North Eden High School, The British Paradise Islands

### **Doc. 4.20.**

**North Eden High School** is a regional secondary-education facility featured in the Two Paradises fantasy/fiction realm as devised by author Jonnie Comet.

The school is attended by many of the characters featured in stories within both Paradise One and Paradise Two realms, notably the Cavaliere siblings and their Somerset Township friends, Janine Hewlett and friends of the *Janine, of Paradise* arc, and Amelia Townsend of the novel *Amelia, a Vahine*.

The facilities and operation parameters of BPI secondary schools represent a blend of English public schools and American comprehensive schools, with a fixed period schedule, students being assigned homerooms (and corridor lockers) and having to travel amongst multiple classrooms, and a firm dress code.

## History

The NEHS grounds are situated on a broad, grassy clearing just east of Green Garden Wood preserve in eastern Devon Township, Eden Island. The central building dates to the 1950s, when it was built to relieve precipitous crowding of the island's only other secondary school, Hurricane Hole High School (which was remodelled to accommodate more students as well).

An east-end annexe including a modernised gymnasium replaced the former detached field house in 1980; it includes a first-class ampitheatre and performing-arts classrooms as well.

In 1988 the banquetting hall, used for formal events and for daily lunch, was constructed to the west end, replacing the ground-floor canteen which has since been reassigned as a detention hall.

## Sending region

As a regional school, NEHS serves students to the north of the island's central spine of hills, from the western frontier of Pirates' Cove to the southern frontier between Derby Township and Dublin Township. Students from Garden Township (Coventry) commute over The Race bridge to Hope Island; those from south of the hills go to Hurricane Hole.

## from **British Paradise Islands Territorial Ministry of Education**

### Div. 4 - North Eden High School

Address: Township Road, Devon, Eden Island

### Enrolment (2000):

 Devon Twp.
 Pirates' Cove
 Somerset Twp
 totals

### Insignia

* School colours: green and white
* School icon: Angel
* School crest: white angel with silver halo on green field
* School identifier: *NEHS*; stylised gothic letters *N* and *E* typically represented in silver, staggered diagonally, upon green field.

### Facilities

School opened 1959. Annexes and improvements effected, 1980, 1988

Traditional/mediaeval-style quadrilateral courtyard-and-cloister arrangement, having front central bell/clock tower, two storeys with one-story annexes; approx. 100 m wide, approx 75 m deep; housing 750 students through upper 6th

* field house (gymnasium)
* football/rugby pitch
* cricket pitch
* lawn bowls and croquet
* tennis courts
* 400-metre track
* partially-wooded cross-country course
* outdoor 25-metre pool
* banquetting hall, capacity 620
* individual subjects’ study halls and labs
* indoor amphitheatre, 450 seats
* formal floral gardens

Adjacent to wooded preserve, fields and streams, within 1-1/2-kilometre walk of Devon Township and most of Derby Borough.

The west end of the grounds connect to the end of Marlette Street, central Devon (Holiday Park, the Well) via a pleasant 350-metre-long wooded footway through the trees of the preserve.

### Required dress

To be worn at all times on school grounds or for applicable school activities, with tidiness, cleanliness, and respect for the clothing and school environment.

#### For classroom attendance, sanctioned school events

Boys and girls shall be attired in ‘proper dress’, to include shoes which can be polished (of leather or leather substitute)

* boys: collared button-front shirt with fitted sleeves, worn neatly tucked, long trousers with belt
* girls: skirt and collared blouse with fitted sleeves, worn neatly tucked; or dress with fitted sleeves and collar; hems to be no shorter than four fingers’-breadth above top of kneecap

#### For PE classes, sporting events (except when team or school uniform is prescribed)

* boys: all-cotton t-shirt, green, worn tucked; cotton shorts of about 75mm inseam with elastic waist, grey; cotton-blend calf-height stockings, white

* girls: all-cotton t-shirt, of a long fit, green, worn cinched or untucked; elastic-leg short bloomers, medium grey; cotton-blend calf-height stockings, white

The student shall supply appropriate athletic shoes, to be predominantly white

### Period bell schedule

Applicable to forms 1-5

Some cocurricular courses, typically honours-level, as well as sports and activities are held only two days per week, either Mondays and Wednesdays (code ‘M’) or Tuesdays and Thursdays (code ‘T’).

Most fine- and performing-arts courses are held only Monday-Thursday leaving the student with a Friday prep which the student is expected to apply to independent practice. Some courses are held for only half a semester, either the first half (code ‘a’) or the second half (code ‘b’).

All students are scheduled for one lunch period, typically either 5th or 6th or else by
consultation with one’s tutor.

Prep periods are held on a sign-in basis with the student responsible for accounting for his time by choosing a study venue and signing in and out.

Sixth-formers follow a modified schedule, with classes held for double periods but on alternating days; Fridays are typically reserved for in-school study and research or else used by the student for career experience.

### Passes

Passes shall be colour-coded to indicate category of use and student response.

* green - for permission, such as to run an errand or go to the toilet; access to student and school events, in lieu of admission fee or class restriction (such as for student press and events staff)
* pink - for the nurse to permit, excuse or request students for medical reasons
* yellow - for advisors and counsellors to draw students from scheduled classes, including for administrative privilege and student workers on office errands
* blue - summons to the office usually for some disciplinary measure or to detention
* white - for students to request and have granted requests such as to sit out PE because of an injury, skip class due to some more pressing assignment or to delay an exam due to a recent absence

### Disciplinary measures

The following measures shall be applied, in descending order of severity, as circumstances warrant

1. Detention, 14.55-15.40
2. Student-faculty conference(s)
3. Student-parent-faculty conference(s)
4. Student-parent-administrator conference
5. Suspension from lunch, activities
6. Amendment to permanent disciplinary record
7. Temporary suspension from school; a matter of some days or weeks
8. Expulsion from school (in the whole of NEHS history this has never been done)

## Features

The central quadrilateral building was designed to permit passive air movement through transom windows above the classroom doors and high hopper-type casements above the wide, tall sash windows; but the inadequacy of this system is a common gripe amongst students. Ironically the central courtyard meant to provide both corridors and classrooms with cooling air tends to trap natural air currents, rendering most chambers awkwardly warm and still.

Numerous of the classrooms, laboratories and lecture halls at NEHS are known primarily by their names, even on computer-printed student schedules, rather than by their assigned room numbers. Many of the classrooms have been personalised by their regularly-resident instructors, such as by the addition or substitution for nonstandard furniture, decor and equipment.

The gymnasium being at the extreme opposite end of the complex from the banquetting room, students leaving one for the other during adjacent periods are often slightly late. Though most PE instructors are concerned only when when a student reports for roll call and activities, not when he or she arrives in the changing cabana, many less-sympathetic administrators tend to lurk in the corridors just waiting to issue summons for detention to those still en route at the sound of the bell.

NEHS is apparently full of quirky, unwritten rules that are perpetuated, chiefly by students, in a spirit of school loyalty and tradition. The rectangular garden at the northeast corner of the central courtyard is off-limits to all but 5th-formers. That to the southwest corner is available only to girls. Under Mr Rydell's tenure as theatre and literature instructor, students entering the second-storey classroom known as Tybalt's Den for the first time in a term are required to announce 'theatrically', 'A pox on both your houses!' or be denied admission to class.

Typically all 6th-formers are to be addressed by lower-form students as 'Mister' or 'Miss' and are to wear 'business attire' (typically neckties for boys and suit skirts for girls). In *Amelia, a Vahine*, 3rd-form Amelia Townsend is invited, by virtue of her particular friendship with Lady Susie Cavaliere, to have lunch with her regularly in The Dome, an arcade-type room adjacent to the banquetting chamber where only 6th-formers are entitled to sit, despite complaints by several other 6th-form girls.

## Appearances in the stories

NEHS is frequently mentioned and used as a recurring setting in most of the stories concerning students from its sending region. The *Janine, of Paradise* arc makes ample use of the school's conventions, notably in *Janine's Night to Remember*, during which Janine attends the annual Valentines' dance, and in 'The Wrong Dress' when she falls victim to the school dress code, which, though essentially reasonable, is often considered draconian by those who have found themselves on its wrong side. Also in 'Wrong Dress' Janine relates her experience, not new to her, of sitting detention in the former canteen room. In *Janine's Jealousy* she is assigned several detentions for scuffling with Christine Heywood's henchmen and is required to consult with her guidance counsellor.

In 'Neat Knickers', Lady Susie attends an after-school planning meeting for the end-of-term festivities, has chocolate milk spilt on her dress, and retreats to a girls' toilet where she attempts to wash it out before returning to the meeting wearing only her shoes and underwear. It is the first time anyone present can recall anyone's having done private attire at school.

In *Girls Will be Girls*, Lady Susie takes advantage of Amelia's idol-worship by soliciting her sexual favours in the upstairs science laboratory. Some years later, the same room is the scene of the first in-school kiss for Janine Hewlett and Charlie Richardson in *Janine's Growing Pains*.

## See also

* NEHS annual events
* NEHS student legends
* NEHS Cotillion Princesses
* BPI school curricula
* 'The Wrong Dress' at Amazon.uk and Amazon.com
* *Janine's Night to Remember* at Amazon.uk and Amazon.com
* *Janine's Growing Pains* at Amazon.uk and Amazon.com

\* \* \*