But she has taken steps to reassure us - there on the low table, is the album with the photographs she took of Pandora and her classmates when they came in for a visit last term. And there, in the corner, is a pillow with Pandora's name on it.Helen had this same teacher last year, so I already have confidence in her. I remind myself that the school has nothing in common with the school where my eldest had his first day 13 years ago. He didn't stay there long: the playground bullies had knocked out all his front teeth by the end of the month; by the end of term his teacher still hadn't found out that he already knew how to read. But when I took him to school on that very first day, everything had seemed perfectly fine.How can I be sure my sense of security now isn't just as false? What if one of those rough older children ploughed into Pandora by accident and cracked her head open?When I put my key in the door and hear my phone ringing, my first thought is that it's the school calling to tell me to go to casualty, but guess what, it's that angry bank manager, and then it's the concerned accountant. I've only just finished telling them how much I'll get paid for work already contracted, when the people who've contracted it start calling to ask me where it is. I don't have time to tell them why I am going to have so much more time for them in future, as now I glance at my watch and see with horror that today's ration has already run out.For the first seven weeks, Pandora's only going to be doing half days.

This is an excellent idea from the child's point of view, but how am I going to pay the bills if I only have two and a half hours of work time a day? By the time I reach the schoolgates, I'm almost foaming with panic. How do these other mothers manage to look so calm, and move so slowly? Perhaps they're all pretending, just like me But on our way home, I stop pretending. Because Pandora was so glad to see me, and so proud to show me the drawing she did, and I'd forgotten how nice it is to amble down this lane in the middle of the day I'm glad I'm going to have Pandora to myself this afternoon. There are so many ways we could fill it but what I really want to do is lounge around and do nothing. Before long she will be at school full time, a prospect which I regard with dread.It's not the teaching that pushes you over the edge, it's the welter of nonsense that surrounds it.by Jack StoneIam back again trying to teach English calmly in an inner city comprehensive It is a struggle.

First comes the class register with its usual drizzle of interruptions. The contemptuous latecomers; the louche, in-my-face bursting of bubble-gum; my demands that students divest themselves of hats, headphones, crisps, coats, breakfast and gum before we can start. Everyone seems to have PhDs in attitude.It's not the teaching that pushes you over the edge, but the welter of nonsense that surrounds it: Ofsted, think-tanks, non-think-tanks, the fever for new strategies, monitors, appraisers and performance relaters, stress management and relentlessly dysfunctional electronic registers, Lady Porter selling cemeteries rather than financing a school play and articles which denounce us for promoting turpitude, illiteracy and the breakdown of the family.And I have Jiri in my class. Jiri is a traveller from Eastern Europe, a recent immigrant from a war zone It is his first day in an English school. He is 11 and resembles Oliver Hardy.He is sitting in the corner chewing gum. His life has led him from the bleak rigours of Prague to the bleak licence of Queensway Jiri has been hounded by various political systems It has made him dizzy.

He is losing his own language, gaining little else and becoming an unelected mute He has never been to school in his life. His introduction to the Western intellectual tradition is the downtown Beirut of this inner city classroom. He can't decide if he's been shopped by the secret police or has escaped to a circus jumble sale or Checkpoint Charlie.Jiri is bored A curious smile plays across his vacant face. He is putting gum into the hair of the pupil in front of him This pupil attempts to divest himself of the gum He is unsuccessful and merely redistributes it more widely He starts to weep It is his only language Jiri starts to laugh. It is his only language.But for me this is one too many of the little acts of unkindness I have confronted all day long. It may be interesting, significant or even poignant, but I have had it Jiri has ruined the lesson.