Remembrance Day in school is one of those moments which make you realise what an important job we do, and what a privileged position teachers are in. It’s always the day of the year when Iwantto be teaching period 3; I’m disappointed if I have a non-contact session. It’a an honour to share the silence with young people as we reflect, separately but together, on our individual and collective experience of loss and sacrifice. There are few other occasions where I’m so intensely aware of what Graham Nuthall calls the different worlds of the classroom. On the surface we all experience an identical minutebetween the bells, but in our private inner worlds each person has an unknown and unique journey.

Source I always preface the silence with my classes with a little about why Remembrance Day is particularly important to me. I tell them about my Grandfather, an…