And, of course, it was impossible trying to get much useful done at this time of year anyway. While other teachers were sagging gently towards the holidays, PE, Drama, and Music were all going at a frantic pace. Students were constantly getting pulled out of lessons to rehearse for the Christmas concert—not to be confused with the carol concert, not to be confused with the carol service—so that a class with above-average numbers of musicians might be down by two-thirds every afternoon. And then there was the end-of-term Interhouse Sports—round-robin tournaments in rugby and hockey, for every year group, participation unpopular but mandatory—and the student pantomime, performed with enthusiasm for the dubious benefit of the residents of Woodland Hill Care Home on the other side of the village. You also had to contend with the fact that plenty of parents pulled their children out of school a week before the end of term in order to get them on off-peak flights to wherever they were going for their winter getaway. Some families were apologetic about it, some were brazen. Some students had an unexpected death in the family every December like clockwork, and some parents just turned up cheerfully in their Tesla or Land Rover with a cry of, “Hello, darling, ready to ski?”

Aneeta’s whole family—including her younger sister, in Year Ten, whom Walden had only vaguely known existed—were visiting relatives in India already. Aneeta was not. “I wouldn’t get anything done if I went,” she said grimly. “I have A-levels. I need to revise.” Will was going on the school ski trip, which left two days before the end of term; so was Mathias, to Walden’s surprise—not that he could go, there was a travel bursary programme for exactly that sort of thing, but that he wanted to. Nikki and Aneeta seemed to have arranged an extended holiday sleepover, combined with an intensive revision plan, which would take place at Aneeta’s family home in Kensington during the week after Christmas. Walden had her doubts about how much work they would actually get done, but they were both very excited, and it was nice that they were taking the mocks seriously.

Walden finished the sixth formers off on the final Wednesday with a little speech of encouragement and a pack of practice papers each. The first two weeks of the Spring Term were going to be eaten by mock exams, so she would not be teaching them again until late January—nearly a month without contact hours, the longest break she would have with this set apart from last summer. They would do their mock practicals after the written papers were over. Walden wanted to give them as much time as possible to get the theory solid first.