Is Robert Smyth School the new M25?
10.25 a.m. Any given corridor in the school. Traffic is moving about as freely as beer from the taps of a public house under the jurisdiction of Sharia law. Though what is to blame for this, and why did it lead to me witnessing a flurry of fists the other week as my colleague and I made our way from our lesson to our tutor room?
It was all over in a few seconds, two young men had become highly frustrated at the lack of progress being made by students moving from lesson to tutor group and, forced together by the onslaught of the crowd from all directions, had engaged in combat, aiming for each other while bemused onlookers tried to grasp what was happening. This was an accident waiting to happen, with so many crammed into such a confined area at one time as happens on a daily basis at this particular place within the school building, tensions were bound to overspill into blind, ugly fistfighting sooner or later. Though how has the problem been allowed to grow in such a fashion as to lead to the kind of violence usually only seen in places such as Kabul, Baghdad or Corby?
The simple answer is, lack of respect and courtesy for others. I could walk along by the junction of the link corridor and the passage leading to the Sixth Form Centre at any given time of the day between two lessons, and be totally and utterly crushed through a combination of overcrowding, overly hasty students, or just sheer bad manners.
Is it really too much to ask that people show a little courtesy at busy times when everyone is attempting to traverse from one area of the school to another? After all, we are British. We spend 68% of our lives queueing (probably).
Efforts were made last year to encourage people to stay on the stay on the left of corridor while using them. A sensible idea in my eyes, and no doubt in the eyes of many others too. However, the poster campaign used to promote this failed spectacularly when it became apparent that both students and teachers alike were ignoring the signs, thus disproving the theory that people will do whatever a sign tells them to.
Now, we find ourselves as a school back at square one, with movements between rooms for everyone being about as easy as getting a Scotsman to believe that drunken violence isn’t the answer to all of life’s problems.
So, I implore those of you who read this, show a little respect the next time you stroll down the hallowed corridors of Robert Smyth School, and you never know, you might be shown a little respect in return.
On a lighter note, having been rapped on the knuckles last week for various journalistic misunderstandings, in the course of said rapping I was delighted to learn that RS Magazine is in fact read and taken seriously by members of staff. What an endorsement to this publication and those who write for it.
»
You know what would solve this. Traffic Lights at the cross roads betweent the IT block, the 6th form center, the car park and the link corridor.
YUS!
»
OH yes, and well written David; My applause.
»
wrong, the best way to get rid of corridor congestion is to close teh corridors
»
But then you just move the congestion elsewhere. Come on Daniel, you play Sim City4 you know the consequences.
»
ok then close everything, no one will go anywhere then