There were only a few days left until Father Christmas was due, and the festive mood was everywhere at after school, all the more so now that the children had written their letter to him.
Of all the writing exercises of the year, this is the most motivating, and not by chance. A composition has a single reader, the teacher, and a mark at the end. The letter has a real recipient and a stake the child takes very seriously indeed, so it deserves to be written neatly, correctly and clearly.
You can see it at once. Children who usually rush to get to the bottom of the page now write slowly, careful with their letters, asking how a word is spelled and rubbing out anything they do not like. In the process they learn, without being taught, the structure of a letter: a greeting, a few lines about how the year has gone, the wish, the thanks and a closing.
We hoped then that every child would get what they wished for. Our own wish stayed simpler: health and the strength to keep working.