The Bell - Kids' Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen
The Bell is a poem by Michael Rosen from the book, Michael Rosen's Big Book of Bad Things.
Transcript[]
DISCLAIMER: This is a transcript for a video of Michael performing the poem/book, not a transcript from the actual poem/book itself.
The Bell.
There are 48 children in my class, we sit in four rows of 12. We sit in twos, one next to the other at the desk with two lids side by side, one each. Miss Williams works out where we sit, we do tests, arithmetic and English. She adds up the marks, and whoever's got the best mark sits at the top of the class. In the desk, at the end of the first row, next to the window. Whoever gets the... worst mark sits at the bottom of the fourth row, farthest from the window. And she works out everyone else's place from the mark that they get. She does this every week. Every week, we do the tests. Every week we.. change places. We take every thing out of our desks and move.. very quietly.. to where she tells us to go. This way, we always know who's.. better than you.. and we always know who's worse than you. Unless you come top, when there's no one better than you. Unless you come bottom.. when there's no one worse than you. The same people are always in the top row, the same people are always in the bottom row, the same people are always in the 2 rows inbetween. Miss Williams says only the top 2 will pass their... eleven-plus. She stands next to the last person on the second row, she holds up her hands as if she's helping someone cross the road. "This side will pass." she says. "This side will fail." she says. This way we know who are the eleven-plus failures, and who are the eleven-plus passers. And we know that before we've even taken the eleven-plus exam. Next door, there's another class. They are all eleven-plus failures. I want to be 12th. This is because the person who is 12th sits nearest to the bell that sits on top of Miss Williams's cupboard. When you're 12th, you take the bell, you go out of the room, you go downstairs and you stand in the hallway outside the head teacher's office and shake the bell so loudly that the gong-ing fills the classrooms, and all the spaces inbetween. All the children and teachers hear the sound and come out of their classes and walk.. very quietly.. down the stairs, and out into the playground. All because you rang the bell! I never have come twelfth.