There is are deadlines and deadlines. Some in our school are so subliminal that, though never mentioned, they charge us with an inevitable duty akin to destiny. If an attempt was made to enumerate them, a couple spring to mind. There is, for starters, December 8th for the commencement of "dress" rehearsals for the Christmas play. Valentine's Day signals, most unromantically, the beginning of the grind for entrance exams, and so on.

But one annual event has heretofore never had the luxury of a hard and fast deadline and, consequently, it creeps up on us year after year as unwelcome as the car insurance. The event - Sport for All Day!

Why, in the name of God, would any sane staff be worrying about this June fixture before even the winter solstice has charmed our primeval innards? Well, it just so happens that we are determined this academic year not to be taken by surprise by the annual Departmental circular announcing the day of highest athletic endeavour.

We are just not going to be caught ballwatching - if we can mangle metaphors - on the last lap of the final term. Oh, no!

To this end, we have already reined in the assistance of our masters by dusting off and poring over a quaint little pack entitled Organising a Sport for All Event for Children. Follow the diktat within, me hardies, and you'll not stray afar.

The first and most salient point in this scheme is the notion that you cannot start preparations early enough. Put aside any thoughts of gimcracks, crackers and Christmas trees. You must project to next June - the smells of sweat and newly-mown playing fields, the call of the cuckoo and lustrous, long evenings.

Follow this with your Draft Plan - and, of course, you must form a committee. This committee will, in turn, enquire about the availability of facilities. And, lest we lose sight of our secondary consumers, we must at an early stage offer parents the opportunity to help.

Yes, we are surpassing ourselves this year. We are so current, you could light bulbs off us. We know we are so far ahead of the posse that we're in danger of running into the posse in front. Look, no sniggering, we're trying earnestly to be responsive professionals here and work in tandem with the realistic exhortations of the DES.

We want our Sport for All Day 1999 to dovetail into the scheme of things, so that, one week away, we can slither into our summer sheets, safe in the happy knowledge that "a final administrative rehearsal has been completed."

We want to be able to conjoin with our booklet and shout from our roof-boxes the day before the great event: "Relax, it's all done!"

That's what I often think is the best thing about teaching - it's so awash with realism. Happy Midsummer's Day!