A Day in the Life of an English State School Student

We love this post by strawberryquidditch because 1) she's an amazing writer, and 2) the cool English slang reminds us of Harry Potter! It's a win-win!— Sparkitors

Here's a look at a typical day in my life!

7:00 am: Alarm clock rings. I hit the snooze button and go back to sleep.

7:10 am: Alarm clock rings. Hit snooze.

7:20 am: Alarm clock rings. Who cares. Hit snooze.

7:30 am: Alarm clock rings. Hit sn- CRUMBS, IS THAT THE TIME?! Why did nobody wake me up?!

7:31 am: Mad dash to shower followed by hasty dressing. We used to have to wear a crazy uniform with a tie, but in Sixth Form we don’t. I bung a load of files, textbooks, and paper into my bag and pray I’ve got the right things with me.

7:45 am: I leave the house and stroll to the bus stop, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Note: That is a lie. I inevitably end up running to the bus stop at full pelt, arms full of books, satchel giving me bruises, stuffing a jam sandwich into my mouth along the way.

7:55 am: I have yet to discover how I manage to leave the house at five to eight and still catch my 7:55 bus, but most mornings I seem to do so. When I’m on the bus I go back to sleep.

8:20 am: Arrive in the little market town where my school is situated. The journey to school is usually uneventful. This could be because I always have my eyes shut.

8:25 am: Morning registration=waste of time. I go back to sleep.

Period 1: Freeeeeeeeeeee!!! I don’t always have these because my timetable is different each day. For most free periods we are confined to the library for silent prep. Prep sucks. You can’t even sleep because the librarian wakes you up and tells you to get back to work. Most of the time I doodle or read a good book, and sometimes I play library-tag with my prep buddies, which is always funny as it can only be played silently and at walking pace.

Period 2: Freeeeeeeeeeeee—oh no, wait, they took this free period away from me. *Snarls and shakes fist* During this period myself and two other kids have to talk to the Spanish assistant in an empty supply cupboard. Yep. It's glamorous. We don’t actually do much work, and usually our amazing, crazy Spanish assistant tells us stories that invariably begin with her and her sister deciding to do something, and inevitably end in disaster. Malaga (where she's from) sounds like the world’s most dangerous city.

Break: I’m a little more awake by now but I sometimes have a little nap. I tend to eat some tinned pineapple as a snack and chat with the others.

Period 3: English Lit. Our teacher manages to relate EVERYTHING in The Great Gatsby back to sex. In an attempt to escape the trauma, we discuss last night’s episode of Doctor Who.

Period 4: History. The teacher lectures while we take notes without listening or understanding what we’re writing—an art that we have perfected over many years.

Lunch: FINALLY! Most of the time it’s raining so we caper around in the Common Room—yes, okay, like the Gryffindor Common Room, only slightly, er, shabbier, and less magical. We can buy food from the canteen but need a special card to so, and by Sixth Form we've all lost them. Normally, one unfortunate person has to walk into town and buy everyone fish and chips for lunch.

Period 5: French. My least favourite class. When we were younger, French used to be seriously cool and only involved lots of croissants and watching Amélie and Paris, Je t’aime. Now, we just... speak French. And write French. And hear French.

Period 6: Spanish. In Spanish we spend most of the time sidetracking the teacher by asking her questions about “Spanish culture.” By this time I’m starting to fall asleep again.

3:00 pm: Bell rings. YAY! I usually walk into town with my mates and go to our favourite café. In summer we chill out by the river or in the market square.

4:00 pm: WORK TIME. This is when the majority of our work actually gets done. We tend to muck around in class a lot but once we get home we have essays and revisions to do. I usually take some time to actually read my history notes, too. I tend to work until 10 pm, but if I have an essay I can go past midnight—it’s not HEALTHY. Once we’ve finished our work, most people watch Skins or Doctor Who re-runs—if you’re a Brit, you can never watch enough Doctor Who.

To recap: My school day is 40% sleep, 20% not-speaking-English, 20% homework, 10% boredom, 1% watching Doctor Who, and 9% wishing I was watching Doctor Who instead of being in class.

Would you like to trade places with strawberryquidditch for a day? We would: we'd get to use words like "bung"!

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