‘We’ve done everything right’, sobbed Martina Branks, mother of 11 year-old Toby. ‘We make sure he has none of the latest branded goods, we never let him watch TV, and we only buy Lidl’s own biscuits. When his friends used to come round, we encouraged them to play in the garden in all weathers. But for some reason, they never come back.’

Wearing a uniform knitted by his father, young Toby looks quite similar to his school mates. ‘Most of my clothes are the right colour’, complained Toby. ‘But the other children seem to be able to see a difference. They quickly spotted that my ‘home-made’ trainers aren’t Nikes, even though I tried to disguise them with my painting set. They reckon there’s no ‘s’ on ‘Nike’. And real Nikes aren’t made of wood.’

Toby explained that while he has a tough time at school, it’s not the only problem he faces. ‘I really want a Wii, but when I asked for one, my mummy started crying, and threatened to spend more time with me. I ended up being dragged to the canal with a fishing rod and a little bucket. It was really boring.’

As the UNICEF report points out, Britain’s children are obsessed with brands and consumer trends. ‘All the other kids play with ‘Bumpeez’ at lunchtime, but I daren’t ask my parents to buy me any. I can’t face another week of family board games. Why can’t they just leave me alone?’

Toby’s parents are taking radical steps to improve their son’s popularity. ‘Our report on childhood identified Swedish and Spanish children as being the happiest’ said his father, Michael, ‘so we’ve renamed him Sven and we send him to school on a donkey.’

‘We’ve also promised him a fun, family-focused half-term, we’re going dry-stone walling in the Peak District. But even that hasn’t cheered him up, he still spends the evenings moping over the Argos catalogue. I’m beginning to wonder if we spoil him.’

‘My back was only turned for a few seconds’ says Alec Dunning in his autobiography “Back from the Nit Nurse”, ‘but when I looked at my maths book someone had drawn a big hairy knob on the front cover. Gordon was trying to look all innocent, but I knew it was him.’

Mr Dunning’s book is the latest in a series of memoirs written by former pupils of Kirkaldy West Primary School that dish the dirt on the turbulent school days of Mr Brown. Earlier this year Mandy Peterson told in her book how the young Gordon had flown into a rage after she had accused him of picking his nose and eating it. ‘He started screaming that I was a Joey Deacon and then pulled my hair. I was distraught until the end of morning playtime.’ Alex Camborne also told in his book how the young Gordon had asked him if he collected stamps. ‘I was a keen philatelist so said yes, only for him to stamp on my foot, shouting ‘there’s one for your collection!’’.

Dunning also confirms many of the allegations made in previous books of the ongoing feud between Gordon and another boy, Toby Blaine. ‘They were always at each others’ throats,’ Dunning writes. ‘Gordon would get top marks in maths and would mock Toby for it, then Toby would come top in creative writing and rub Gordon’s nose in it. But it really came to a head when Toby was told he could play Joseph in school nativity. Gordon was adamant that he’d agreed with Toby that he could play Joseph that year, but Toby wasn’t going to step aside, so Gordon tried to get the rest of the class to back him. It split the class in two – some of them wanted Gordon to have a go, the rest thought Toby was the best Joseph. In the end they played conkers for the role and Toby won, but Gordon was convinced he’d pickled his conker in vinegar so gave Toby a wedgie.’

Dunning added that Gordon didn’t get his chance to play Joseph until his final year at the school after Toby’s parents had moved away from the area. ‘Poor Gordon, it was his big chance but the production was a shambles that year – Toby’s best mate played the inn-keeper and told him there wasn’t room in the stable either, and Joseph and Mary had a row next to the manger about whether they should sell the gold, frankincense and myrrh to pay off their debts. In the end most parents went to watch Kirkaldy North’s nativity instead.’

Commenting on the recommendation from elite university body, the Russell Group, that students should choose their A’ Level subjects with care, Dr Gilberts said, ‘I can assure you there is nothing soft about the subjects that we teach. We are very proud of the curriculum we provide to our students.’

‘Why study Latino or boring things that happened ages ago when you can be concentrating on really relevant subjects such as ‘Milky things’, ‘The Geography of Where’s Wally’ and ‘Matt Lucas Studies’?’

Curbie Firetank

‘It’s a time bomb waiting to happen,’ claimed report author Brian Renfrew of Cambridge University. ‘Once these kids get introduced to books, it’s like an addiction. They get gripped by Pipe’s history of the Russian Revolution or Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration in Gloucestershire, 1640-1672, and all best practice of simply Googling the important dates goes straight out the window.’

‘I’ve seen these youths slumped in corners of the library, silent but for the relentless flick of the turning pages. It’s sad, but their concentration spans are getting longer and longer. Some of them can’t even be bothered to play FIFA Soccer on the PlayStation when they get home – you can almost see their thumb muscles wasting away.’

Representatives of student groups have strongly defended the new-fangled ‘book-learning’, pointing out the benefits of having a set of definitive references in front of you and in one place, without the tedium of wading through sponsored adverts and porn. But this view was condemned as ‘short-sighted in the extreme’ by Basil Snoddy, careers advisor at the University of Hull.

‘It’s all very well running to books every time you need an answer, but those Google skills won’t come by themselves,’ he explained. ‘What happens when they get a career as a journalist for TV Quick, say? It’ll do them no good leafing through some musty old reference book when a colleague needs to know now who played Mr Cunningham in Happy Days. They just won’t have the experience to pop open Google and see that the answer is of course ‘Bruce Forsyth’.

rickwestwell (hat-tip to allmyownstunts)

The claim is made in Morgan’s diaries, published exclusively in today’s Swansea Tribune. Stacey claims that Smith even used a boy in order to get him to buy her a bag of chips.

Morgan writes in her diary: ‘Today we were hanging out down at the shopping centre and Jenny was being really flirty with Josh, even though I know she doesn’t like him. But, like, as soon as he bought her some chips from MacDonald’s, she started ignoring him, even though he probably expected a shag. She’s such a crafty bitch.’

The revelations have sent shockwaves through Swansea’s youth scene, where it was believed the girls were inseparable.

dogwheels

Teaching qualifications getting easier

A report on the standard of teaching in schools has concluded that ‘much more must be done, like, to train teachers for thier job’s [sic] if Britain is not to slip further behind higher-performing countries such as Germany and Paris’.

‘We was gobsmacked,’ said Professor Gordon Rafferty, author of the report. ‘Only 20% of teachers were found to be performing well, while the other 90% were either ‘poor’ or ‘piss poor’. I did the maths myself, though my dad helped with the harder sums when he got home from the office.’

However, Brian Whitlow of the National Union of Teachers was critical of the report’s findings. ‘To speak of our schooling system with such disapprobation is a veritable effrontery,’ he insisted. ‘Our educational system is the ne plus ultra of the pedagogic world, and our teachers are beyond such pettifogging reproach. And I should know, because I is one.’

‘Young people should be taught that sex means loving relationships within the context of a wider cosmic consciousness that transcends the materialistic world,’ said government Sex Czar, Sting, before adding, ‘did I mention I have a new album out.’

The new lessons are hoped to combat the rise in teenage pregnancies following research that shows kids taught Tantric sex either reach a sublime experience of infinite awareness or simply get so bored they fall asleep.

'Probably just a touch of ebola'

Education Secretary Ed Balls today announced that calling in sick to work is to become part of the National Curriculum to ensure that all pupils leave school with the skills needed to compete in the modern workplace.

‘Calling in sick is something that most people find very stressful,’ said Balls, ‘and millions of working days a year are lost due to stress.  It’s a vicious circle.’

The lessons will cover different aspects of calling in sick, including ‘Tone of Voice – the art of not sounding too happy or fatally ill’ and ‘Use of the Internet – how giving too much information on your symptoms can backfire’.

However, despite initial enthusiasm from pupils, turnouts for classes have been disappointingly low following sudden outbreaks of food poisoning and that virus that’s been going around.

shitsu_tonka