The Plate of Biscuits

It has been said that ‘those who can do, those who can’t teach.’

Equally it could be true that those who can run schools do, those who can’t, inspect them.’

My school is deemed to be failing by the government. Not just this government but the government before it as well.  Yes, our failure strides two political administrations. I arrived here 20 months ago and was handed a one sentence instruction manual. It read MAKE THIS SCHOOL SUCCESSFUL.

Make no mistake: the school was ailing. I use the past tense as things have mightily improved over the past year and a half, to the point where I would put our school up against any other in our area judged to be satisfactory. But my word does not account for much. As a result, every week at least one local government inspector visits and places our provision under his metaphoric microscope. Today marked the periodic milestone when 2 local inspectors descend on my glass office. They spend the next 8 hours pinning teachers, pupils, lunch ladies, the school mascot and myself to those glass panes as if on a king-size prepared slide. They turn their microscopes to 400x, scratch their chins and mumble, ‘Hmmmm.’

 I know both inspectors fairly well and they have visited the school regularly over the past 18 months. Every inspector has a nickname. Today we were to be visited by Bobby Dazzler (an aging amateur dramatist with a velvet baritone voice and the perfect diction of the thespian lovies that crowd the bars of Shaftesbury Avenue after final curtain) and The Cauliflower (picture your Sunday School teacher with Margaret Thatcher’s blown-back hair style). In the spirit of hospitality I prepared for their arrival by buying two packs of chocolate biscuits from the local Tesco Metro.

This would be a good point to confess that I have no catering or homemaking skills. If you want something made to look inviting or appealing, I am not your man. My idea of a posh spread is eating peanut butter, straight from the jar and off of a pencil whilst bent over the sink.

Armed with two packets of luxury chocolate biscuits (none of your Happy Shopper rubbish, I was out to make an impression) I got out the best school plate. It was the one that the lunch ladies usually save in the back for when someone very important like The Queen visits the school. Ok, The Queen never visits but if she did, we get the same plate out of the cupboard. It is a pristine, dishwasher safe institutional green number that has never been in contact with baked beans or Friday’s fish and chips.

Bringing it to my office, the lunch ladies held it out at arm’s length in front of them; much like the crown is carried into Westminster Abbey during a coronation. They walked slowly, solemnly, eyes fixed straight ahead. The teachers stopped their lessons as the procession passed. Pupils pressed their noses against the glass of the door, anxious to catch just a single glimpse of the famous PLATE. “See, I told you it wasn’t just an urban myth, it does exist,” teachers whispered to their charges. “Remember this moment. This is history; you will tell your grandchildren you saw it with your own eyes.”

OK, so I made that bit up, but you get the idea.

My job, on days such as these, involves presenting the school in an uneasy balance to the inspectorate. An honest evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses is required. But make no mistake; I will also make certain they see the place in the most favourable light possible. Like the pushiest of all stage mothers, I will spit in my hand and smooth down the forelocks of my child, my school; regardless of its dubious talents.

I opened the biscuits and started to lay them out on the plate. Half were thick, round and chunky, covered in a disproportionate amount of milk chocolate. The reminder were elongated and elegant; almost Continental. Assembling the selection on the plate, I envisaged a great pyramid of confectionary, like that most likely served up at the recent Royal Wedding. The reality staring at me back from the prized platen was more wagon wheel. It looked rough and uneven. I convinced myself that the finger-like European offerings were unbalanced to the eye. This was quickly addressed by scoffing one.

Turning the bottom chunky chocolate layer at dainty 20 degree angles to each other, my eye caught sight that one of the biscuits had been malformed, its chocolate coating stripped away at the edge. I considered devouring it as well, as such anomalies cannot be allowed to exist, but this would have upset the delicate pattern (well delicate in my mind’s eye) that had been arranged.

I am not ashamed to say, dear readers, the moment called for cool collective thinking. This I summoned innately. Glancing about to ensure I was not being watched, I quickly substituted the freakish cookie to the bottom of the pyramid. I thought I heard the sudden sucking of air from a class of 7 year olds down the corridor as they whined in a single, sing-songy voice “Oooooo, I’m tell-ing.”

The day dragged as both Bobby Dazzler and The Cauliflower scratched the veneer of the school to find the blemishes beneath. It was one of those days when the ticking of the clock forms an eternal soundtrack. It was one of those days when the sun is a great dog, not wishing to be on a leash, and therefore sits as it is stubbornly towed across the sky.

One by one the inspectors ate the biscuits. One by one, the cosmetic layers I had plastered over the school’s persistent cracks were stripped away. My eye constantly was drawn to the plate of chucky chocs and elongated fingers.  The hidden oddity, devoid of sweet coating remained a secret known only to me.

One by one, the inspectorate uncovered the weaknesses of the school I had intentionally or unintentionally failed to mention. They prepared their microscope slides, scratched their chins and said, “It’s getting better but it is not there yet.” The stage mother in me smoothed her child’s hair again with a saliva-sodden palm and pushed him back in the spotlight pleading, “But you haven’t heard him sing The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow yet!”

Around 5pm, the lamp on the microscope was switched off and the inspectors departed having spent their final hour with me pointing out that my child still couldn’t sing. Bobby Dazzler crooned in his rich baritone “It’s getting better but it is not there yet.” I watched them disappear through the front gates and slipped the secret biscuit from under the remaining pyramid as if playing a one man game of Jenga. In my mind I thumbed the one sentence instruction manual for failing schools. But the MAKE THIS SCHOOL SUCCESSFUL text had a chocolate fingerprint on it.

Keep the Faith,

The Head