Pain in the Chalfonts

Young pupils at a comprehensive school in Buckinghamshire are receiving lessons from sixth-formers, it has emerged.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the school’s unusual arrangements were not illegal, although it was something the government was not keen to encourage.

Chalfonts Community College principal Sue Tanner defended the move, saying that “the quality of some of the supply teachers that come here is less than we would expect.”

At £5 per hour, the pay the sixth-formers get is also rather less than supply teachers would expect - but the school claimed that they knew the ways of the school better than temporary staff coming in from outside.

“We’m a bit funny round ‘ere,” said one A-level student as he tied a year 7 pupil to an iron frame. “They supply teachers, ‘em comes in wi’ their fancy city ways, them dun’t unnerstan’ us folk. Them sees us burnin’ a gurt big wicker man an’ comes to all sorts o’ wrong-‘eaded conclusions. But it’s just an ‘armless bit o’ fun. Same wi’ the school hunt. Them outsiders tries to stop us, see - oh yuss. But ‘em dun’t get far - oh no.”