"My old school was different from this one because they [the pupils] would have talked through lessons. Here they get it all done in the lesson and then they talk afterwards."
At the rugby match, it is bitterly cold and muddy underfoot. The Wellington team, despite spirited chanting from their supporters, are losing. Some of the pupils' parents have turned up to cheer them on. A bright red Ferrari is parked ostentatiously by the edge of the pitch. A woman in a matching fur hat and coat is walking a large dog around the school grounds.
Chris, Donna and Grace decide to slope off to the school tuck shop for crisps and chocolate bars. "I think they're exhausted," says Steph. "They need some time on their own."
I can see the three of them walking into the distance as the cheers of the rugby crowd recede behind them. They look like a huddled-together group of misfits in their sweatshirts and jeans, refusing to wear coats in spite of the temperature, unrepentantly themselves in the midst of this unfamiliar environment. For a moment, they seem very young and very alone.
But perhaps the most heartening realisation is that whatever their obvious differences or disadvantages, the children themselves find that they have more in common than what sets them apart. Several mobile numbers have already been exchanged and the Wellington pupils are very keen to make the return trip to Burnley.
"Everyone thought we were going to have different interests because our lives were so far apart," says Wellington student Frankie Paterson. "But deep down we were talking at night about film and music that we all have in common. The girls all liked chick flicks like Love Actually. We can have a discussion about it even if we're from different backgrounds."
Chris echoes the sentiment: "Everybody is just dead nice. There was nothing to be scared of. They are proper good people."
And it is true, that after a single day, you start to notice the beginnings of tentative friendships and shaky alliances poking up like fresh shoots among the thickets of mistrust and wariness. You can sense the transforming power of opportunity and the considerable effect that a teacher's genuine engagement can have on a child's self-esteem. But it is the moments that are only glimpsed by the rest of us - the whispered classroom confidences; the stifled laughter over a private joke; the indefinable sense of camaraderie forged in spite of difference - that prove the most potent.
