I decided to go have coffee with Mayer today – it was my last chance before the end of term, and I didn’t feel much like work. Then I planned to swing by Alan’s office before returning here. Coffee, however, turned into a three hour affair, followed by a shopping spree. In the end I visited Alan much later than expected; u also spoke to trish, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Me and lee got to talking about education, the future and so on. During this conversation, lee explained how he thinks there are two distinct groups of people in society; about how they do separate jobs; about how you can go to one to another through education. What he was describing was Marxism, but I don’t think Lee knew it as such. It was at that point that I realised that my friend should be doing business studies or politics at university, and I told him as much.

Lee lacks confidence. He replied that he would need a lot of help with vocabulary and so on. These, of course, could be overcome – frankly my main concern would be his essay writing skills, but all that is needed to remedy this is a half decent LSA and a few lessons on grammar.

Although I stand by the modification to my stance on special schools I made after visiting Hebden, I still think the special school system has a lot to answer for. It left lee with a few low GCSEs and even lower confidence. I don’t think he realises how academically bright or capable he is. While it is certainly true that special schools do very good work in other areas, it is also evident that people like lee leave school with lower expectations for themselves than perhaps they should have.

After we had said goodbye, I made my way to campus to see Alan. I just needed to call in, let him know my news, and so on. I then had a short, but very worthwhile, chat with trish Belfield, head of foundation year. It would seem that Lee has a very good chance of getting to university, were he to apply. Of this I have no doubt; nor do I doubt that lee would thrive here, perhaps finding the spark that he seems of late to be lacking. The question is, how do I convince him he’s up to it?