Jaspistos

Vice versa

In Competition No. 2380 you were invited to provide a school report by a pupil assessing the qualities of a teacher.

The comp title refers to Anstey’s once widely read fantasy (1882) in which a schoolboy magically changes places with his father, Mr Bultitude, and from then on the boot is on the other foot. My youngest son, whose verbal reports on his teachers have always interested me more than their written ones on him, helped me judge this lot. Some of the plums he picked out were: ‘He thinks Paris is the capital of France. He needs a good kick up the arse’; ‘Attendance: satisfactory, except for the time he had that complete nervous breakdown’; and ‘He should make more effort to learn names. Some take advantage of their anonymity’. The winners, printed below, get £25 each, except for Alanna Blake who nets £30.

Mr Farker is freindly which is probally because he is quiet young. The girls mostly like him but the lads make jokes when he is trying to teach us history. He could do with some text books that are not as old as the stuff he teaches but he probally does’nt stand up for hisself in staff meetings enough to get money for new ones, his lessens are intresting when he shows us films or vids but there is two much copying out notes but he knows that keeps the lads busy but he is not like some teachers marking our homework while we do notes which is a good thing but sometimes the homwork isn’t always marked. Mr Farker did a good job running the History Club and it was pathetic to have it stopped just because of some trouble at those battlefields we visited.
Alanna Blake

Miss Bellermine has transformed English for me.

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