After speaking to Linda, Briggs makes his way down to the front of the coach. He disturbs McNally and he tells him to go and sit at the back. But he doesn’t tell McNally why he wants this. Briggs talks to Andrews about smoking and wants him to promise not to smoke again. But when Andrews says that he can’t give up smoking, Briggs says, “Well you better not let me catch you again”. This means that Briggs doesn’t care if Andrews smokes or not. As a teacher he should persuade Andrews to stop smoking but he doesn’t do this.
Briggs finds Mrs. Kay’s teaching methods liberalist and feels they are no good to the children and they are not worth it. He thinks that the children have already got freedom at home and they should work hard at school. He also thinks that Mrs. Kay should be strict with them because this is the only thing that’s going to work. Briggs doesn’t allow the girls to link arms with him because he doesn’t want to be seen like this and destroy his strict teacher image.
When Mrs. Kay takes a detour to the zoo, Briggs tries to stop her. At the zoo Briggs is surprised by the children’s interest because he never thought that they would have any interests and emotional feelings. Briggs thinks that it’s not cruel if a bear was treated well in a pit and he says “Don’t forget it was born in captivity so it won’t know any other sort of life”. It’s the same for the children in the Progress Class. They were born in the poor inner city so they won’t know any other sort of life but sadly he doesn’t make this connection himself.
When Briggs discovers that the children have taken the animals, he gets really angry. This is because they have told Briggs that they will behave well but he thinks that they have misused his trust. Briggs says “I trusted all of you but it’s obvious that trust is something that you know nothing about”. The children took the animals from the children’s zoo because they never had anything nice in their lives and they might have thought that nobody would mind if they took the animals. But Briggs doesn’t understand this and he tells the children not to expect anymore trust from him. Briggs is so angry with Mrs. Kay because he thinks that her teaching method is not right and she is on their side. Briggs thinks that he can educate the children but Mrs. Kay tells him that it is too late to give them any education because they were born as rejects. Briggs thinks that he can educate every single child by being strict and he fails to realise all they need is love and care.
Carol runs away from the party to stay in Wales and live on her own. She doesn’t want to go back to the Pilot Street and she doesn’t care how she is going to survive in Wales. At the beginning of the cliff scene, the only thing that Briggs is worried about is himself. Carol says, “Because if I jumped over, you’ll get into trouble when you get back to school”. People might think that Briggs pushed Carol off the cliff because he doesn’t like her. Carol tells Briggs that he hates all the children but he says that it’s not true. When Briggs was trying to be strict, he gave the wrong impression that he hated the children at the same time. When Briggs tells to Carol that she can get a good job, he is not realistic and he’s naïve. He doesn’t realize how life is hard for poor people. After he talks to Carol, he understands how Carol feels.
Briggs has realized the problems some of the children face and he takes them to the fair so they can have a fun day out. After speaking to Carol, he understands how life is hard and cruel for those children. He sees the world through Carol’s eyes. At the fair, Briggs spends most of his time with Carol and the others having fun and eating candy. When they arrive at the school, the stage directions tell us that Briggs takes of his cowboy hat and puts it on Andrews and he takes out a comb and combs his hair and tidies his clothes. This is because he doesn’t want to be seen like this. He exposes the film because he doesn’t want any proof of what he did at the fair.
From the beginning to the zoo Briggs is horrible to everyone and at the zoo he has a good time. But after the children take the animals he gets really angry and shouts at the children. After talking to Carol he understands the situation of the children and takes them to the fair and shows us who the real Briggs is.
I think that the most important thing for Briggs is his career and as a result of this he tries to be strict because he thinks that this is the best way to educate children. Briggs is so naive and doesn’t realise what’s going on in real life. He thinks that everything else in the world is the same as his.
