Her pupils’ exemplary behaviour on their return to school in March initially delighted Ellie Challis... before a surprising lack of table manners gave her food for thought.

Let's do lunch

Welcoming our boys back was an exciting and cautious time. With warnings that children had most likely suffered immeasurable stress and anxiety during the previous year, baby steps had never been a more accurate metaphor.

We took on board advice from various sources to ensure the boys would be equally settled into their old routine, as well as introduced to new ways to reflect the effects of the pandemic.

I must admit I was suspecting tails and horns, as – let’s face it – it doesn’t take much for little boys to digress from conformity, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they got back into the swing of daily school life.

Until lunchtime, that is. It’s rather unimaginative to describe lunchtime at an all boys’ school as ‘like feeding time at the zoo’. In actual fact, we are very proud of our impressive lunchtime routines. Boys and staff politely queue, with just the occasional sobbed plea from a teacher declaring, “I’m jumping to the front; I have three duties!”

The menu the young gentlemen get to choose from is second only to a five-star hotel, lovingly prepared by our head chef. The food matches our high standards we set as a school and sets the pace for the kind of life we hope our lads will continue to experience.

What a shocker it was for me to see, in those first weeks back at school, our once well-mannered boys attacking their luncheon as if it had been recently hunted and needed dissecting.

Arms, hands and heads flailed around in those first few weeks back. Open mouths shot particles of chef’s best pesto around the room as if food processed in one’s mouth for longer than a few seconds would result in a sibling snatching it away! It was eat or be eaten.

I took a step back and observed the various levels of un-taming that had happened to our young men with what can only be described as fear for any public food establishments they visit.

It led me to the question: whose job is it to teach the boys their dinner-table manners? A balance of home and school, yes, but surely – as the boys had been at home for three months – I was starting to believe home dining certainly had a part to play in the way the boys upheld their stance at lunch.

Witnessing a boy attempt to eat his entire roast dinner with just a dessert spoon, it was my own mother who came to the defence of the wanna-be Oliver Twist.

“I’m guessing he’s eaten most his meals over the past few months with just a spoon,” my mother sternly reasoned. “I expect it’s because all other utensils were in the dishwasher and no one else but his mum emptied it.”

Eating with a straw

My mother’s wise conclusion was an obvious pop at my brother and me for, when I was younger, I do recall trying to eat a lasagne with a plastic straw, for the same reasons.

Gandhi said it is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver, therefore we encourage the boys to eat a balanced and nutritious diet. In addition to the questionable use of incorrect utensils and open-mouthed chewing, however, we also observed a complete crack in the order in which the boys were eating their food.

Chef’s sticky toffee pudding is incredibly hard to resist but – a year ago – the boys would have been able to resist it for at least the time it took to eat their main course.

Not now. It was as if lockdown had brought a new sense of carpe diem, and starting with the pudding was step one to a ‘new you’. Seizing the moment and not wasting a second. Eat dessert first! And, by gosh without shame or hesitation, most of them did eat pudding first.

As I did my rounds on duty, I would gently ask them to eat with a knife and fork, use a napkin and eat their main course first. But one lunchtime I found myself enlightened.

Watching a boy begin to dig into his ice cream (Friday treat), I reminded him that was his dessert, for ‘afters’.

He looked up at me, not disguising strawberry smudge and sprinkles on his chin, and exclaimed, “But it’ll all melt and the good bit will be gone. Why would you want me to miss that?”

He had a point. So that Friday lunchtime, I let those who wanted to eat the ‘good bit first’ do so.

And that’s when I realised: if it’s just table manners the boys have lost in the horror of the past year, we’ve got a lot for which to be grateful.

Ellie Challis is Assistant Head Teacher at The Mall School, Twickenham.

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Last Word always welcomes contributions from members. If you’d like to share your humorous observations of school life, email Permjit Mann at leader@ascl.org.uk ASCL offers a modest honorarium.

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