Sunday 15th March, 2015

This week, on Thursday, we had what is called, ‘first schools day’. It entails a selection of local primary schools coming to Rugby. Some 300 seven year olds come for the day with activities and a quiz type treasure hunt provided by the school. Each child is assigned a Rugby School student from one of the top three years who is then with the child for the rest of the day. Nervously the Rugby students sat, wondering what ‘their’ child was going to be like. Some students were scared, their imagination conjured terrifying images of how their young 7 year old would be. Eventually the first load of kids arrived.  The previously hushed TSR was filled with excitable hubbub of the children. Happily  they looked around at what to them was an absolute novel experience whilst, although some students shoulders visibly lifted (their terrifying images had clearly been very scary indeed!) some still shrank into their chairs.

The contrasting behaviour of the two ages is strange and interesting.  The 7 year olds were utterly fearless and tremendously optimistic whereas the 17 year olds were anxious and feared the worst. The first activity was to take the child you had been assigned around some of the school in order to help them answer questions from the quiz.  Questions included testers such as, “How many paintings are there in the OBS” or “there is a white rabbit in the chapel” or “who wrote the book ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’?”.  Everyone had a different experience with the child they were however, all of the children seemed very eager to participate in the quiz.

The boy I was looking after was called Oliver and he got the answer to every question very easily. There was even a riddle in the quiz, “What has hands but no arms and a face but no head”.  On hearing it he took barely a second to burst out the answer, “A CLOCK!” I was so surprised by this that I asked him how he knew the answers.  He replied that his older brother had come to first schools day a few years ago and told him the answers to the questions he would probably be asked!  I am not sure what I was more impressed about; his knowledge or his memory!  Or, indeed, his brothers memory!!