Written by Leonora, Year 9
Thursday morning…
For the first time in months, it’s a genuinely warm day, and as I walk to school with my friend wheeling her bike alongside her, we see the early morning sunlight peeking through tree branches and casting shadows on the pavement.
When we arrive at school, there’s still ten minutes left until registration, (eight when I get up to the form room after being told sternly not to walk up the down stairs and being sent back downstairs to follow the signs properly), and I use that time by getting my books out for my first three periods. I also look over my notes for Biology, as we have an end of topic test next Monday. My first lesson is double French, and then my favourite lesson, Spanish. A few people have winced when I’ve explained my timetable to them and they realise I have one romantic language straight after another, and I completely agree. A few times I have started filling out my Spanish worksheets in French, though I’ve usually managed to catch myself before handing them in. I like Spanish because it’s spoken so widely, and if I’m ever fluent in it I can visit and even live in most Spanish-speaking countries. In the lesson, we’re told that next week, a Spanish theatre company is going to be visiting and putting on a play we’d get to watch.
Today, morning break is a quiet affair, and my next lesson is Drama. My partner and I go over the lines we’d been working on last lesson, then (albeit with a little stage fright), perform them to the class. Though lunch break is a full hour and ten minutes, it seems to pass by in a flash, and before I know it I’m at my locker gathering more books and folders for the afternoon periods.
My next two periods are English, in which we’re studying Romeo and Juliet. We analyse the introduction to the play, and then get into small groups to act it out, so we have a better perspective on how it is meant to be spoken aloud, as it was in the original stage performance. I’d like to believe my group’s performance was rather comedic, especially considering the great ballads of Shakespeare are rather difficult to perform in the back of a Year 7 form room.
At the end of the day, I have Chemistry, where we’re flooded up to our ankles in booklets on ionic bonding and the periodic table. I have mixed feelings about Chemistry, though most of the time I enjoy it. As the clock in the Chemistry lab ticks by 3:50, we know it’s time to begin packing up our folders, and five minutes later my friends and I are walking back home again.
So there you have it, a day in the life of a Year 9. I hope everyone has a great Easter break when it comes around, we’re almost there.