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Jayne Blackman May 2015
Oh to be outstanding
The envy of the competition
Persecute your staff
Beat them into submission
Observe, observe, observe
Big brother's watchful vision
Ticking the right boxes
OFSTED the clinical prison.
Countdown to the tension
All pristine and plush
Staff room full of imodium
Lecturers with the bums rush.
Enjoy, achieve, the mantra
All students must behave
Differentiation *******
Woah betide should 1 disengage.
Good with outstanding features
Nearly there, thou shalt not rest
Cut the ******* principal
Its really second best.
Satisfactory & beyond
The prin is hot to trott
Arranging special measures
You'll all be ****** shot.
OFSTED, jack boot people
Gestapo in the making
Strangling education
Ensuring you're all faking.
Inspectors, nah! Failed teachers
Getting their own back
Splitting hairs & picking faults
Nasty ****** *****.
Oh how the mighty fall
So without further ado
Leave them teachers alone
OFSTED, you ***** *******.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2017
Sixth Mass Extinction

Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn

-The Guardian

The headmaster has shaved his head egg-smooth
Shifted his hair to the point of his chin
And his sunshades to the top of his scalp
His petrol-station SAS sunshades

He often boasts he doesn’t even own a tie
And hasn’t read a book since Upper-Sixth
Something transgender post-colonial
About Guevara (who is on his tee)

Not a form master, but a master of forms
A way-cool disciple of Ofsted norms


Variant for the American Market

Sixth Mass Extinction

Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn

-The Guardian


Like, you know, the principal shaves his head

Like, absolutely, ***

Got him a goatee, like, actually

Cheap gas-station Official USA Navy Seals™® shades, mannnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Not cool, ***, actually

I had to help him with the big words in Goodnight, Moon

Absolutely, like

Yosemite Sam™® on his faunky ol’ tee

His office has, like, stuffed fish and, like, football pictures, like, and his Dallas Cowboys™® baseball cap, like, actually
Alan McClure Jan 2013
Well it was Tarquin's idea, actually.
It came to him after watching 'Slumdog Millionaire.'
Have you seen it?  Marvellous film.
Such resourceful people.

Anyway, we were looking at schools,
and the local comprehensive -
simply ghastly - we couldn't put Eugene through that.

But two blocks away
there's a school for the blind.
Ofsted simply raved about it.
So, we popped the old eyes out
- easy as
- and Bob's your uncle.

He starts in August.
More tea?
TheUnseenPoet Mar 2018
You haven't earned more money in years,
it's a vocation.
OFSTED steals your sleep with fears,
it's a vocation.
You buy pens and pencils with your own cash,
it's a vocation.
Your shoes fall apart, your car nothing flash,
it's a vocation.
You haven't been abroad since 2002,
it's a vocation.
A girl says she comes to school because of you.
It's a vocation.
Matthew James Apr 2017
He said to type into Google "why does school make me"

Search results -
Why does school make me...
Sad
Tired
Depressed
Cry
Wanna die

Educating the mind without the heart is no education at all. Aristotle

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Nelson Mandela

Bright new buildings,
Inspirational quotes,
Like Aspire and achieve
and dream and believe!
Opportunity knocks? Opportunities missed. Opportunities lost.
This new building, less like a blank canvas,
More like a sterile factory.

Sad, depressed, cry, wanna die

Here's your target, here's your grade
Here's the progress that you've made.
Here's your number, here's your label,
Here's the proof of what you're able.
Step it up, you must try harder!
Learn to be better from your face partner!

Sad, depressed, cry, wanna die

Here's a pen, this ones blue,
For all the work you've got to do.
Here's a pen this ones green,
For all your errors are obscene.
Here's a purple, this one's progress,
For all the errors you've got to address.
Here's a pen, this ones a sword.
Stab your neighbour when you're bored.

Sad, depressed, cry, wanna die

"I wanna be a poet"
But you can't back a laureate.
"Art keeps me on the right path"
But your pathway leads to double math.
"I need music to understand my existence"
You need a Humanity in your condition.
Aspire to what we want.
Achieve what we allow.
Dream of a future where everyone's the same,
And always believe in what we say.

Sad, depressed, cry, wanna die

Here's some music to calm you down.
Now get up and move around.
Give your partner a big high five,
Lets show ofsted how you thrive.
Catch the ball and answer this,
Miss the ball, then take the ****.
"What a loser, you can't catch."

Next time, you catch it.
"Here's the question..."
Loser didn't learn the lesson.
"Next time learn it, do it better,
You're an A grade, that's your letter"
No more letters now a number.
"I'm a person not a number!"
"That's your third strike." Going under

Sad, depressed, cry, wanna die

Now you're out and down the PRU.
"You didn't do what we told you to,
Now we'll give you extra Art,
Let's go out and race Go Karts"
Not because "Every Child Matters"
"Now your progress doesn't matter."

Sad, depressed, cry, wanna die

False. Fake. Fraud.
Green for growth but no room to grow.
Thinking time but no time to think.
Forced reflection but no space to be.
Safeguarding but never free.
Every child matters?
Every child... except you
Dave Robertson Jun 2021
Here’s my thinking:
Sir Kevan probably gave a decent plan
with solid foundations and associated cost
not loss
and all the Ricardians could see
was that it wasn’t all me, me, me
and so slashed away and thought:
those dumb enough to teach
can eat the **** sandwich
it’s not like they do anything that matters,
****** chattering classes,
now, how do we get them to do childcare
for the next six weeks
to stop the knived dead
and angry, apoplectic kids
and make sure their drone folks are on the lines
to feed our fat, fatcat selves?
I’m sure that Portia works for Ofsted...
gives the poem momentum.’
Tuesday afternoon seminars
and your photocopied stanzas
are like ***** shots to me. I don’t
say this, a spaghetti-haired boffin
opposite mentions pentameter
but I almost drool at ‘fizzle of static
the luscious shock, / honey, think
you’d taste like candy canes / waltz
on my tongue, my ruby


Bristol for uni. Last I heard
she’d got a PGCE, cushy position
at an Ofsted-says-good secondary,
good for her. The invite surprised me.
How many years? It’s all careers
and top-floor flats now with
the parquet floors, schamncy fridges,
not villanelles and criticism
meant to be constructive, comments
spiked with jealousy, and

A minute in, a cup of something,
voice long gone among the swill,
thud of a mid-2000s track blaring
obnoxiously through the top-floor flat
of the lad who played midfield
and his glitter-cheeked missus, who,
if I recall, moved from Leeds to

Tuesday.’ A lipsticked smile,
jeans with riotous tears.
Now I know what’s coming, the
pitiful shotput for attention,
the ‘truly marvellous effort
and the use of sibilance (insert
chef’s kiss sound).’ But I dither,
muter than a French mime,
hits me for six and I know
I won’t know you, not now or ever,
there’s never enough time


when I see you in the kitchen,
expelling laughter like it’s almost archaic,
the opportunity, missed, but all right,
it was indie-rock headaches,
cold in goal in the park next to Asda,
not a time to recite my saccharine lines
to a northern delight but I wanted to,
once, then, to know what might’ve been,
if I’d waltz on your tongue.
Written: April 2022.
Explanation: THE TOP LINE SHOULD BE ITALICISED AND THE EXACT LAYOUT OF THIS POEM CAN BE FOUND IN INSTAGRAM. A poem written in my own time as part of Savannah Brown's escapril challenge. A link to my Facebook writing page and Instagram page can be found on my HP home page.

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