Our Children

Yesterday a fifteen year old boy in a nearby school was stabbed to death outside the building.

In registration the morning, we talked to the kids about the incident and reassured them that this kind of thing was very rare. We also told them what to do if they ever encounter someone with a knife.

The murder has shocked everyone, not least the kids in my school, some of whom knew the victim very well. During the first period, I had two Year 8 kids coming into my lesson in quite a state. One of the boys spent the first fifteen minutes crying, whilst the other was extremely subdued. Both boys knew the young man.

The rest of the class (the ones who have given me so much trouble in the past) were certainly not themselves.

Many of the kids had played football with this young man and he was tipped to be a hot professional player in the future.

Not any more.

The tragedy of the murder is not only the act itself, but the fact that “our” children are having to cope with a situation that even adults can’t understand.
No words can describe the feeling around the entire school today. I didn’t know the child, but as far as I was concerned, he could have been one of my students.

Sitting at a computer.

Waiting to be taught.

He could have been one of our children.