SATS and sun

Summer term is well and truly under way, which means for my year group, the tests are a comin’. Week after next to be precise. SATS have been in and out of the news recently. It seems that everyone thinks that for the young ‘uns they’re completely unnecessary and a waste of time, but the government think they’re very very important so they’re happening. The lot we have in charge now are obsessed with tests and league tables. Not just in teaching of course, but across the board. Due to being a youngster in my mid thirties I can’t remember a time where the powers that be were so intent on day to day interference in everyone’s jobs…the cynic in me feels that it justifies the existence of hordes of civil servants who need a proper job and perhaps an older, or more politically astute reader could set me straight and tell me it’s always been so. The rather useless thing about these league tables (which is what the SATS determine) is that they don’t really tell parents anything of any use. Not in my opinion anyway, but then I’m biased. The idea is so a parent who’s shopping around for a school for their child can have a look at the league table and determine which schools in their vicinity have the best education on offer. However it doesn’t really work like that. A school with very high results might just have a lot of well off parents who can afford private tuition and who have a high standard of education themselves, therefore being able to support their child by doing things we take for granted like reading with them for a few minutes every evening. I know that sounds simple but there are a few children in my class who have parents who are barely literate, who tell me in all honesty (which I respect greatly) that it’s impossible to help their child learn to read as their six year old is a better reader than they are. It happens. Also, a school might have a high proportion of newly arrived children who don’t speak much English. That school is never going to come above a half decent school which has barely any EAL children. Anyway, the point is, the league tables are misleading in the extreme and if I were a parent, knowing what I know now, I’d ignore the fucking things and just try and visit all the schools I possibly could and make a judgement on how the place looked, what the Head was like, and I’d make damn sure I spoke to some of the children. They’re the best intelligence you’ll get on the subject. This isn’t sour grapes by the way, our school isn’t too bad on the league table, but I’m also aware we’re not the best in the borough. But by no means the worst. Not even close!

As the run up to the SATS gets under way I’ve taken a decision not to talk to the parents too much about them, there’s nothing they can do at this stage to up their children’s grades and some of them will just turn their kids neurotic. The results don’t affect the children anyway, it’s just me who gets in the shit if they all get terrible grades. The first exams my lot take (in my opinion) which will matter are in nine years time when they take their GCSEs. If they still exist by then.

Another thing the recent heat and sunshine usher in are children over heating and spontaneously keeling over or going a funny colour. Children, especially small ones, over heat in a microsecond. It’s amazing. The strange thing is, I spent the coldest part of the winter telling the boys to put a jumper and coat on to go outside and now that it’s boiling hot they’re all sitting there, determined to keep their jumpers on while they go an alarming shade of purple. Children have no internal survival mechanism, or maybe just a glimmer of one. Without wanting to make crass generalisations (which should tell you I’m about to do just that), some of the Asian children are the most bizarrely dressed. You’ve really got to check the little ones at this time of year. In my school, particularly the Bangladeshi boys. They’ll be sitting there in the heat and if you don’t check you’ll find they’re wearing long-johns under their school trousers, a t-shirt, shirt and sweatshirt. And no, it’s not because they’re from a really hot country and don’t feel the heat here. They fucking well do! You’ll see small Asian boys and girls turning green and it’s only when you start checking them over that you find they’re wearing more layers than Captain Oats going outside for a shit.

The good thing about the sunshine we’re having is that my twice weekly break duties are now a pleasure. We get to go out on the grass where the kids can run free without scrapping over the lack of space on the playground. I’m a pale bastard and for the last few years I’ve actually managed to achieve the colour of a normal white person by getting two fifteen minutes in the sun a week. Any more than that and I go as red as west country halfwit.

I’ve jinxed it now, it’s going to fucking snow next week, I just know it.

Concern

With only a term to go the following things are concerning me:

• 1) Why does Trey think that “one more than 49″ is 18?
• 2) Why can’t Summer even formulate an answer to the same question?
• 3) Why, when asked any question, any question at all, from a maths question to an inquiry about the whereabouts of his coat does Timmy just blink and go silent? If he were the fruit of my own loins I must admit I would smack his legs just to see if he’d wake up. This sounds horrific and barbaric I’m sure but you try spending just one fucking day with him and see how you feel!
• 4) Why has the little boy who started off the year as the nicest boy in the class become a lying, thieving, spiteful little bastard? Actually I know why and social services are involved with the ‘family’. Still, it concerns me.
• 5) Why do whiteboard pens for the kids only last one day?
• 6) How is it that six and seven year olds can lose their sweatshirts at such a rate? They just vanish into thin air.
• 7) Why are parents of six and seven year olds incapable of writing their child’s name on the label of their sweatshirts?
• 8 ) What perverse law of nature is that makes sure that your special needs child with behavioural problems settles down and becomes a model of decency in time to coincide with all the other boys becoming very unpleasant for the week?
• 9) Why are the three women who constantly badger me with worries that their children aren’t improving academically the ones who are being hounded by the Educational Welfare Officer for not bringing their children to school very often? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
• 10) Where the fuck are all the pencil sharpeners?
• 11) Who is the thief in my class? Raffles? I can’t fathom who it is at all.
• 12) Why is it that one teacher and one classroom assistant can oversee outside play with no dramas or rioting, but with six midday supervisors it sounds like a riot in Borstal?
• 13) Most of my class have made real progress across the board this year. Why then does this not give me joy, when the lack of progress of just a couple (with a bad track record of making much progress) make me sick with worry?
• 14) Why do a small number of mums from my class think that it’s appropriate to threaten to beat the shit out of each other when their six year old sons have a playground spat?
• 15) Where is Wally? I can’t find the bastard on any page.
• 16) Why, after a year and a half of doing assemblies at our school does the vicar still insist on picking the school lunatics or very young children to answer her questions? You’d think that she’d have learnt not to destroy her own assembly that way by now.
• 17) Why do I have a hundredweight of gluesticks but no decent coloured paper to stick?
• 18 ) What the fuck is that smell? I’m sure it’s Timmy. Christ, what does that woman feed him?!
• 19) Who is it who stinks out the staff toilet by the office? I know it must be a woman and this disturbs me for some reason.
• 20) Why does James have no volume control? I think I need to ask his mum to take him for a hearing test. Surely he’s deaf.

Democracy

In an out and out push to make Napoleon go nuts and fall off his ‘niceness’ wagon I have to tell you that I’m at home today. No work for me. Why? Democracy in all its glory, that’s why. Last week it was Democracy what got me off the hook of having to do a day’s honest graft by giving me the right to walk out on strike. This week Democracy has galloped to the rescue by closing my school so that it can be used as a polling station. I tell you what, my grandfathers fought the Germans and the Japs for this very reason, so that their grandson could loaf around for a few days. I think they’d be proud.

Anyway, so I’ve got a day to fill. I might do some stuff on here. I will also post on the TES website, there seems to be a glut of extremely pompous teachers out there who don’t appreciate that some of us shoot from the hip and rap about the truth. While they hand-wring about that woman in the basement in Austria (which is revolting, but I don’t see how having a pissing competition to see who can sound the most horrified helps anyone), I point out that we’re superior to the Austrians as they gave the world Arnold Schwarzenegger and we gave the world Geoff Capes. Geoff bloody Capes! This has made me unpopular so I intend to strike while the iron is hot and see how many corduroy wearing lesbians (that’s teachers to you) I can turn against myself. I wish you all a good day’s work. A fantastic day. Now get on with your work. If indeed drawing cartoons for a living constitutes work. Which it doesn’t.

The march.

So, the strike and that. I’ve never done a strike before, I’m not a natural trades unionist to be honest. I had assumed that members of my family would have taken part in industrial action in the ‘30s as they were either ship builders or miners at the time, but apparently when the strikes happened my predecessors just quit and joined the army. Fair enough. So there you go, I was the first of the Chipz line to come out on strike. And what an interesting day it was too.

I met a colleague at the tube and walked to the rallying point. We tried to find our LEA so we could march with them, but the whole thing had clearly not been organised by a primary school teacher as the boroughs were not lined up alphabetically. Disgusting. What’s the world fucking coming to? I didn’t care though, Billy Bragg was doing the warm-up so I was turgid with glee. Despite being no leftie I do like Billy Bragg. Eventually found my comrades by their underwhelming banner. My LEA is not really a hotbed of left-wing militancy so the banner was just plain shite. However, you should have seen the ones from places like Lambeth. Fuck me, proper left-wing headbangers that lot. I liked the Pimlico one, they’d obviously had this very impressive banner for ages and were loathe to change it, even though one of the demands on it was to “Free Nelson Mandela”. Or maybe if you marched with them you got a free Nelson Mandela, I’ll never know now. My friend and I were joined by a lovely bloke who’s just retired from teaching, he used to teach occasionally at my school while his career wound down. He’d turned up to support us young ‘uns. Good on him. None of the other fuckers from my school bothered to turn up, although at least they came out on strike, which is more than can be said for a shower of bastards down the road from us who didn’t. Whistles blew, some random bloke started egging us on with a mic about how the teachers fought the fascists from the National Front in the 80s (great, but this is about pay, let’s not start banging on about other shit eh?) and off we went. I’ve never been on a march before and it took a while to get used to the idea that the bearded waster next to me blowing a fucking annoying whistle was on my side. Every fibre of my being fought the urge to thrash him for the pinko layabout he probably might have been.

As we headed down the Strand that utter pillock George Galloway threw his corpulent body onto the bandwagon and went thundering past in his open top battle bus honking like a scotch goose and demanding ‘Respect’ for teachers. Very clever, see what you’ve done there George. Now fuck off and pretend to be a cat. Before someone else knocks you out with a fucking stress ball. Cunt.

We approached the houses of parliament and were diverted around the green. It was quite bizarre, some insane woman wearing a top hat and a ‘Bollocks to Blair’ t-shirt was haranguing us, took me a while to realise that she (I think) was on ‘our’ side. The t-shirt had gold lettering on it, like the Pimlico School she probably figured there was still some mileage in it. She shouted at us through a very distorted megaphone that we were going the wrong way (yes dear, that’s because the nice policemen want us to, and being teachers we do what the police ask us), we should in fact be marching on the very houses of parliament. No, you see we can’t, there’s that law in place and what would we do anyway? Storm it? 10,000 teachers flapping about the palaces of the mighty in sandals would just be embarrassing. Then she urged us to march on Buckingham Palace. What? Why? The Queen doesn’t sign our pay checks you silly bitch! And hang on…you’re American! What on earth was this insane American woman haranguing English teachers for? Thanks for lesson in British politics dear but you know, fuck off. I suspect she’s ‘rent a mob’, I’d wager she’s there for any march wearing her top hat and ‘Bollocks to Blair’ t-shirt.

We arrived at the destination for the rally and the hordes of upset educators filed indoors. Man, it was going to be crowded in there. The only option was to go the pub and have lunch, so we did.

Vive la revolution!

Here we go.

I’m off in half an hour. My comrades and I are going to march…all 1 in 10 of us teachers in this city apparently, so clearly it’s already a phenomenal success. Well fine, I hope 9 in 10 of us turn down any payrise that’s offered. Not that it will be but that’s not the point! I’m meeting a colleague at the rendezvous point, and have been advised to decline any requests to hold the end of a banner (wind catches them and they rip your arms off apparently) or a placard (feels great for mile and then you just want to ditch it). Anyway, I need my hands free to punch the air and shout dramatically.

I’m taking with me a satchel (yes, satchel) containing:

My camera to document the uprising.

A cagoule (essential for any teacher)

A sketchbook and pencils as I intend to go to an amour collection afterwards. I met the curator over the weekend and want to go and see all the boss gear on display.

I might hang around in town, some mates are meeting after work so depending on what time they meet I might loiter, if it’s late I won’t. I can’t see this rally going on for very long. Since most of my colleagues in this city appear to be in other unions (fair play) or FUCKING SCABS I think we’ll be a bit thin on the ground. Still, it’s my first rally/march so I’m jolly excited.

Right, I’m off to fill some wine bottles with petrol.

Striking

Going out on strike tomorrow, education fans. All the teachers at my school are NUT so we’re all out and the school is shutting down for the day. I’ve heard of another school in the borough which isn’t shutting down because some of the NUT members ‘don’t need the money’. Selfish bastards! They don’t need the money because they have working husbands in high income jobs…not quite the same if you’re an NQT on fuck-all, but hey, I’m OK Jack.

Anyway, off to a rally tomorrow, to shout things like “down with Balls!” and “Maggy, Maggy, Maggy! Out, out, out!” Or maybe not. Anyway, it should be lots of fun and will no doubt bringing the government crashing to its knees. So don’t be alarmed if anarchy explodes around you tomorrow, it’s just the long awaited revolution.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m sure it will be very very interesting.

What I’ve been up to while you work.

These are things what I dun this holiday so far:

• 1) No planning yet.
• 2) Bought a camera.
• 3) And a hoodie. A sweatshirt, not a spotty youth.
• 4) Gone to the pub with my mate down the road four times. Or maybe five.
• 5) Eaten a curry in a curry house. Which upset my girlfriend because of some unfathomable female reason which she was unable to explain because she knows, yes knows she’s prey to them hormones which upset the ladies for no fucking reason.
• 6) Eaten out far too many times.
• 7) Got drunk almost every day. Thanks workers, keep paying them taxes. Thirteen weeks of holiday is a long time to fill.
• 8 ) Argued with stupid fucking sanctimonious teachers on the TES website. Honestly, most teachers are cunts. I’m not.
• 9) Said “I knew that would happen” during every new report on the Shannon Matthews case.
• 10) Watched Thirty Days of Nights. It was ok.
• 11) Self abused.
• 12) Gone on a dirty weekend to a picture postcard village in the south of England with my girlfriend. It was great. Two hours sleep. Two hours!
• 13) Tried to figure out my finances. Can’t handle it.
• 14) Failed to see my brother and his family up north. Again.
• 15) Half-heartedly mopped the kitchen floor.
• 16) Taken some rubbish out for the bin men. Some. Couldn’t be arsed with the rest and I think that was a mistake.
• 17) Upset someone by lazily calling them a scab when they gave an impassioned speech on why they were choosing not to strike. I enjoyed it. Well it’s true, fucking scab bitch.
• 1 Sent a card to my cousin what’s had a baby. Should’ve called really but I’m really bad at calling my family.
• 19) Got through half of book called Blood Meridian by that bloke what wrote that film that got rave reviews, There’s No Country for the Older Men or something like that. It is a good book but honestly, the writer wouldn’t even get a Level 3 for his punctuation, he can only do full stops and the occasional comma. No speech marks! Honestly, you’d think he would’ve got someone to point that out to him. Maybe the foreigns can’t do punctuation.
• 20) Neglected Chipz, mainly because every time I’ve sat in front of the computer I’ve just ended up calling other teachers cunts on the TES site.

Anyway, that’s been my exciting week. Now I’m preparing to go down to the countryside and visit my parents. It has to be done occasionally. I’d rather just continue my debauch here but you know, they like me to visit. Not sure why sometimes, I seem to make them worried about so many things. You’d think they’d have learnt not to ask me about various aspects of my life so far, but hey ho.

Keep the red flag flying, comrades.

Rimbauer part seven - The Scab

Rimbauer paused, counted to three under his breath and kicked the door. Hard. The cheap plywood splintered into a myriad shards revealing a scene of almost Dickensian misery and squalor in the bedroom within. At first the room seemed to be empty of human life. Crisp packets and Domino pizza boxes littered the floor, a half drunk bottle of Sunny Delight stood on the bedside table next to an overflowing ashtray. Rimbauer stood, senses taught, listening. There it was, a deep breathing coming from inside the bed. It was a type of breathing familiar to Rimbauer, the type of breathing that came only from the mouth, it was the type of breathing so many of his pupils, along with their throwback parents, practised. He crept quietly to the bed and in a single movement threw aside the mattress, levelling his piece at the space beneath. There she was, not seen for over twenty days. Chardonnay Michaels. And a man. In a heartbeat Rimbauer had lifted the girl clear. Christ, she weighed a ton! He grimaced as a hernia threatened to erupt in his groin, at nine years old this girl weighed the same as a female twice her age. Deep fried pizzas will do that to a kid. The man tried to rise, speaking in some primitive language which did not register in Rimbauer’s educated mind. Some gibberish about “th’babbeh” and “f-f-fookin’ setup”. It meant nothing to Rimbauer. He broke the man’s wrist, knee and two ribs with the barrel of his automatic. The man stopped speaking and turned his attention to rolling on the floor moaning like a hippo with brain damage. Rimbauer hit him again. The mawkish décor downstairs had scarred him badly, the bastard deserved pain.

He called in the backup and was already gone by the time the police arrived forty seconds later. He never hung around, that was the rules. As he was driven back to London he watched the news roll in, horrendous footage of behemoth women in elasticated sweat pants opening bottles of tartfuel and baying like a pack of hounds in ‘celebration’ for the cameras. Rimbauer suspected the people of the estate were being kept in shot by the film crew tossing them raw meat and pornography.

The next day the Head called a staff meeting. The strike was on, the NUT had made their announcement earlier that day and the teaching world was buzzing with rumours and speculation. All but one of the teaching staff at Rimbauer’s school were NUT members. Maurice Bender was a teacher of forty years experience, more than anyone else on the staff. A good, solid teacher, a man of impeccable values and lurid tie collection. Bender didn’t believe in striking, and looked like he’d just seen someone rubbing their cock against his precious briefcase when the Head announced the strike. He muttered something about partisans and the lack of care for children, who would suffer the most. Rimbauer wasn’t so sure, he had vague memories of primary school in the seventies and some of his happiest ones were the strike days when he’d stayed at home riding his bike, playing Mousetrap and trying to stick bangers up the neighbour’s cat’s rectum. Happy days.

The Head looked up at Maurice. “You’d better go, Maurice. We all appreciate how you feel about this matter and I won’t keep you. I’ll let you know what I’m going to do about keeping the school open if the strike goes ahead.”

Maurice rose, looking sour. “Well, on your conscience be it!” he sniffed. As he left the room the Head shrugged.

“He’s not a bad guy, just a little out of date. I know you’re all NUT but please, don’t give him a hard time. He’s a NASUWT man and deserves respect.”

Everyone muttered agreement. Maurice was scathing about the NUT but no-one minded, he was a washed up old school liberal with no place in the world anymore. He was due retirement in a year and was merely counting the days. He wasn’t a threat.

“So,” grunted the Head. “What are you all gonna do then? Strike? I’ll admit that I think your union’s gone fucking mad. First all this bullshit about the army staying out of schools and now this. You know damn well they can’t pay you any more! However, the shower of pricks in government need someone to tell them to go fuck themselves and guess you guys might be the ones for the job. You’re making a whole shitheap of work for me, but I gotta admit I support you. Used to be NUT myself.” The Head took a drag on his cigarette and leaned back, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke. His eyes briefly met Rimbauer’s. Rimbauer knew damn right about the Head’s NUT days. The most militant motherfucker to ever throw a brick at a copper. But all that had been forgotten now that he was a head teacher. Forgotten by some, anyway.

A disapproving click of the tongue came from the corner of the staffroom. All eyes turned to Ms Smethwick. Smethwick was only twenty five years old but insisted on being called ‘Ms’. She’d been teaching for only two years but was already the most opinionated, born-again teacher in the LEA. Rimbauer watched Ellen grimace. It was no secret that the school secretary and Ms Smethwick detested each other. Rimbauer noticed Ellen’s chest rise and fall under her blouse, he liked it when Ellen got in a passion. For a start, it was a rare occurrence, she was colder than ice. And secondly it made her tits stick out. Rimbauer liked that.

“What seems to be the problem, Ms Smethwick?” sighed the Head. Like everyone else in the room he suspected he was about to be treated to a self-righteous monologue from the bloody woman. He was right.

“Well,” snapped Smethwick. “I won’t be striking, I think it’s immoral and I won’t be a part of it!”

Mary Parker glared at her. “You’re NUT! We’re going on strike and that means you too!”

“Well I didn’t vote to strike in the ballot,” sniffed Smethwick haughtily, “we got a better pay deal than the police you know, I don’t think it’s right to strike when they can’t!”

“That’s why we’re striking.” Rimbauer spoke quietly, and all eyes turned to him. “We’re striking for the nurses, the police, every poor fucker who’s been cornholed by Brown and Balls.”

“Well I refuse to strike!” barked Smethwick.

Dan Fletcher, a supply teacher, looked up. “Fucking scab,” he growled.

Smethwick gasped.

“Steady on people,” there was a note of warning in the Headteacher’s voice. “Ms.Smethwick is entitled to an opinion you know.”

Parker gave a sharp laugh. “No she fucking isn’t! She’s with us or against us. Change union if you don’t agree you uptight bitch!”

Smethwick leapt to her feet. “I won’t take this from…from…a pack of Marxists!” and with that she turned on her heel and stormed from the staffroom, banging the door closed behind her. The staff sat in silence, some raising an eyebrow to a colleague. The silence was broken by Ellen. “Well that’s you lot told then.” The staffroom erupted into laughter, the tension broken by Ellen. “Don’t be too harsh on her boys,” sneered Ellen. She turned her head and looked Rimbauer right in the eye, “she probably just needs to get laid. Makes a whole new woman of us.” Rimbauer tried not to spit tea down his front.

“Well, that’s the end of that I guess” said the Head. “Your union rep, Mr Pritchard, will no doubt be in touch to let me know what your union plans to do. Like I said, you have my full support. That’s it people, go home, have a good evening.” The staff rose as one and filed out of the staffroom talking excitedly about the forthcoming strike.

“One minute Rimbauer.” The Head was still sitting in his chair, indicating to an empty seat near by. Rimbauer sat. They were alone.

“Maurice Bender is a good man, an NASUWT man. He’s no problem to you lot, do me a favour and make sure the young firebrands don’t give him a hard time.” Rimbauer nodded. “Smethwick however…” the head raised an eyebrow and offered a cigarette to Rimbauer.

“What about her?” Rimbauer took the smoke and leaned forward for a light.

“Rimbauer, I’m not in the NUT anymore, and I shouldn’t really be saying this…but she’s going to be a problem for you.”

“How come?”

“I’ve seen her kind before Rimbauer. She’s not just a scab, she’s a double agent, I’d bet my ass on it.” Rimbauer waited. The Head new the workings of the unions backwards, he wouldn’t talk shit just for the sake of it.

“I was speaking to Pritchard the other day, we’re friends from the old days. I know he helped you out recently, him and that daughter of his. Anyway, we got to talking about the strike and he warned me that we’ve got a mole. I didn’t believe him at first, but he showed me the evidence. Smethwick worked for a year after graduating in the office of one Edward Balls. No kidding. I’ve been reading her emails, she’s still in touch with him. She only became a teacher so that Balls would have an agent in the trade, I’m sorry Rimbauer but you and your NUT chums have got real trouble on your hands with Ms Smethwick.”

Rimbauer looked across at the Head. Shit. It all made sense. Her slavish adherence to policy, her love of new trendy teaching methods suggested by the ministry. A fucking spy. In his school.

“Rimbauer, I just remembered something” the Head put his cigarette out in his coffee cup with a hiss. “It’s my anniversary, if I don’t get home fast the wife’ll fucking kill me. I think everyone’s gone home now. I think Ms Smethwick was planning to er…work late this evening, so it’ll just be you two. Alf the cleaner is here of course. Damn he’s a good cleaner.”

“The best” agreed Rimbauer. He got the point.

“So I’d best be going” The Head rose, nodded once at Rimbauer and made his way out of the staffroom. So that was it, the chance was there and he’d had the go ahead. Just him, Smethwick and Alf, the best damn cleaner in the business. Rimbauer rose, opened the door and knocked on the door of Year Five. He pushed it open. Ms Smethwick had barely registered who had entered when Rimbauer fired twice. The first bullet struck Smethwick in the heart, the second blew the side of her head clean away, showering the interactive whiteboard in gore. The corpse slumped back into her chair. The remaining half of her face wearing a look of surprise. Rimbauer picked up the two spent shell cases from the floor and left the classroom, wiping the door handle as he left. As he walked down the corridor he passed Alf.

“Bit of a mess in Year Five, Alf. Sorry.”

“No problem Mr Rimbauer, the boss told me there might be. Leaves ever such a mess that Ms Smethwick.” Alf winked at Rimbauer and picked up two enormous bottles of chemicals and made for the classroom. Good man, Alf. How many times had he cleaned up Rimbauer’s mess now? Five times? Six? Hell of a guy.

Rimbauer stopped by the main entrance to the school. A light was shining under the door of Ellen’s office. He thought she’d left. He slipped the gun from his holster and slowly pushed the door open. Ellen turned round to face him, she was breathing hard, smoking a long, slender cigarette. She was wearing her coat, as if she was about to leave.

“Rimbauer” her voice was husky.

“Ellen?” Rimbauer’s heart skipped a beat as her coat fell open showing she was wearing nothing but a pair of knee high boots underneath.

“Rimbauer” Ellen started forward.

Rimbauer quickly put his weapon away. Then whipped out his other one.

To be continued…

Hell women.

As I’ve said before, most of the parents of the kids in my class are fine. But as any teacher knows, there’s always a cluster of women who, frankly, are a pain in the arse. In my class there’s about five of them, and while they’re not the really bad kind (the ones who turn up drunk and try to punch teachers) they make my job just that little bit irksome. In the main their problem is that they have boys who lie. Constantly. And despite being shown evidence by previous teachers for the past two years continually believe their sons’ lies and constantly mug themselves off by storming in spouting utter bollocks on their dear angels’ behalf. This is what I had last week:

Mum 1: Came in all a-fluster as her son had claimed the previous evening that his end of term maths assessment was impossible to do as “Mr.Chipz hasn’t taught us any of it”, meaning basically that I’ve not taught them a single calculation or shown them any maths of a similar nature all year. I took her into the classroom and showed her his paper. Almost all his answers were correct, and in fact the questions were specially chosen as they were precisely what I’d been teaching them this term. Her reaction: pat his head and wonder aloud why ‘the poor boy’ had told her that. Checked with last teacher; yes, he does that all the time and mother always pats him on the head afterwards. Twat.

Mum 2: When told by myself that her son had got his knob out while changing for PE and waggled it at the class looked shocked and said she’d talk to him about it. (it was no big deal really, six year old boys do things like that from time to time, I was one myself so know the comedy value of it…you only tell them off to try to get them out of the habit, it stops being funny if they’re still doing it when they’re adults) She came in the next morning, he’d claimed at home, despite his admission of guilt to me, that it had ‘popped out of his shorts by accident’. I bollocked him for lying in front of her and she tried to make a futile defence and gave up when he admitted he had in fact waggled his knob at the class. Her reaction; give him a kiss and tell him to have a good day. The next day the same boy took it upon himself to call a passing stranger during playtime a “fat mongrel”. Mother claimed ‘it was totally out of character’. It’s not, I’ve got records of him doing this sort of thing going back two years. I wonder where he gets it from…oh yes, seen his mother grab another woman by the throat with him watching and heard her screaming abuse at various women and their children. My action: will book in a policemen to give a ‘stranger danger’ talk and make him sit at the copper’s feet. One bonus of his vibrant upbringing is that he has a mortal fear of policemen.

Mum 3: Stormed in to demand why I confiscated her little boy’s power ranger. Explained he was playing with it during a lesson. Added that he’s always bringing in toys and I’m sick of it, as he doesn’t concentrate. She demanded why I don’t tell her these things. Reminded her of two occasions when I’d spoken to her about this and once when I’d spoken to the boy’s father. She went a bit red as she had the other muppet mums in support and now looked a bit of a tit in front of them. Then told her I’d gone and lost the toy. She gave up. Twat.

Mum 4: Asked me what she should do about her brat of a daughter (the only naughty girl in my class, face of an angel but really a very poisonous girl indeed) as she’s constantly misbehaving at home. Told her I wouldn’t have a clue, as I don’t have children of my own. She then asked me if I could tell her daughter to do what mum says at home. Twat. Do your own parenting. (seen her parenting in action; she slags off the school, other parents and, in fact, everyone and everything in front of her daughter. No wonder she’s a horrid little girl).

Honestly, some of these women; absolute pillocks.

Keep the red flag flying…

 I haven’t posted for ages. AGES. Want to know why? My student’s gone. Gone I say. Won’t be back till June. The trauma of actually having to teach this week has been horrendous, I’m in shock. Bloody children, knee high to a grasshopper and a million times louder. Anyway, that’s why I haven’t posted.

The good news (as I’m sure you’ll all agree) is that my brothers and sisters from that there NUT are coming out on strike. It’s all very exciting and I’ve not taken part in industrial action before. In fact, it was more my scene in my previous life to write urgent letters to the government insisting that they turn out the troops and fire on the socialist bastards. But now that it’s my pay packet in question I’m donning my Che Guevara t-shirt, dusting off my Socialist Worker, Don’t Attack Iraq and Free Nelson Mandela badges and girding up my loins to march on the palaces on the mighty. Class war! I know in my heart of hearts you all support me in this. Oh yes you do. Our free babysitting service don’t come cheap you know. I’m just gutted we have Brown as a prime minister as I really want to wear a donkey-jacket and shout puerile shite like “Maggy, Maggy, Maggy! Out out out!!”

Ah, salad days.