Act 1
Scene 1
It was a class of year 7's, many of whom had "behavioural problems", and I had to work incredibly hard to maintain their attention.
At 60 minutes in length I always broke it up into 10 minute chunks of playing, then writing so that I could prevent chairs being hurled through windows, or wrestling matches breaking out in the back row.
When *Tara* turned up 15 minutes again with her smaller brother in tow I was really annoyed. I still had no idea why she was in this class. Apart from a revolting attitude and an apparent gift for disrupting class at any given moment, she seemed perfectly bright and capable. However her attendance record was appalling, much like her attitude. She banged on the classroom door and marched in, head head high and stalked over to me.
"I'm late Miss."
I can't tell you why I didn't snap at her. Instead I knelt down to her eye level and asked her to drop her brother at his class and come back to me.
She duly did so.
I then handed her a piece of paper and asked her to sit quietly at the back of the class and write down for me why she was late for school. I told her I wanted to help her work out a way we could get her to school on time, so she could learn as much as possible.
I think she was expecting a telling off.
Truthfully, she was too late to join the small group activity we were doing and I wanted to keep her occupied while we finished that part of the lesson.
I was half distracted and hoping to prevent a fight breaking out in the front row of the classroom between 2 of my ADHD boys, and a rather bolshy young lady who had given one of them a shiner at recess the previous day.
I barely noticed that she sat at the back of the classroom and spent the next 45 minutes writing page after page.
At the end of the lesson, she thrust the sheafs of pages she had written in my hand and was instantly lost of the helter-skelter of children thrilled to be escaping the lesson.
After gulping down a glass of water and feeling the sweat drops on my back starting to subside I glanced at the papers *Tara* had given me. I think I scanned halfway down the second page and then I bolted from the classroom. I raced to the office to track down where *Tara's* next lesson was.
I still remember the race to the Science lab to find her and having to take a deep breath before I walked into the classroom.
Having recieved permission to take her out of class I walked her to the office of a more senior teacher because what I'd read on those sheets was something I was not equipped to deal with.
At all.
The words I'd scanned on the pages that had leapt out at me:
"beats me with a broom handle"
"takes drugs and I have to stay home and mind the baby"
"she's pregnant again"
"we steal food from rubbish bins on the way to school because there is no food at home."
The moment when the senior teacher gently asked if we could see her arms and she rolled up her sleeves to show us the bruises that were littered up and down her arm will stay with me always.
This little girl was having to be a mother in her own home at the age of 11. When Social Services stepped in, her mother insisted on *Tara* removing every strip of clothing she was wearing, because if her daughter was "abandoning her," she wasn't allowed to take anything with her. The social service officer had to wrap her in a coat when they left the apartment block.
This beautiful little girl began a new life elsewhere. I can't imagine how scarred she was by her experience. I still don't know why she chose to tell me her story.
I think she was tired. Exhausted. Even as a grown up I know how tiring parenting is and she was doing it round the clock.
I still thank the powers that be that I chose to bite my tongue that day.