I've seen the future (I hope) ...

In the last eight days we have taken our reptiles to fairs at three Church of England primary schools.

The first (last Saturday) was St Margaret's in Lee, south London; the second (last Sunday), was Hunton, a rural village outside Maidstone; and today's was at Seal, near Sevenoaks, so somewhat suburban.

At each we were welcomed enthusiastically.

At Lee, we were placed in the library (and wished we had had time to explore it, as it looked amazing), with a parent on the door taking entry money. This is clearly a multi-cultural area, and the children had obvious respect for each other and for the teachers (although the opportunity to throw wet sponges at one of the teachers drew a number of them from us for a short while) - in fact, as we entered the school building, the first thing we saw was a hand-written book outlining the responsibilites of all members of the school.

At Hunton, we were allocated a superb wooden gazebo in the playground, and set up with one table and the gazebo benches. This was a smaller school, but past pupils (some of whom feature in our signage) came back to take part in the day, and were clearly proud to be associated with it, and to look out for the younger children.

Because of traffic issues (the M25 was closed) we arrived slightly late at Seal so did our simplest and quickest set-up - no gazebo or seating, just two tables in a V-shape in the open air. Here there were more "external" stalls, but these were specialist; a wood-turner, archery, and some lovely owls (which the organisers had very thoughtfully placed both at a distance and out of direct line of vision from us). Our audience here was more families than unattached children, and also staff and governors of the school - but noticably not the two CPSOs, who kept well clear of us.

What was common to all three schools was:

• Politeness and manners.
• Patience when others were holding the animals, and also a willingness to say "your turn now".
• Respect for the reptiles as living things, not toys.
• Intelligent questions about them, and a willingness to listen to the answers.
• No complaints about paying to hold them - an understanding that, if you want something you don't just take it (or scream until you get it).
• And wonderful home-made cakes!

If these children, up to the age of eleven, are representative of their generation, then we have a bright future. If they are identifiably the product of Church of England schools, then I think the education authorities need to learn from them, as these three at least are clearly doing something right.