Ed Sheeran [SMUT]

Extra Credit

Everyone hates school. And if you don’t hate school, then you hate the idea of it at 6am when you have to roll out of bed to get in the shower. School is basically a large site in which children are taught that what they love is unimportant, and that following the curriculum and getting good grades is the only way forward in life. All dreams of becoming something that’s not on the subject list is abolished, and you learn to give up wishing you could be something more than a teacher, or a nurse, or a midwife. It’s all so straight lined, and no one is free enough to follow the curves of freedom. Art is restricted to guidelines, drama is minimised to certain acts, science is 80% theory, and english is shakespeare and nothing past the boundaries of kid’s actual imaginations. It’s a trap to lure in people who actually want to learn, and you come out the other end absolutely sick to death of white walled classrooms and exam halls and three hours in silence, matching boxes in tests and writing down word equations. It’s nothing but prison. And it’s the furthest thing from creative freedom. It’s a shame really; they could do so much good if they only let us breathe.

My school consists of 98% female teachers and 2% old, balding men. We don’t go to school because we like the teachers, although a few are alright. We go to school because exams are five weeks away and we need to cram as much knowledge into our brains as possible, because it turns out not listening and making cats out of blue tac for almost 6 months does not help you pass GCSE’s. I am in the las year of official school, then i’ll head off to college, then god knows where after that. I was blessed, or cursed, depends what way you look at it, with a natural intellectual attitude towards things. Which means I am taking 25 exams, where as a lot of people in my year are taking 18. But, just because I’m clever doesn’t mean I don’t need to revise. Which sucks dick massively, because there’s so much pressure resting on my shoulders from my teachers and my parents and this fancy schmancy private university course that plan to fund my further education, past college. So revision is still a thing in my timetable. Although I haven’t done a single bit yet, and we’re down to five weeks and counting until year eleven walk into that exam hall and write their names on the first exam paper.

I’m that girl you see at school who is approximately seven minutes late to every single lesson for no particular reason. I’ll be carrying around twice the amount of books as everyone else, and I don’t know why. I accidentally get highlighter and biro marks on my hands and face, and I always always always got told off for having a headphone in my ear and for having my too loose. I didn’t do any of these things on purpose, I just seemed to always walk into trouble. The teachers didn’t mind me though, a lot of the time, because I aced a lot of lessons and kept myself to myself, even when I burst through the door late, disrupting the started lesson. My skirt was wonky more or less all of the time, I wore socks over the bottom of my tights, scuffed shoes, half untucked shirt, messy hair and a smile that said ‘yeah I know i’m late and I know i’m carrying 3 folders but please don’t put me in detention’. I’m that girl who people just tended to accept.

There was a new teacher. He’d started like, three weeks ago, maybe. He was a music teacher, and he was very very good. I didn’t take music at exam level, but I was always put in that classroom to do my art, because our lessons were at the same time and I used up so much space my teacher relocated me to somewhere where I could spread all my shit out and no one would really mind. So I sat at the back of the music classroom on a table of my own, crossed legged with watercolours and pencils and pieces of paper everywhere. No one paid attention to me because most of the year was used to me being in random places because I required ten times the space than normal students. But he paid attention.

“everybody” the head of music had said, three weeks ago, “this is our newest member of staff, and he’s going to be taking your music lessons from now on. If you need anything or need help with your work, just ask” the teacher nodded at the class before leaving, and I had barely looked up from my sketchbook before he walked in. I think almost every single pair of eyes fell on the teacher, and numerous mouths fell open. Even the boys as well. I mean, it was hard not to stare. We were used to old teachers with monotonous voices and bald patches. But this was something else. Mr. Sheeran stood before us, probably like, 22 years old. Maybe 23. He wore a black suit, with fairly tight fitted trousers and a matching tie to his jacket. His hair was messy and swept over, but not like 2010 emo style. A really fucking nice style instead. His facial hair was on point and his smile was a killer. And we all forgot how to do certain things like close our mouths.