Although I dislike meetings and can get easily bored by them, I really feel guilty when I miss ones I should be at, and I feel especially guilty if I miss a meeting I am supposed to be chairing.

Tonight, after having previously written up agendas, e-mailed some and physically gone all round Broadfield delivering the rest for our branch Labour party meeting I couldn’t make it – but I don’t care!

The reason I couldn’t make it was that we went to Manor Green College for Charlie’s graduation and it all over-ran a bit.

In the last year or so Chas has been getting increasingly assertive and takes every chance to demonstrate his independence. This reached a sort of peak when he specifically invited everyone to the leaving ceremonies tonight and invited just about everyone. Jayne’s parents came over from East Sussex, and my Mother and Godmother came all the way down from Essex.

I was half expecting to be bored by the whole thing, but it was brilliant and moving. Being a governor at the school who has often volunteered to go in and help out at school trips and exams Jayne has had a lot more opportunities to see Charlie interacting with all the staff and other students, but it was all quite new for me and touching to see. I do see him with his friends at the Friday club when I pick him up, but this was different.

But it was not just family pride at seeing Charlie all grown up and very obviously commanding some respect and affection in his peers and the staff which made the evening special. During the presentations of certificates and records of acheivement some of the students insisted on saying a few words themselves. At several points you could see tissues being passed around and I would defy anyone to not have at least a large lump in their throat at some stage.

Most of the students made far better speeches than I have heard at most council meetings – short on rhetoric but very sincere. The girl in the wheelchair describing how she used to be bullied at her old school (Hazelwick) and regularly had her lunch money stolen but how happy she had been since moving to Manor Green, the other girl who thanked her teacher for giving her confidence in herself, and the boy who and been spending two years attending two schools on a sort of timeshare arrangement… without any trace of malice he just said how he thought a couple of teachers doubted he would be able to cope with it but “I proved them wrong”.

A couple of things will stay with me from this evening. The first is that emotional maturity and character is not at all diminished by whatever physical or mental handicaps someone might have – yes we all know that already on some level but its great to see it demonstrated.

The other thing is the reminder of just what a good school Manor Green is. It was so apparent that the staff really enjoy working with the students and you could see how that sort of genuine affection and respect for the students leads to reciprocation. Every award they have won really is deserved. Some years ago the school was failing and Rick Turney was brought in as a troubleshooting Head to turn it around. Having done that he was persuaded to stay on, and we are all fortunate that he did.

The shame is that so few children are able to benefit from this. It all works because of the small class sizes (OK – and the high standards of equipment and calibre of staff) and there is not the capacity to include all the children who need such attention. But such generalities were not top of the agenda tonight – we were more preoccupied with Charlie getting public recognition for all his volunteering work!