Stanza one Title locates the poem in a school environment.

The poem
introduces an explores a young child growing up within a nurturing
idyllic setting. primary school environment.

Personal pronoun
IN MRS TILSCHER’S CLASS
– creates a chatty
Metaphor – compares children’s journey growing up
tone/engages the You could travel up the Blue Nile with an adventure along the Nile. Long sentence –
reader
with your finger, tracing the route mirrors the long journey the children take through
Word choice – childhood
while MrsTilscher chanted the scenery
happy, singing
voice of Mrs T Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan. List of one word sentences – mimic the patient
way that Mrs T pauses after saying things in class
Chatty tone. Also
That for an hour, then a skittle of milk
shows day is and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust. Metaphor compares milk bottles to bowling pins, suggests
broken down fun and excitement of time spent in Mrs T’s class
A window opened with a long pole.
Suggests magical, The laugh of a bell swung by a running child. Word choice brings action from the
passing of time,
Personification - projecting the child's laughter onto it, which poem from imagination to reality.
something ending
creates a happy atmosphere, establish an uplifting and
and being lost
carefree world, where children are free to grow and find In stanza two, Duffy continues a wonderful
Short sentence themselves within a nurturing setting. environment of a classroom.
suggests safety/ This was better than home. Enthralling books. She juxtaposes the external world with the
happiness descriptions of the classr
Informal tone The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.
ooms.choice suggests interested/absorbed
Word
Simile – temptation,
Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley
by the learning/literature. Short sentence
wonder and delight, faded, like a faint uneasy smudge of a mistake. emphasises the strength of their feeling
trigger interest and
Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found
imagination.
Juxtaposition of security and danger of the
she’d left a good gold star by your name.
Short sentence/list moors murderers. Simile – power of loving
– describe setting, The scent of a pencil, slowly, carefully, shaved. environment, removes fear
transport to A xylophone’s nonsense heard from another form.
magical world Word choice – suggests positive atmosphere,
List of adverbs - prolong the line, mimicking the slow act of sense of magic, link to setting
Personification - sharpening a pencil, a universal memory of childhood.
implies that hasn’t Stanza 3 - it is at this point that the child
been mastered it Word choice - a time of growth and regeneration, signals a speaker learns how she was born. It is
yet but sounds fun turning point in the poem and the speaker’s growth interesting that this stanza takes place outside
and appealing the classroom, as if this growth could not
Over the Easter term, the inky tadpoles changed happen in the bubble Mrs T created.
Metaphor –
from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs
represents children Word choice – games and enjoyment
growing up. hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce,
Punctuation links to Word choice – stupid person, old fashioned
followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking
growing up and links
to setting and away from the lunch queue. A rough boy Word choice – link to boys’ voices
learning
told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared breaking through comparison to
at your parents, appalled, when you got back home . frogs
 Word choice suggests sheltered
background, snobbish behaviour,
immature , lack of knowledge of
world. Links to growing up and
gaining knowledge of sex

Word choice and parenthesis places the word in the middle of the line, short sentence - evokes her
adding emphasis to her horror as her familiar and safe world disintegrates disbelief and perhaps her fear of
in front of her eyes. Complex sentence to highlight the complex thoughts the unknown Word choice
of the reader suggests violence, childish reaction,
unable to deal with feelings
effectively at this stage in the
speaker’s development.

Stanza 4 describes the child's sexual awakening, as she Metaphor – compares the air to electricity, suggests danger,
experiences unfamiliar feelings and no longer finds the warnings and also excitement. new energy and excitement
answers with Mrs T. The poem ends with the speaker fuelling the children. But it also suggests the threat of lightening
leaving the school gates to embark on the next stage of life. and storms, suggesting the difficult time of adolescence.

Word choice - That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity. Word choice –compares change of laughing bell to
conveys the A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot, the speaker. Links to stress and excitement that
1.
flustered, agitated the child perceives in physical terms. "alarm" also
mood, suggests fractious under the heavy sexy sky. You asked her
suggests a warning of what is ahead
illness, heat or how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled,
even excitement List – suggests the speaker feels uncomfortable,
then turned away. Reports were handed out.
experiencing the beginning of puberty
Pathetic fallacy links to You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown,
speaker’s feelings.
As the sky split open into a thunderstorm. This time, when the child goes to Mrs Tilscher
Word choice suggests
a storm is building. for help and security it is no longer there. The
"heavy" suggests the
Contrast to stanzas 1 and 2. Instead of magical world line break is deliberate here to mimic the new
burden of new provided by Mrs T, reality sets in with school reports. division between teacher and pupil
knowledge and Mrs T’s role has become ordinary and matter of fact.
emotions, "sexy"
refers to sexual Parenthesis – creates emphasis of the speaker’s
2nd person pronoun – informal tone, speak directly to
awakening. feelings, fear has melted away and turned into
the reader, make the poem and its themes universal
eagerness to experience life and leave the world
and relatable for all audiences.
of Mrs T’s classroom behind
Pathetic fallacy links to
speaker’s feelings
Metaphor – compare
Themes
with the dramatic
feelings about growing  Childhood  Metaphorical journey in
up, scary /exciting
 Growing up final year of primary school
Word choice of split –
breaking, damage, loss  Nostalgia
of innocence, cannot  Self-realisation  It begins in the safety and
return to
past/childhood
 Innocence security of the setting of
 Contrasts Mrs T’s classroom
 Change
 During the year as the
speaker changes so does
the atmosphere and there
The poem has 4 stanzas. The first 2 have 8 lines begins to be a feeling of
and describe the positive atmosphere of the
fear, danger and
classroom. Stanzas 3 and 4 introduce change
and growing up and have seven lines, which
excitement
reflect the destabilising nature of adolecence.
Also it is predictable and regular like a school
timetable.