Damian Whitworth (35 1/2) of The Times spent a week in an independent school and a week in a state school. He wrote up his experiences in two articles this week.

The one about the state school is amusing, and has something to teach teachers, perhaps, about what it feels like to be a pupil.

The independent school experience is here. I have chosen the bit about the Latin lesson to reproduce here

: Our first lesson is classics, a combination of Latin and the history, culture and literature of the Greek and Roman worlds. I did Latin at my southwest London comprehensive, fluking my way to an O-level grade A by learning chunks of Caesar’s de Bello Gallico off by heart. The next year the school, like so many other state schools, dropped Latin from the curriculum. I can be very boring about the importance of schools offering Latin. All pupils at Chigwell do Latin up until year 8. A small number do Latin and Greek to A level and go on to study classics at university.

Of course, in the lesson I can hardly remember any of it. The declension of mensa was so ingrained that I find I can instinctively rattle it off. But bellum escapes me. “It’s almost offensively easy, isn’t it?” says Tim Morrison, the young teacher and an old boy of the school. “Let’s just go through this for the benefit of any new pupils.” All eyes swivel in my direction and then shoot back to the front. It is heartening to see such enthusiasm for the subject. Mr Morrison, who possesses a dry sense of humour, has to field a barrage of questions.

“Sir, why does everyone in Greek have such long names?”

“To be as awkward as possible.” This reply appears to satisfy.

For homework we have to find out about characters from The Odyssey. “Stick them into Google, ” says Mr Morrison. Clearly research methods have moved beyond fighting over lone copies of dog-eared textbooks in the school library.