'We started here in September 2006 and have just finished our first year in the school. All in all, we have enjoyed our time in the school so far. It hasn't been an easy year, but we are looking forward to coming back again next year as Form 2 students.

At first glance the school building looks respectable. The outside was painted a few years ago. Unfortunately, some graffiti has appeared on the walls. There are three floors in the building, with science and computer lab on the bottom floor and general classrooms on the two upper floors. Facilities in the school are very basic. We have chairs and desks in the classrooms but, that is more or less it. Our desks and chairs are not state of the art. Many of them have wobbly legs and they can be very annoying when trying to concentrate on our work especially during exams.

Class sizes are quite big, with the current Form 1 classes having 31 and 35 students. We tried hard this year to keep our room clean and tidy, but it is very difficult. We had a cleaning rota and worked well at sweeping and emptying the bin.

It would be great if we could paint the walls of our classrooms so that in September 2007 we could start the year with clean and fresh rooms.

We are lucky to have a good number of subjects on offer in St Martin's. Our teachers work hard to give us all the help we need to learn. It can't be very easy, though because they don't have many resources.

There are chalkboards in each classroom but, even these are not very good quality and it is nearly impossible to write on certain sections of them, particularly in the Form 2 rooms.

It would be nice if teachers could use different things to teach us instead of just the chalkboard. We have to do a lot of copying from the board in class, and that can be boring.

We love playing sports. Our favourites are cricket and football. Our class football team very nearly beat the Form 2s twice this year!! We don't have much space to play at school. It would be good to have a proper pitch and some more sports equipment. Sometimes, we don't have a football to play with. When we play cricket, we often have to play with pieces of wood instead of proper bats. It is still good fun, though and even some of our other teachers tried to play this year!!

Another game that we play a lot is marbles. We enjoy playing it before and after school. We are lucky to be allowed to stay at school to play in the afternoons. For many of us it is more fun than going home'.

The children then list the 10 things they would like to see in St Martin's, namely:

Clean, freshly painted classrooms

Better desks and chairs to sit on (no more wobbly legs!)

Better area for sports and more sports equipment

Somewhere to eat lunch outside the classrooms

More resources for use in class, overhead projectors, stereos, TV, computers, etc

Books they can read in the school library

An electronic bell

A room big enough for the whole school to meet together for assembly, etc

More organised clubs and societies, and

'a better staffroom for our teachers!'.

The list was compiled by Form 1CM.