Fifty-four years ago, in November 1959, when I first started teaching in south- east London, I was very keen on watching football.nbsp;

My class of 46 six-year-olds included 24 boys so I had the brain-wave of combining phonics with football.nbsp; I made arm-bands for each boy with ‘CF’ (centre forward), and ‘G’ (goal-keeper) etc, for 22 boys and made the other two referees.nbsp;

To my utter dismay when I blew the whistle wherever the ball was so were 24 small boys, including the “referees”, irrespective of my arm-bands.nbsp;The girls were completely ignored as I gave them skipping ropes and balls to play with (would not get away with that in these days of equal opportunities). The best lad plans ....

Julia Matthews
Kent