1. Mind your manners: Teenage etiquette lessons
By CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON
PUBLISHED: 07:35, Thu, Jun 25, 2015
Manners tutor Belinda Alexander has a similar rule: all her teenage students have to leave their
mobile phones at the front door.
Yes, she runs a tight ship when it comes to good behaviour and all the pupils attending her class
today are required to hand over their smartphones and all other forms of communication.
There is to be no texting, no emailing and no gum-chewing.
Instead the young women of Shrewsbury School are required to give their full attention to the
lesson in hand.
We’re all shy. I’m shy. I get nervous when I have to address a room full of people. You’re allowed
to be shy until you’re 16 but after that you have to find ways to overcome it
Because what Belinda has to say may, in the fullness of time, not only implant the basics of
polite behaviour but even help them get a job.
And, as any employer knows, that process begins when you enter the room, which is why
Belinda has got two girls practising what you might think was a relatively simple procedure:
walking through the door.
“You’ve got roughly 60 seconds in which to make an impression,” she urges sixth-form
conscripts Cadi and Tati.
No sooner have they walked through the door, though, than Belinda has got advice.
“First rule of entering a room is to step forwards confidently with a smile,” she urges.
“Don’t turn round to shut the door, it’ll do that on its own, and the minute you turn away you
shut yourself off from the people you have come to see.”
And that’s just the start of it.
