Grace smoothes out a piece of blank A4 in front of her and writes her name in green ink with extraordinary care on the top left-hand corner. She decides the dresses look "sparkly like Christmas fairy lights". The teacher nods approvingly. "It's a very different lesson to the ones I had before," she confides. "It's very unusual because, at my old school, it was all tests and exams. We didn't do nothing like this. This is more chatty, and you get the chance to watch the film. We didn't have boards like this. We had blackboards and chalk."
The girl sitting next to her turns round and introduces herself as Alexandra. She used to go to a state school but came to Wellington on a golfing scholarship. The two of them start chatting about Burnley, where Alexandra's best friend lives.
"Are you going to come to Wellington?" Alexandra asks.
Grace smiles and shakes her head. "No. I'm just here for a visit."
Chris has been asked to write a short paragraph about the last time he can remember feeling truly proud. He sits at a desk, brow furrowed, pen in hand. Fifteen minutes later, he hands over his short essay. When I ask him what it is about, he grins, lolling back in the plastic classroom chair.
"I was 13 and I was playing basketball for the school. It was 30 seconds from the end and I had the ball and everyone was shouting: 'Shoot, shoot!' I just took it and scored." I tell him it sounds like a film and he looks genuinely pleased. "It does, doesn't it?"
After reading the short essay, David James, the mild-mannered director of International Baccalaureate at Wellington, says that he thinks Chris has the potential to pass GCSEs in English and maths. He is keen to set up a long-term partnership with Wellington that would involve Chris getting some form of tuition.
I'm not sure that a teacher has ever paid Chris a compliment before because the effect is quite astonishing. From being a recalcitrant, superficially moody teenager, he becomes immediately engaged. His shoulders relax. "Really?" he asks, looking almost bashful. "Yes, really," says Dr James. "And I wouldn't say that if I didn't think it were true."
Later, while we are walking to an interschool rugby match on one of the college's playing fields, Chris tells me that, "You need to have a good teacher. If you have someone dull and boring who says: 'Three eights are whatever' then you don't listen to them. But if you have a teacher who is really interactive, it's more fun for some reason.
