Abigail: When some of the scary teachers come in with the scary tone in their voice and they are going to get you into trouble, you just sit there scared.

Emma: Silently.

Ross: It’s their voice. Your heart starts beating really fast. And when you realise you are not getting into trouble, it stops.

Abigail: Sometimes the whole class gets punished for one person doing something.

Emma: In one of the other classes, one of them got into trouble and they all sat for like half-an-hour or 45 minutes there until someone owned up.

Ross: Another time, someone said to the teacher they had lost their coins or someone had stolen them. And even though she is a really nice teacher, she was not happy with us. She said, “I know who it is.” But she didn’t. And one day, we come into school and she said they had found them.

Abigail: It was a wee bit freaky ...

Ross: Aye, it was.

Abigail: ... because every time the teacher looked at you, you felt she was blaming you.

Emma: There was one boy in our class - everyone thought it was him, so he was sitting with his head in his hands. That raised the suspicion for him. The teacher had a talk with him and he said he didn’t do it, but everyone just wanted someone to own up.

Ross: Most of the punishments are quite fair.

Abigail: Not really, cos the P4s and 5s were playing tig or something and someone’s jacket got it, so tig is banned at the moment from all primaries. It’s just a game of tig. If you take away tig, we are basically just sitting around. I think banning all games with contact is over-reacting. It was just this one year group and it’s banned for the whole school.

Ross: Another punishment is you lose your golden time.

Emma: No, you don’t “lose” your golden time. We have to earn our golden time.

Ross: That’s quite fair. The teacher said it’s not fair that you get your golden time for nothing.

Emma: We get really annoyed when someone gets into trouble. There is this deep sigh through the classroom and the atmosphere is never good for the rest of the day.

Ross: No one talks to the person who has done it.

Abigail: Sometimes you feel a bit angry as well. Our teacher doesn’t shout very much, and one day one of the boys hit one of girls, and we heard him shout for the first time. Some of my friends and me wanted to just start crying, because it was that bad.

Ross: But you need rules in school, because if you don’t have any rules the whole school can go mad.

Abigail: School is about learning, and learning skills for your whole life.