I will teach them literature, poetry, culture. I will teach them The Waste Land ! I will be the Best Teacher Who Has Ever Lived!

Or so the Secret Teacher thinks. On his first day at an inner-city state school things don’t quite go to plan . . .

His students are an unruly mob stuffed with behavioural issues, but somehow, the Secret Teacher needs to enthuse them with a love of books. Or at least keep them sitting at their desks until the end of the lesson. And then he’s got to deal with marking, OFSTED, educational consultants, spreadsheets, personal statements, school trips, strikes, class, race, love, death, birth, manhood, dry cleaning, the end of literary culture . . .

This is a vivid account of the Secret Teacher’s first few years in the classroom. Here he celebrates the extraordinary teachers he has worked with, and the kids: bolshie, bright, funny and absolutely electric.