A forest of hands shot up. By this point in the discussion Ezekiel was barely speaking at all, only glancing around and calling out names, occasionally injecting another question as the class wrestled the last one to a standstill. Walden was starting to pick out names and personalities: Anastasia, a tall blonde girl with a slight unplaceable accent, was loud and opinionated; Alec, a rather overweight boy with long, lank hair, contributed less often but almost everything he did say was very clever indeed; another boy, Ibrahim, loved to argue but seldom thought his point through before he started talking; quiet Connie needed coaxing and encouragement but clearly wanted to join in; Zachariah thought he was funny and was sometimes right—and so on, and so on. Some of these children would become next year’s A-level Invocation set. Walden was already hoping for Alec.

“Very good,” said Ezekiel at last, cutting the conversation off. Walden glanced up at the clock and saw that it had been nearly twenty minutes. Much longer than she would have spent on the magical ethics topic at GCSE, when really the whole thing could be boiled down to the five bullet points listed in the syllabus. You could just hand them out on a worksheet. But Ezekiel went to the board and wrote CAN YOU USE MAGIC ON A PERSON? Then he drew five blank bullet points underneath, and said, “I want you to boil down the discussion we just had to what you think are our five most important points. You can work with the person next to you, and you have eight minutes.”

Walden got up to peer over shoulders as Year Eleven worked. The atmosphere in the classroom was focused, the conversations nearly all on topic, and Year Eleven were busily deducing the syllabus for themselves, with an air of satisfaction. She went quietly to Ezekiel’s side at the board and murmured, “Very nice. Socratic, even.”

“I try,” said Ezekiel.

“Stretch and challenge?”

“Wait for it.”

Walden waited, watching the students scribble their bullet points. As the eight minutes wore on, some of them—mostly the girls—got out highlighters and gel pens and started decorating their notes. Zachariah had finished early and was looking out the window. On her way back to her laptop in the corner, Walden casually read his notebook upside down and saw that although his handwriting was terrible, he had in fact written down four of the five key points he needed. Walden would not usually have trusted such a large group to do this much thinking for themselves. High expectations, she added to her observation notes when she sat down again. Open discussion—above GCSE level. She should teach a GCSE set again. It would be good for her, and it would be fun.

“Yes, Alec?” said Ezekiel.

Alec put his hand down. “Sir,” he said, “how are we defining ‘person’?”

“Good question,” said Ezekiel. “Expand it.”

“Well—what about animals?”