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Like we never happened

Teaching staff
Onwards! No blubbing. I shuffle in. So far so good. No snarling sirens. I put the collar up and the hat down and proceed round the corner ― and suddenly it's there. A great, glittering monolith, full of light and steel and bronze things and soaring

What can it be? “A glistening cruise-liner of state school!”

Yikes! My old state school. Twice yikes.

I taught there for 30 years and I can’t recognise it. That’s because it’s been quite demolished. It closed last week. This is the new incarnation and it will open very soon. An “aspirational monument”, a “socialist Eton”, it comes in at a mere £80 million. QPR could have got Cristiano Ronaldo for that.

My goodness but it’s modern – which is more than we old teachers were, when we were disappeared in the purges of 2004/05. We got murdered by management. I’ve not been back since. We were all banned and gagged. 

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