David Cameron has joined in the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, who is often credited with planting the seeds of social reform, by announcing the return of child labour to the UK. The ‘Little Society’ initiative will see academies turning part of the curriculum over to ‘work-style’ activities.

‘Since the Elementary Education Act of 1880 , a child’s right to work has been consistently eroded,’ Cameron said. ‘Young people are being forced to exist on the meagere pocket money handed out by their stingy parents, unable to break out of the cycle of parent-inflicted poverty. Besides, poor people’s children don’t really like school anyway.’

Young people will be able to gain practical skills like rubbish sorting, sweeping and, of course, chimney cleaning, while being paid in mobile phone credits, Quavers and Red Bull.

‘In one fell swoop, the thugs, mentals and ADHD twitch-arses have been removed. Fuckin’ A!’  a teachers’ spokesman said. ‘Now all we have to do is farm off the few sensitive twattish middle-class moppets remaining and we’re all on easy street.’

Lizzy G, hat tip to FlashArry

‘Nearly 750,000 teachers bunked off lessons last week, and not one of them had a letter from their parents,’ said Education Secretary Michael Gove. ‘Most of them just hung around in groups on street corners or caused antisocial behaviour outside government buildings. They’ve let me down, they’ve let the public down and they’ve let themselves down.’

Gove added that truanting teachers would be losing their lunchtime privileges for a week, and this would give them a chance to sit in the corner and think about what they have done.

Captain Emyr

‘It’s only right that those parents whose children’s school is closed due to the strikes should be visited by Ofsted inspectors to ensure that they are providing a good standard of education to their child. After all, we wouldn’t children’s education suffering.’

Parents will be graded on their leadership and management of the learning environment, while family members and neighbours will need to be CRB checked to ensure they don’t present a risk to pupils. Homes that are deemed to be failing will be offered the opportunity to become ‘academies’.

It is understood that a number of visits by inspectors to home schools have been thwarted by the institutions being closed for teacher training or educational trips to the shops.

Mr Payne

‘Our members always put the education of their children above their own personal gain,’ explained union leader Christine Blower, ‘and having given careful consideration to these pension changes, we now realise that pupils can learn more if we accept the changes than if we don’t. If we weren’t showing them that you get shafted by your employer whether you’re in the public or private sector, and that you’ll probably have to work until you die, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs properly.’

However, one French teacher is disappointed by the decision. ‘I’ve got some teachers from France coming here for an exchange trip. They love a good strike, but now they’re just going to have to help my class practice their French speaking skills or something. They’ll be bitterly disappointed.’

In an angry confrontation outside the 1,100-pupil school John Bibby, representing the Darwen Borough Council in Blackburn, berated the striking staff. ‘You’re achieving nothing with this attitude,’ he told the teachers, some of whom were visibly chewing gum, ‘We can stay here all day if necessary. It’s your own time you’re wasting.’

The teachers were also warned that by maintaining this strike they were not only letting Bibby down, they were letting the school down, and they were letting themselves down. Representatives from the National Union of Teachers were then made to sit at the front of the picket line so that they could be ‘kept an eye on.’

The striking protestors reacted with fury to the authorities’ hardline stance, with many warning that they were on the verge of calling ChildLine. ‘That Mr Bibby is well out of order,’ said Geography teacher and NUT spokesperson Deborah Holbrook. ‘If I tell my dad what he’s been doing he’ll come down here and beat him up in front of everyone. No lie.’

In an effort to break the deadlock, a group of the protestors finally agreed to hold a special meeting and were sent to sit outside the office of the headmistress Hilary Torpey. And despite a heated ongoing debate, there are clear signs that progress is being made — agreement was reached on providing better protection against rowdy classroom behaviour after ten minutes of constant humming from the NUT members, and headway is being made on cyber-bullying.

‘Ol’ Torpey has already been made to cry and the footage of her storming out of the meeting in tears has got a million hits on YouTube,’ claimed Holbrook, ‘Check it out – it’s ace!’

‘Look, I know exactly what you are doing,’ said Mr Clegg in a televised address to the nation, ‘Just because Mr Cameron is away, you think that you can start mucking around. Well, you’ve had your fun, now get back to work.’

In a series of ‘Town Hall meetings’ Mr Clegg travelled the country pleading with people to ‘settle down’, ‘be quiet’, and to ‘get on with the assignments left for you by Mr Cameron’. However, despite threatening 60 million people with lines and a detention, Mr Clegg was continually ignored and the humming continued.

‘Look, this is just silly,’ said Mr Clegg, at yet another emergency press conference, adding ‘it’s your own time that you’re wasting.’

As tears welled up in the Deputy Prime Minister’s eyes, BBC political editor Nick Robinson jumped up from his seat and shouted, ‘Hey everyone, Clegg’s losing it!’ This was quickly followed by a trio of right wing hacks, Quentin Letts, Peter Osborne and Charles Moore, who began chanting from the back of the room, ‘Smeghead Clegg! Smeghead Clegg!’

‘Stop it! Stop it at once!’ screamed Mr Clegg, his voice now cracking as he struggled to be heard over the din. By now the press conference had descended into chaos with Mr Clegg’s proposals on constitutional reform now flying round the room in the form of paper darts.

At one stage Mr Clegg turned his back and was smacked on the head by a soggy tampon. ‘Right! Who threw that?’ demanded Clegg, as the assembled journalists all looked down at their shoes. Unconfirmed reports suggest it was the work of Channel Four’s Gary Gibbon, but nobody confessed.

Discipline was briefly restored with the arrival of Business Secretary Vince Cable, who stormed into the press conference and chastised the unruly nation with a lecture on fiscal prudence. However, once Mr Cable had left, the humming quickly resumed.

Mr Clegg is now believed to be considering the ultimate sanction – a state of ‘national emergency’ in which the entire British population will have to queue up outside Buckingham Palace to be disciplined by the Queen.

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.’

‘There are some very good teachers out there,’ said a government minister, ‘but too many are coming to school without the proper gym kit. Tired excuses such as ‘my washing machine broke’ and ‘my dog ate it’ simply will not be tolerated anymore’

Pupils seemed positive about the idea. At all boys school in Guildford, students were reported to have shown a renewed interest in volleyball after one female member of staff taught them dressed only in her bra and knickers.
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