“The teacher don’t know how mean she looks.” So sang Chuck Berry in “School Days”, which contrasted the daily grind of school to the joys of rock `n’ roll.
Three headteachers from West Cumbria have taken the song’s sentiments to heart and put school management aside for a while to perform on the same stage as the musical legend.
The heads, half of the six-piece band The Evidence, won a battle of the bands competition to open the Mayport Blues Festival, near Jacksonville, Florida, recently. They warmed up the audience with their rhythm and blues numbers, before Chuck played such hits as his classic “My Ding-A- Ling”.
Alex Wilkinson, guitarist, saxophonist and head of Fairfield Junior School in Cockermouth, said sharing the same stage as the 81-year-old was “the biggest moment” of his career. Far more exciting than a governors’ meeting or preparing for an Ofsted inspection, no doubt.
We can only imagine them singing Chuck’s words as they escape the classroom: “Soon as three o’clock rolls aroundYou finally lay your burden down.”
Unless you have marking or are on the senior management team, of course.