By all accounts, Benjamin has had a difficult start to his time at Beaconsfield. As Benjamin’s house leader, and being aware of Benjamin’s rather fraught educational background, I have followed his development closely, and paid due regard to the inevitable turmoil inherent in transferring from one institution to another in the middle of a school year – particularly one as crucial as this. But Benjamin has not helped himself. He is quick to anger and riposte. He is – or can be – indolent and disrespectful, and he has gone out of his way to make himself unpopular with his fellow students. In short, he is very much his own worst enemy.

All that said, it is not Beaconsfield’s policy to give up on its pupils, most especially those who have been with us for such a short period of time. And there is one minor bright spot on his report card, which we can but hope will spark a corresponding enthusiasm in other, perhaps more academic, subjects.

In sum, there is hope for Benjamin yet. Certainly there is a brain in his head somewhere. The challenge for us as teachers, and most particularly for Benjamin himself, is to feed and nurture the talent he has, so that Benjamin’s tendency towards misconduct and mediocrity is allayed.

The boy has a future, if only he could bring himself to see it.

Signed: Philip Craig

Dr Philip P. Craig, Head of Churchill House

Wednesday 23 October, 10.14 a.m.

Fleet allowed his eyes to skim back over the list of grades. Cs, three Fs, even a U. He recalled receiving a report card that wasn’t dissimilar when he was Ben’s age, although the school Fleet had attended was a very different proposition to Beaconsfield. His school had been – and still was, the last time Fleet checked – a failing comprehensive, in a crumbling seaside town not twenty miles from where they were now. It was a world away, in other words, and most outsiders would probably have said that, in terms of education, he’d drawn the shorter of the two straws. But at least he’d got to go home at the end of the day.

‘And this is all?’ Fleet said. ‘This is the only official record of Ben’s progress that you have?’