Something Fishy

When I was eleven years old, two kids from my top primary school class (Stefan and me) were sent on a special day away at another school. We were told this was a CEVAP day. Until five minutes ago, I thought this meant something to do with gifted kids (because truly, I am gifted). But Googling it, apparently it means "Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary". Which is a bit strange in its context.

Anyway.

Stefan and I went to the school across town, and met up with the specially-selected top two kids from all the other primary schools in Loughborough. I don't know if they ever really told us why we were there, but my impression was that they were studying bright kids across various disciplines - maths, English and technology. And the best way to do this - obviously - was to structure the whole day around the theme of fish.

They split us into three groups. I was convinced I was in the thicky group, because I was Group 3. Stefan was very clever and was in Group 1, which just confirmed my own thicky status, and put me in a bad mood before the day even started.

First up for my group was technology. We had to design and build a fishing rod that would pick up fish made of card, paper and metal. Not only was I the only kid not to "catch" any fish, but my rod fell apart within three seconds of rod-wielding.

Next was maths. Again, not my strong point. I don't remember the fish-theme for this exercise, but I do remember the teacher trying to get us to do mathematical patterns. He told us to say the first number that came into our heads. He started off with, "Two."

"Four," said the kid with a giant birthmark.

"Six," said the girl wearing strange dungarees.

"Eight," said Hazel, who I didn't even know was Hazel at the time, but who became one of my best friends at high school.

"Ten," said the very, very tall boy.

My turn. "Three hundred and sixty-two," I said.

"Hmm," said the teacher. "Do you see how everyone else has followed a pattern?"

"You said to say the first number that came into my head."

I disrupted the session like this three or four more times. My rod had fallen apart, I was in the thicky group (sorry, Hazel), and now they were making me do maths.

Finally English - my favourite. Except all we had to do was go round the room looking at rubbish post-its on the wall with various fish-related expressions, such as, "a fine kettle of fish", "red herring", "fishing for sympathy" and so on. There were loads. The idea was we were supposed to work out where the sayings had come from. Interesting. Except the teacher didn't have the bloody answers.

I can't believe I'm still angry about this.