IT WILL BE BETTER IN THE
LONG RUN
It will. School, we here at Wellsworth know and sympathise, is a
horribly long run and to complete it adequately you need to know what you are going
to be dealing with before you start because life at school can be trying – yes,
trying to get good GCSE grades, ha! - and we here at Wellsworth have many
marvellous ways that make school-life better and more tolerable for the
students. These are detailed in this current chapter. For instance, we keep the
corridors spotlessly clean so that bullying is not a problem and students are
allowed to wear brown shoes if they feel the urge (excl. February-November).
To help your children get through some of the days of hard labour with
barely any scratches on them, here is our own guide to staying good in school
(issued to students on their third year). Read this section very carefully
indeed. Always keep it safely at hand. Take notice of all the points and memorise
them each night. Do as it advises. The lives of you and your family may depend
upon it:
ü
Always keep a pen on you! It really, really will make
lessons so much easier and you will be given a preference when a teacher is
torn between helping two pupils! It’s all you’ll ever need!
ü
You will also need a pencil, a pencil sharpener, a
rubber, a protractor, a compass, a dictionary, a thesaurus, a standard ruler, a
calculator, a gonk, money for school dinners, test tubes, filter funnels, a
Bunsen burner, educational videotapes, money for the Shoe Appeal and other
school-based charities, extra pencils, extra pens, a stick of glue, two or
three pieces of scrap paper, an extra ruler, an extra rubber, an extra
protractor, an extra calculator, a pencil case, a pen case, an extra pencil
case, an extra pen case, a support gonk, an extra compass, your Student’s
Planner, your poetry anthology, your learning manual, your Bible, a
semi-enhanced personal retrophaliser and a smile.
ü
Turn up at school with a smile!
ü
Have a positive and friendly attitude!
ü
Don’t throw anything at the teaching staff or be
racist.
ü
Always swing for the tallest, reach for highest shelf
and be the best you you can be!
ü
Don’t be promiscuous.
ü
You shouldn’t chew chewing gum in lessons because the
teacher could accidentally knock you, causing you to swallow the gum and you
would die.
ü
Make friends with the biggest bully.
ü
Blink periodically to lubricate your eyes.
ü
You shouldn’t swing on your chair in lessons because
the teacher could accidentally knock you, causing you to fall off your chair
(breaking your neck) and you would die.
ü
Do what is asked of you by ALL staff without
question.
ü
Aim for two hundred percent attendance and be
happy/punctual about it!
ü
Work to the very best of your ability at all times!
ü
Keep to the rules about uniform and jewellery.
ü
Walk and behave sensibly and quietly in the corridors
and classrooms.
ü
We expect you to listen and talk in silence to each
other and the teacher. Also, don’t talk whilst the teacher is talking or you
will be landed with a severe reprimand.
ü
Put everything in the bin (excl. work and the smaller
boys, obviously)!
Those eighteen easy-to-remember-and-stick-to points are how to survive
in this school. This school. This marvellous, awe-inspiring school that is the
best one in the area. Not many other schools, it must be said, give eighteen
handy hints to students. No no. Not eighteen. No, not by any measure. No. Our
style is completely of our own and independent of modern trends or
under-cultures.
However, the best way to illustrate, in a way you will understand, how
terrific this school is would be to show you what we have achieved on the next
pages. I think you will all agree with us when we say that. All these snatches
of information, along with the fact that school’s highest ever year of
realization being last year, builds up to a strong and rightful decision on
your part.
Achievement
Achievement
levels in children have increased vertically upwards in amount from 1997
onwards. This is due, mainly, to our elongated summer term that now lasts
forty-seven weeks. In 1996, for the whole of the three upper years the
achievement levels were 25% but nowadays that has increased almost three times
with the average being in the region of 31%. This is an irrevocably great improvement
and one that we – as a school – are especially proud of, considering that it is
what children achieve in school that prepares them for later life. Achievement
is so good and important.
Attendance
and Punctuality (in students)
There are
four basic ways of deciphering a child’s willingness to learn: whether they
listen, whether they take it in, whether they play sports and whether they
attend classes. This last one is probably the most effective way of working out
if a child will know what has been said in the lesson. They will not have even
the faintest idea of what was said in lessons if they do not attend. ‘This must
stop and it must stop now!’ Nelson Mandela once famously shrieked. He wasn’t
talking about low school attendance but if he was then he well might have been.
We know all this obviously and we have set up many systems that tussle against
absenteeism, which are discussed in Chapter Twelve alongside ‘bullying’.
A
governmental supervisor from the organisation ATTSIC (Educational Attendance
Monitoring Through School Supervision) runs checks on all the students every
fifteen years. These checks are vigorous and many women are known to faint!
Wellsworth always comes up trumps in these examinations, as we do in all
examinations, and it would be fair to say that this school ranks amongst one of
the highest attending colleges in a six-mile radius. One such method we have
used to keep attendance at bay (omitted from the twelfth chapter due to certain
parties being unhappy) was the Attendance Blitz Month, in which child found
‘wogging’ lessons had their house bombed to the ground. This method was
immensely successful between January 1981 and March 1981.
Punctuality
is another barrel of simians altogether. Turning up late at a class only
succeeds in disrupting the lesson, distracting the other pupils, confusing the
teacher and making a mockery out of everything. If a child is unpunctual to a
lesson, he may have missed a flippant comment made towards something that is
barely integral to a minor question in a mock test. To eradicate yourself of a
problem you need to act against it straight off the bat. That is why, in their
first year of our school, pupils are issued with condoms in the second minute
of each lesson. An incitement to learn if ever we heard of one! But also
something that doesn’t encourage scurrilous sexual behaviour in minors.
Bullying
See
Chapter Twelve for more details. Needless to say, it has decreased slightly. We
believe, and so do the children, that bullying is a terrible thing when it used
in the wrong circumstances. One aborted technique saw Heads of House
encouraging pupils, in assembly, to get all the bullying out of their system in
a single day. This created more questions than answers.
School
Safety
An emotive
subject because children must be protected! If a quote from the Staff
Information Sheet (given out every morning with the registers) that was dated
13th September 2002 can be used: ‘A parent entered the school
unnoticed last Thursday. He apparently barged his way through the open Lesley
Road entrance and proceeded to walk across the corridors, with no one
obstructing him or asking him what he was doing, all the way to reception.
There he raised questions about school security.’
At the
bottom of that notice was a brief paragraph telling the staff that it would be
abhorrent if we let that happen again. And we never have. School security has
never been better or more efficient. Anywhere. It has increased in number by
16% over the last with the inclusion of CCTV cameras positioned in the staff
car park and pupils’ toilets. Due to our respect for privacy, the cameras are
turned to the opposite direction whenever the Headmaster has a pupil in his
office. The school also has a paling perimeter fence that has been further
reinforced this year to heighten security, with the addition of signs at a
higher level in several locations. The signs read ‘No Climbing’ in bold,
authoritative type.
We have
also made it very clear, with several large signs, that parents are not allowed
to enter school during the day unless they are requested to do so. A pass
system was also thrown into play; any parent who deposits their children here
has to collect their special Entrance Pass before they are allowed on school
premises at any time. Many people have asked how parents could obtain these
passes considering they weren’t allowed in school in the first place. The
answer is simple: letters sent to parents containing the passes. To collect
their Letter Pass, parents must visit school and go to reception. With these
exciting new schemes in place, we hope to eventually lower the number of
deaths.
Vaccinations
are regularly given to your children to ensure their wellbeing. We however,
being Wellsworth, have put our collective minds together and come up with a
simple yet brilliant way of reducing the amount of inoculations whilst
increasing the number of pupils cured. We thought to ourselves ‘if one small
sample of a disease is enough to cure a child of it for a year or two, think
how much longer an extremely large sample will last and imagine how many will
be saved’. This has worked amazingly well over the last few years with diseases
such as Tuberculosis, Meningitis B, Syphilis, Smallpox and The Plague.
Fire
safety practice drills are held every two weeks. It is important to perform
this duty because nobody knows at what point there will be a real fire, apart
from the arsonist himself. To make it clear when there is a genuine fire risk,
instead of just a drill, the bell will sound for sixty-seven minutes. After
that time, children will be escorted by teachers to the back of the school
where they can discuss the effects the fire will have on their education and
how deeply they resent missing vital minutes of lessons.
Sanitation
The
toilets are now cleaned twice a month of with a special ‘industrial strength’
cleanser only available to schools called ‘Lemon Quintessence’. In order to
keep these tricky areas at the height of cleanliness, we have positioned two
hand driers and a floss dispenser. The mirrors could attract germs, as could
the taps and sinks, so we have had all those things removed. Better safe than
solemn.
Sanitation
has also been upheld in other areas of the school with litter being targeted as
a main cause of the problem. Eye-catching poster campaigns inform the children
not to drop crisp packets and empty pop cans in the school but to take them
outside. The serious litter problem around the outside of school is not going
to be addressed in future. Litter spreads disease and we want to put a stop to
it (both of those things) here at Wellsworth. Also, the cleaners have a hard
enough time as it is having to whiz to work in those funny mini-scooter-car
things so don’t make their job harder than it already is. It takes twelve
people to pick up a chocolate wrapper because of all the different parts.
To put a
stop to all this frightful jiggery-pokery, last year students were told to take
the challenge of avoiding the urge to drop litter for a day in order to win a
ruler signed by the England Eleven. This worked slightly better than some
teachers presumed it would and the unsuspecting winner refused to accept her
prize in assembly, which proves that tidiness is its own reward.
Corporal
Punishment
Certain
methods are still practised in this school effectively (much to the delight of
parents, teachers and children). Watch out, children, teachers can get a bit
carried away! We are proud to say that it has reduced the noisy clatter of
cutlery in the Dinner Hall altogether. We are very proud of this, and so should
you be because you are going to send your children here after all.
Country
Dancing (and other fun Christmas activities)
Christmas
is a fun time of the year when all our troubles are behind us and we can have a
laugh while we discuss the beauty of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We know this and we
like to celebrate it by letting the children loosen their hair and shirts
whilst they let themselves go and have fun in an orderly fashion. Country
Dancing, especially, is a favourite of the Headmaster’s. In it, children can
jive to the sounds of Billy Joel (‘Uptown Girl’), Westlife (‘Uptown Girl’) and
Samantha Mumba (‘Bohemian Rhapsody’). For all the children who have had enough
funky music and prefer something with a bit more depth, the second and third
hours of dancing are played to the groove of Gregorian Chanting. Seven hours is
ample dancing time and, with all the new dancing moves being constantly thrown
at them, they will be kept on their toes. Quite literally, actually, it’s
surprising. That was intended as a metaphor.
Other
enjoyable Christmas activities are the First Year’s Play (this year: Harold
Shipman), the assembly, the other assembly, the assembly at The Harangue and
the Carol Service held every year at St Josemat The Rehtorist Church of The
Lord Saviour Our God in Fulham Industrial Estate. However, lessons are as
important at this time of year as they are at any other. You and your children
have been warned fully.
Space
(e.g. unoccupied areas of land mass)
The school
has more than enough space for children to walk around in without getting
intentionally pushed and knocked. The corridors are sixty-five metres in length
and half a metre in width (each), which means that anyone can easily fit and
take full pleasure in the hike to the next lesson. Classrooms are just about
big enough to fit at maximum two members of teaching staff in, along with the
pupils. To emphasise the amounts of the space this school has, we have
dedicated four rooms completely to it. Children are forbidden from entering at
any time of the day or night.
Caring For
Disableds
It is
always important to make children feel as if they are normal, even if they are
not. It is for the purposes of confidence mainly. With this in mind, children
who are underly skilled spend three months in solitary confinement when they
first arrive in the school. After that period they are given their own personal
co-ordinator or ‘Critical Friend’. These follow the children to their lessons
and sit by them, telling them it will be okay. The classes attended by these
DEATs (Differently Educationally Abled Things) are not the kind used by
ordinary people, they are special lessons that deal with issues surrounding
‘Life-Skills’. Model ironing boards and cookers are given out, as are toys and
hats, and the children are allowed to play with them for a majority of the day.
Rooms 201 and 202 upstairs are where DEATs are kept during school-time. Don’t
worry, they are locked up for the duration so they can’t cause any harm! The
teachers that look over these humans are all specially trained in how to speak
extremely slowly so that the message sinks in, one way or another. Despite
being segregated from lessons, DEATs are still entered into all mainstream
exams. Their grades are multiplied by five obviously, you have to be fair.
Examinations
The
results of examinations in recent have been astoundingly raised dramatically.
The first sign of minor improvement came from the Key Stage Three tests (little
pupils). Year Nine took national KS3 tests during the summer term in English,
Maths and Science and achieved the best results ever. More than half of the
students achieved over 12% in English. In Maths, over 78% of children achieved
extremely well. This was a particularly good improvement in Science.
GCSE
results are always something to shout about here at Wellsworth. 87% gained at
least 1 pass at GCSE and 77.5.2% gained 5 or less passes. 25% to more or less
achieved 4 or under passes at A* to C grade B, under the new administrative
guidelines. 4 students got 4 or more high grade passes at high grade levels to
equal 5 points mark basis perimeter to C or G grade and a further 27% of 15
students got 5 or more A to C to G level grade passes which equals the best
results in the history of the school.
Post 16
exams are very difficult, it must be said. We are very grateful of the results
that we have got this year at A Level. There were 41 entries (in unsuspicious
circumstances) and 2 passes.
All
departments have access to Exam Board training as required, even PE. The
teacher(s) who design the best and most imaginative poster win a place on the
Board for two years, in which time they have 76000 F’s to administer, 5 B’s and
.5 of an A. We feel this is fair.
School
Targets
Targets
are there to help children build their natural talents and strengthen their
weaknesses. Teachers review targets strenuously before handing them out. Each
student is issued with his or her own target on their first day in the school
and, upon handing it in on their last day, they each receive a lollipop.
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