Do you have a box that you put letters and important documents in? I do. It’s was so full up it was about to burst. It was one of those portable filing boxes with segments for bills, finance, receipts etc. Trouble is someone in the past convinced me to keep all this paperwork because if I didn’t I would get in trouble somehow. I’m not entirely sure how but I’m sure I’ve heard in the past you must keep important documents for SEVEN YEARS.

I’m pretty sure that every store I’ve been in has a digital database of my transactions, that my utility companies have a copy of every bill I’ve paid and that GCHQ probably has an itemised list of every phone call and text I’ve ever made. So if I’m going to be spied upon by the state at every possibly opportunity there’s no point filling my flat up with all the crap I receive in the post.

So today I started shredding it. Now I should add, that I didn’t buy a shredder today. I’m not one of these middle aged men who buys an industrial strength shredder then spends the day shredding everything I can lay my hands on. My shredder is so cheap and nasty I have to fold or tear everything to the size of a coaster before it will actually go in. Anyway, that bit of the story is boring. Next.

As I was going through the paperwork I was going to chuck out, I came across an old school report. It dates back to 1999 when I was in Year 9 (the third year of high school if you are from the other side of the pond). It was quite interesting reading some of the things that were said about me. To be honest, I can’t remember much about the lessons I had back then and can just about remember what each teacher looked like.

Some of the stuff written in the report was very generic stuff that teachers tend to write in the reports of middle-of-the-road children. The fairly quiet ones that don’t cause any trouble, get on with the work but are pretty unremarkable in their academic ability. That was pretty much me. Some of the statements that were written in it I have found myself writing, now that I’m a teacher. It seems a lot of teachers have a code of generic phrases that they pull out when they need to. There’s nothing wrong with this, teachers often have to complete hundreds of reports so it would be impossible to make each and every one completely unique.

The image above is my Music report. Even though I’m a musician I really can’t remember the music lessons I had fifteen years ago. The final comment on the report is pretty accurate. I didn’t take part in any extra-curricular Music activities after the first year of secondary school. I think it was a mixture of nervousness, lack of confidence and that the clubs weren’t really that exciting. Still, I don’t think I’ve turned out that bad.

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