To Sir with Love

To Sir with Love written by Rick Braithwaite is an interesting and adventurous novel which follows the writer himself, a fully qualified teacher in the hunt for a successful job in London. Throughout his life he has been faced with racism because of his skin colour and because of this he has no luck in finding a job. He is then accepted into a teaching job in the East of London which consists of a class of adolescents from a low-income community and is then hit with a crisis within the school that includes the students which erupts into a turning point.
With this being Mr Braithwaite’s first job since the navy he was very eager and positive so start his first day there but his first encounter with the students gave him a straight perception of them. Walking through the forecourt he encounters bad language being spoken from one of the students: “Move out the bloody way”. He is shocked to hear such bad language come from the students within the school grounds. Later on that day he is again struck by shock when he enters the classroom and no one paid attention to his entrance. This gives us a sense of the children’s social background as they clearly haven’t been taught manners or even respect from their own parents.
Further on in the novel, Mr Braithwaite tries his best to interact with the students but basically there not up for it. On the plus side they do listen to him but show no enthusiasm towards the work. With the tension building up between Rick and his students matters become incredibly worse and this is the stage of the turning point of the entire novel. As Mr Braithwaite comes back into the classroom from recess, he approaches the class and comes across smoke coming from the grate of the fireplace. A few girls and boys were standing around joking and laughing without any attempt to stop the smoke or removing what was in the fire.