Not a minute is wasted. Next they dramatise jokes and anecdotes in threes and fours, each group having been told whether to use the first person, the third person or no narrator. "Now do it again in the first person," Jim Pope says to one group. They think for a few seconds and re-present their work, perfectly adapted.
All these activities are carefully structured to fit the national Curriculum and the literacy and numeracy hours from year six. I admire Jim's casual use of carefully chosen, vocabulary-enhancing words. He refers to scenarios, mentions the skill of someones rhetoric and talks of situations escalating.
The extraordinary thing about the lesson is that Jim Pope isn't a qualified teacher, but an actor who works at Heathbrook school on an agency basis with two classes once a week. "It gives Christine Curran, the literacy co-ordinator, and me some time for planning," says the deputy head, Dave Archard, who is also the children's class teacher. "It also means the children get some excellent drama, which they love, but which I'm not very good at teaching."
