Our Day Out by Willy Russell

In this essay I am going to compare the characters of Mrs Kay and Mr

Briggs form Our Day Out by Willy Russell, where under privileged children from Liverpool are taken on a school trip to Wales and we see two very different styles of teaching.

Mrs Kay is the teacher of the progress class and the children really like her;

Rielly to Mrs Kay ‘You’re ace miss.’

She is in her early forties and greatly values the children and her job. However she is not very harsh on discipline and only has one rule for the trip;

‘That is the only rule we have for today, think of yourself but think of others as well.’

The other teacher on the trip is Mr Briggs, whose teaching style is the complete opposite to that of Mrs Kay;

‘Come on, sit down, move!’

(which is what he says when he gets on the bus). Unlike Mrs Kay the children do not like or respect Mr Briggs and due to this, he doesn’t understand the difficulties the children face, or the hard lives that they lead.

Mrs Kay however does understand this and she really cares for the children. But because of this she has a much more relaxed view on discipline. She lets them have so much freedom because she wants them to enjoy themselves but also because she knows that nobody wants them educating. For example on page 57 where Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs are having an argument at the castle.

Mrs Kay trusts the children and lets them run around the castle, saying; ‘Ooh…leave them…They’ll want to stretch their legs and let off a bit of steam.’

Mr Briggs however doesn’t believe the children should be trusted, especially after the incident at the zoo. For example after the visit to the zoo where he finds out that the children have stolen some of the animals;

‘You act like animals, animals!…I’ve learned that trust is something you people do not understand.’

Mrs Kay is right to trust the children because she knows that they are good people that can just get a bit out of control sometimes. But in the end Mr Briggs is proven right not to trust them when they go completely out of control at the zoo and steal a lot of animals.

Mrs Kay’s opinion on the point of the trip to Wales is that she wants the children to have some fun; Mrs Kay to Mr Briggs ‘I’m not going to let you prevent the kids from having some fun.’

Mr Briggs however sees the point of school trips as a chance for more