News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

• home
• browse books
• book details:

On the Edge: One Teacher, A Camper Van, Britain's Toughest Schools

by Charlie Carroll - £8.99  Monday Books (2010)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9781906308179 | ISBN 10: 1906308179

Charlie Carroll finds himself teaching English to nice children in a nice school. It’s the perfect job – so why is he so bored?
 
Determined to find out why a staggering 50% of British teachers quit within five years of qualifying, he gives up his safe, steady life, buys a rusty old VW camper van and spends the next year on the road – travelling around the country’s most deprived areas and teaching problem pupils in our toughest schools.
 
He soon finds the answer to his question. These are places where the kids beat up the staff, take drugs (in lessons) and – to Charlie’s despair – show absolutely no interest in learning. By night, he shivers in his unheated van, living on a diet of beans on toast and cabernet sauvignon; by day, he tries to keep order in lessons on the edge of anarchy. Knife-threats, cyber-bullying and fights are common, and most of his pupils have no ambition, no prospects and no hope.
 
It sounds like a nightmare, and often is. But while he fears for his safety, Charlie finds glimmers of optimism in the worst of areas – youngsters from terrible backgrounds who are succeeding against the odds. This is a shocking but humorous diary of life in a world most of us never see.

(Price & availability last checked: January 2019)

Order by email

×

On the Edge: One Teacher, A Camper Van, Britain's Toughest Schools - by Charlie Carroll

Please fill in the order form, & we will reply as soon as we can to confirm your order & tell you how long it will take. Choose between collection from our bookshop or mail-order, for which we charge postage at cost, at current Royal Mail rates

Select type of order: Collect & pay in the shop - I live in or can visit Liverpool Mail-order - send me a card payment link Mail-order - I will pay another way & give details in the notes section

Your name:

Please fill out this field.

Your email address

Please check carefully that you have entered your email correctly

Please fill out this field.

Your phone number (required for order as back-up contact method):

Please check carefully that you have entered your phone number correctly.

Please fill out this field.

Notes (optional - for additional message or information about your order):

Close

Enquire about this book

×

On the Edge: One Teacher, A Camper Van, Britain's Toughest Schools

by Charlie Carroll

Your name:

Please fill out this field.

Your email address

Please check carefully that you have entered your email correctly

Please fill out this field.

Your phone number (optional):

Your message:

Please fill out this field.

(optional) If you are interested in ordering this book, would your order be for collection or mail-order? Select type of order : Collect from the shop - I live in or can visit Liverpool Mail-order - send by post

Close

In booklists: Teachers, Teaching and Schools,
In categories: Education,