It was my little sisters birthday yesterday (2nd of july), and as a bizzare coincidence I ended up cycling in the grounds of a local Catholic school,
The day before I had found an ID card in the street that belonged to one of the sixth form girls (she had probably lost it whilst being distracted worrying about the A level exams), but these things are important as they often have the code number she needs to log in to the schools secure network and sometimes contain RFID tags to open up doors.
The school is along the same route I would ride to work anyway, but having gone through the driveway the bit I thought would be the reception was blocked off with a no entry sign and barriers, so I had to ride further into the campus (the whole place is like a more modern version of Hogwarts), encountering some particularly harsh speed bumps (and another sign that pointed out I should only be riding at 5mph (8 km/h), not 10 mph (16 km/h) which is the usual limit inside the school grounds!
There were directions to another area for deliveries but that door was shut, on the other side was a large chapel with the doors open (but no one inside it). Ahead of me was a group of small children and a teacher; so I handed the ID-card to this teacher (he was busy looking at a smartphone and hadn’t even noticed me until I called out to him.
The kids had noticed me; in the UK they are taught to warn their teacher if “strangers” are in a school who they think shouldn’t be there. But they didn’t do so and just looked at me with curiosity and some amusement (as some must have seen me nearly put off my bike by the damn speed bumps); so I guess I didn’t look out of place or any sort of threat; and they are smart enough to know I am not a postman or courier as they have different uniform; they must have assumed I was another teacher (there are branches of the same school in Singapore and Malaysia)).
But I am only cleared on safeguarding for the 80-100+ age group, and wouldn’t be a good influence on these kids.
they probably are better at maths than I am anyway; if I had gone to chapel which must have been where they were going I have forgotten most of the prayers (this was most likely why their teacher was looking at his smartphone as the Vatican and the local Catholic Church says this is OK provided you put it on silent (it appears the church even provide the wifi key before Mass)
But I would have ended up teaching them such things as how the amount of Guinness and gin consumed by 6 nuns in 1987/1988 would easily fill up a full size shipping container (being 80% cans of Guinness and 20% bottles of gin), and that it is acceptable and even encouraged by all 3 main religions of Malaysia and the Environment Ministry for children to meow with cats and bark and howl with dogs.
Neither of those things are untrue but they might not be what the posh middle class parents in Britain want their children to learn :laugh_at:
