What is it this time?
Obesity. Blobbies. Again? Your pupils are, according to UBO – the University of The Bleedin’ Obvious – the most obese on the planet. Fatter than ever! I thought this might be a good thing, a government target, what with their promotion of school canteens, sponsored by “Calories R Us”. And they’ve recently upped their game with the introduction of horse/dog/rodent burgers. And, even, it is rumoured, expelled pupils.
The disenfranchised may well be coming back in pies. These wheezes have been harnessed to the flogging of playing fields, the draining of swimming pools, the cutting of sports, and the betrayal of the Olympic legacy. It all seemed like some ruthless programme to fatten up the paupers.
Well, no, I’m well wrong. Obese isn’t good. It’s well bad. Moreover, it’s your fault, especially you PE teachers. You’re really rubbish you are. Ofsted observes that you’ve “taken the physical out of physical education”, that your pupils can’t run or float or stand up much and that they can’t pass or “keep possession of the ball or use tactics to outwit opponents and score”. Dear me. Sounds like Harry Redknapp, when he’s got “the ragin’ ‘ump” with QPR.
So I’ve done my bit. I’ve put the tutor group on Russian kale and Brussels sprouts and organic celery and bee-sting boosters for all of Lent. Does it take? Not at all. They persist with their present toxic repast. I even took them down to the Abattoir. They shrieked violently, vomited copiously – and then sought the succour of “Bloody Offal Burgers” on Shepherds Bush Green.
They just get ever wider. These wheezes don’t work. So they’re coming for us again. So “Little Kevin” is on the roof.
“Bleep! Bleep!” goes my cell, during a plenary. It’s LK
Pause.
“A sighting, sir! The Obesity Police!” Pause.
“Hold on, sir!” Pause.
“Little geezer in the north playground ... dodgy pins flappin’ shorts … joggin’ about in front like a pillock ... head like a golf ball ... that perky fella off the tele – over.”
Mercy! For it is he! The Gove. Our next prime minister. There’ve been several recent sightings of his whirring, ambitious limbs thrashing about the environs of Notting Hill.
“Bring out your Bunters!” pipes he. I extinguish the lights and batten down the hatches.
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Ian Whitwham is a former teacher at an inner city comprehensive school. At the Chalkface: Great moments in education, a compilation of Ian's best ever columns, is available now.