A list of twenty children is the dullest paper in the school office, which is why it is where a name that should not be there goes unnoticed: a pupil born seventy years too early, a guardian nobody has met, an address where the house was pulled down.
The school, its address and the title at the head; the class, the school year and the form teacher on printed lines; a class photograph if you have one; then the table — number, name, date of birth, parent or guardian, address and remarks, under headings you can reword. At the foot, a footnote, the head teacher’s signature and the school stamp. Mark a pupil as struck off the roll and the row is ruled through, the way the office did it when a child left.
The 1920s schoolhouse is a printed register filled in by the teacher in ink, with red column rules. Eastern Bloc is a typed class register in a ruled grid, stamped in violet. The 1990s printout is dot-matrix type on green-bar paper, with a pen line through the pupil who left. Academy of magic is a roll of adepts on vellum under a wax seal, and Fleet academy is a cadet list with service numbers and berths.
A4 at 300 DPI. Draw a circle round the name that matters with the handwritten marks. A table of anything else — a ledger, a log, an inventory — is a Register, and the class on the steps on picture day is a Photograph.