Learning the important things in life
Our intrepid reporter Teagan Short gathers more insider information at The Fred Best Academy A-Go-Go as Sebastian Fuchs settles in for the long grind of secondary education. Sebastian has his first contact with senior staff and sex education in the brand new Academy.
School Cuttings
Q. Hi Sebastian Fuchs. Have you met the headmaster yet?
Yeah. He is the chap with the funny jacket and the strange tie that looks like a bat hanging off his throat. He does the assembly sometimes. He said we can’t call him the head ‘cos he says he is the principal and the executive of something. He doesn’t do any funny stories in assembly like Miss Unisonton in our primary school used to do. He don't do no prayers neither so that is something. He talks a lot about values we have to live up to but we don’t know any values ‘cos no one told us what they are. I don’t know his name yet. Some kids said he is called Ed the Geezer.
Q. Do you see much of the principal apart from assemblies?
No. He goes out to lots of meetings or else he has to read stuff in his office. He doesn’t like kids near him. The deputy runs the school when Ed the Geezer is out, and when he is here too. She said her name was Ms Wutherington. We call her Scarface. She keeps a rubber truncheon in her desk drawer and knows martial arts and does weight training at the David Lloyd in Bromsgrove.
Q. How are your discussions going with your form tutor?
This week in our registration time Ms Fortisque-Blyth told us to discuss the saying, “the insidious destruction of the female self-image by over-domineering male authoritarian symbols”. She wrote it on the board. We had to chant it so we could say all the words properly. She gave us the spellings to learn for homework and we had a test the next day that no one passed. Billy D. Kidd asked her what the saying meant. She told him to be quiet and stop butting in ‘cos this was a discussion so no one’s allowed to ask no questions. We didn’t know what the saying meant so she did the discussing by herself.
Q. How are you adjusting to the rules?
Teachers still shout a lot at us to be quiet and to sit still, not to look around, not to stare out the window, not to pass notes, not to laugh at someone who is thick and not to sniff or cough. Fat kids aren’t allowed to break chairs by sitting on them. Everyone must walk on the left, not stick pens or someone’s fingers into live sockets, not fiddle with gas taps in the science rooms and we can’t throw anyone down the stairs if a teacher is watching. We can’t go out of lessons to the toilet even if we are sick on the floor after eating the school lunch. We must wee only at break times, or else we have to hold it, or wet ourselves. One kid in another class weed himself and he is now called Pissypants so the rest of us learned to hold it.
Q. Did you learn anything new this week?
It’s all stuff we done before in primary school, except it is more boring learning it here ‘cos we have to sit still and can’t get out of our chair or walk around to get a pencil and stab someone on the way back to our desk.
We did find out at last where they teach the technology lesson which is in a room under the school, like in a cellar. One class in our year group went to the petrol station just down the road from the school gate when some older kids told them that was where the technology lesson was taught. It was the lesson after lunch so no one missed them. They would have stayed for the rest of the day only the owner got annoyed when they interfered with the pumps. He phoned the police who marched them all back to the school. One of the policewomen bashed a kid with her truncheon when he said she looked like a bloke in her uniform.
Q. Did you learn anything useful this week?
Yeah. Ms Fortisque-Blyth did a lesson on sex education ‘cos a teacher said a government ordered that the school had to teach us about sex. Tarquin Tighthold told the teacher that Miss Unisonton did all that with us in primary school and we learned how to draw breasts and penises and vaginas and knew the proper words to call them in a classroom, which are different names to what we say when out on the playground. Custard Flynn said he knew about kinky sex stuff ‘cos he watches the porn channel his Dad pays for where people get naked and fall in swimming pools and grunt and moan a lot. His Dad doesn’t know Custard looks at his pay-to-view stuff or he would belt him for using up his credits.
At lunchtime, Morgana Hassleback showed us how to do a waterboard torture on Custard until he told us the name of the porn channel and his Dad’s password. Some older kids paid Morgana to show them how to do waterboarding ‘cos they enjoy doing torture.
So the sex lesson was useful ‘cos now we get free access to a porn channel and we know how to do waterboarding.
Q. Do you feel the school is building a sense of identity?
What does that mean?
Q. That people have a sense of belonging and a clear self image.
I don’t know. Nobody told us to do that yet.
Q. Are you starting to feel at home in the school?
No.
