Text 1: Before the first bell, by Nia Patel

An original contemporary online feature.

At half past six each morning, while the classrooms are still dark, caretaker Priya Shah unlocks Linton High School. Before pupils arrive, she checks the fire doors, turns on the heating and spreads grit when the paths are icy.

Priya rarely follows the tidy list pinned above her desk. On Monday, a leaking pipe flooded a corridor. On Tuesday, she carried sixty examination tables into the hall. By Wednesday, she had climbed the main staircase eighteen times to deal with broken lights and jammed windows.

Although lessons finish at three, Priya stays until the last club leaves at seven. She then locks every outside door and sets the alarm. The school telephone is beside her bed at night because the alarm company may call if a sensor is triggered.

‘You are responsible for a building used by nearly nine hundred young people,’ she says. ‘Most of the work is invisible, but everyone notices when something goes wrong.’

Text 2: The keeper of Moor Lane School, by A Staff Writer

An original newspaper feature written in an early twentieth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this feature, published in 1908, a reporter describes the work of a school keeper.

Mr Ellis reaches Moor Lane School at seven o’clock and does not leave until after six. In winter, his first duty is to light twelve coal fires so that the rooms are warm when the children enter.

His work requires considerable strength. He carries heavy coal scuttles along the passages, scrubs the stone floors and moves rows of wooden desks whenever a room is needed for a public meeting. During last month’s frost, the yard pump froze, so he brought buckets of water from a house across the road.

Unexpected troubles interrupt him daily. A smoking stove may empty a classroom, a window broken by a ball must be covered at once, and lost keys have to be found before a teacher can begin a lesson.

Before going home, Mr Ellis checks each fire, fastens the windows and locks the gates. He says he cannot relax until he knows that the children have left safely and the building is secure.