Everyday life at the Dante secondary modern school is turned upside down when the pupils take over and decide what, how and indeed whether they want to learn. The experiment was originally planned for a single week, but it has rapidly grown from strength to strength. Headmaster Zander's ulterior motive had been to let the pupils find out for themselves that they would be at a loss to cope with so much freedom. The pupils however use their new scope to channel their energies into their own interests and develop a whole range of new ideas. The existing order at the school is completely reversed: the pupils demand that the teachers pay more attention to their own wishes, and even go so far as to mark the quality of the teaching. School becomes exciting again; whether it is hatching hens' eggs in biology or questioning grannies and granddads about the rise of National Socialism, the pupils enjoy it. But the potential success of the experiments is jeopardised by several factors: vindictive pupils depose Zander the Head and terrorise even the most well-meaning teachers. And among the teachers' ranks are a few who distrusted the whole exercise right from the start and now demand that Zander take a firm stand and put a stop to the disruption. But the headmaster has a hard task abolishing his own scheme.