop up. It was the first time I'd been asked to fill this role. The dreaded words were spoken: 'You have one hour and 45 minutes to complete the paper. Pick up your pens. You may begin!'

Most of the room of 13 boys and one girl did nothing, just sat twiddling, tapping, slouching, sneering, grinning inanely. The girl wrote manically and eventually four or five of the lads had a go... the rest did barely anything. It affected me. I could have cried. Not at them, for them.

I've been in class with some of them over the last five months and, shame on me, thought they were mainly a pain in the arse: disruptive, uncooperative, sometimes even violent. But yesterday I felt sorry for them. I could always see their behaviour was a front, a cover for their insecurity, but as they sat silently, uncomfortably alone, they looked painfully lost. It was very poignant. They are 16 years old and English is their first language, though they can barely read The Beano or write a note for the milkman. There is little doubt that, in their ignorance, their parents have failed them. The school has failed them too despite the wonderful staff's best efforts. And so has the system.

As I walked between the desks I picked up a redundant 'Anthology' and began to read Ben Johnson's 'On my first sonne'. It's a fantastic poem and, being the father of a seven year-old boy, it has touched me deeply. An idea spontaneously sprung into my mind and I wrote this when I got home, using some of the original's language and form. I compared the pause before the exam to the one before the Battle of the Somme. The ages of many of the boys in both scenarios would be similar. Their immediate fates would be different - no-one normally faces death in an exam room - but the hopelessness of the two situations was what tied them together. Both are a tragic waste of young life.

On my first Somme

Fare well my boys, but how did we prepare thee

Without hope or sense to grasp the gravity?

Five years you were lent to us, the chance was brief

To engage you; now we daily share the bell’s relief.

Reluctant recruits! Soon the dreaded call will come:

‘Pick up your swords, the hour is marked – it has begun’.

Death’s face grins and sneers among the ordered rows,

Armed with feigned indifference to fend the blows

This day will rain. Now, truly, here doth lie

Ben Johnson’s best piece of poetry.

The greatest shame as I see them fall?

What I love they will never like at all.