Somebody mentioned GCSE languages, so I'll drop this one in
GCSE French, 2003. We were told to revise a couple of topics for an oral (hurr hurr) exam. Me, being a clever cunt, decided not to revise, and I'd just go in there and speak. I was quite good at French then.

I got asked the basics; my name, where I'm from, what I want to do in the future. All went well.

Then I was asked the question:
Qu'avez-vous fait le week-end dernier*? (what did you do last weekend?)

By this point, I couldn't be arsed answering any more questions, so I said 'La week-end dernier, j'ai couché'.

I should have said 'La week-end dernier, j'ai dormir'.

My French teacher sniggered. Of course, I'd just told her that the previous weekend, I slept around.


*badly translated, I cant remember
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:55, 4 replies)

Last One
My music tech teacher knew nearly nothing about computers, and would get his A-Level students to explain things to him. This would be alright in, say, a history teacher- but as I said, music TECH. :P His name was Mr. Hobb

After a few months of showing Sibelius, Logic and Cubase examples for him and putting them on his data stick, my friend and I got pretty fed up and decided to have some fun. So we changed the name of his data stick from "USBKey1" to "Mr. Hobb's Knob" and waited to see how long it would take him to change it...

According to my friends in the lower college, he still hasn't worked out how to change it back...and everyone else is conveniently ignorant of how to do it. ;)
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:28, Reply)

GCSE Geography= Cycling bloody miles
Our Geography teachers decided it would be a fantastic joke to set us a "city map" project a few years ago. Basically, we had to judge randomly chosen buildings on maintenance, location and so on. Were we allowed to research on the internet and property sites? Were we hell.

Up at 5am, we had until 3.30 to cycle, walk, hitch or whatever around our large town in the rain, taking photos to prove we'd been in different places and filling in charts.

Every so often, one of the teachers would drive past us, waving merrily and beeping the horn.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:20, 2 replies)

I had to do a history project
And having always been one of the overlooked clever kids, I'd always been a bit resentful of getting bugger all recognition of my awesomeness.
As such, I did the best cover ever for my Winston Chrchill project.
Rather than use the "V for Victory" Churchill photo, I used the Winston with the "fuck off" two finger salute instead.
I won.
(fantomex, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:16, Reply)

A-Level Drama
A friend of mine handed in an essay that was compiled entirely from Google, Wikipedia and other such sites. She was very quickly discovered as she'd neglected to change the fonts, footnotes and had even left the hotlinks in it.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:16, 2 replies)

My GSCE maths teacher
did my GCSE coursework in exchange for me taking her class assembly, as she was scared of it.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:16, Reply)

Basically.
Getting into Carol's bra. She had fucking MASSIVE norks. Watching her play sports was a joy.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:14, Reply)

My son, now a b3tard,
was the swottiest high school swot ever.*

When I bought us all a computer in the early 90s he immediately did his history project on it.

It was so good - all photos from t'internet, neat borders, nicely arranged headings and paragraphs - that his teacher refused to mark it, believing he'd photocopied it from a book. I had to go into school and promise her that it was indeed all his own work.

*Apart from blowing up his CDT electrical project and being so bad at sports that, his PE teacher solemnly informed us, 'if he played blow football he'd suck', he was a genius.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:13, 3 replies)

LittleSisterCrow and the Pointless RE Lesson
RE / RS was one of those subjects which struck me, and indeed my entire family, as pretty much pointless. It got better as you got older, so by the time you got to about year 8* you actually learned something meaningful about major world religions, and maybe the year after that it started to resemble a philosophy lesson of sorts.

But up until that point? Fuck me, it seemed like a waste of time. My sister and I went to the same C of E primary school**, and I suspect the sheer inutility of the RE lessons there contributed strongly to us both being staunch atheists.

So when we went our separate ways to (distinctly secular) secondary schools, we had hoped that the inane RE lessons would disappear. No such luck. What was one of the first things LittleSisterCrow had to do in her first year?

"Since we've been looking at the story of Jesus throwing the money-lenders out of the temple, I want you all to draw a picture of Jesus losing his temper and evicting them."

Yep. He wanted them to draw pictures of Angry Jesus.

I never saw what my sister submitted, but I'm told that it featured Angry Jesus with big, red eyes, wielding a big stick and breathing fire. I probably don't need to point out that her RE teacher was less than impressed.

*_{About 13 years old for any b3tans unfamiliar with the British system}
**_{Well, tambourine-banging evangelists masquerading as C of E, but there's probably another story in that}
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:04, 4 replies)

Rainforests
We were studying the Rainforest in Year 6 at school (thats 11 years old I believe) and as part of this we were to make a wall display of a rainforest on the backwall. How exciting! So our task was to go away, choose an animal and then make a large drawing of said animal to be put on the wall.

The next week the classroom was awash with a myraid of colourful animals, I had brought along a Toucan, Adam had done a rather lifelike Monkey, Alan had a cheetah- someone had even thought to do a load of trees to make the backdrop look more realistic. It was a brilliant effort- a masterpiece- something that would surely be spoken of in years to come as the finest piece of work to have ever graced the school. People were nearly moved to tears by its grace, its elegance, its beauty.

Then Ian turned up with his work. Ian was a bit...slow. Not quite all there. And what has Ian submitted for his rainforest project?

A 2 story brick house with curtained windows and even a damned chimney with smoke coming out of it! A house. In the middle of what was, 5 minutes before, the most realistic (possible exaggeration here but hell this is how I remember it) rainforest montage ever made by man. And now there was a detached family house sitting bang in the middle of it.

I think it was shortly after this I realised I hated people, and I really had to get a little less emotionally involved in my school work!
(xerophytic has no idea, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 17:00, 1 reply)

GCSE German Speaking Exam
Basically I was sat in a room with my German teacher, who I shall dub Mrs. Künd, and she has to ask me a whole bunch of questions about my life, whch I have to answer all in perfect German, as the conversation is recorded and sent off to the examining board. Now, this teacher has been giving me a consistant stream of low marks over the years, has placed me into extra sessions with another asshole German teacher and has basiclly been a bitch all while I've been learning the language.

I am not prepared for this test. Though I am not too fussed about getting a high mark, I would nevertheless like to pass and get another GCSE under my belt. The test begins, and we begin to talk.

Very simple stuff to start with, but then it begins to get advanced and I begin to noticeably trip up. It is at this point Mrs. Künd starts giving me hints. Seriously, my final German speaking exam has turned into a game of charades. She is reminding me of past and future tenses, spelling words out in the air with her finger and generally giving me a lot of (I'm sure completley illegal) help.

I aced the exam, and am now able to fully appreciate Rammstein, all thanks to a nasty teacher having a Scrooge moment and helping me cheat.
(thorned_soul, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:55, 6 replies)

All coppers are bastards! (except the ones that aren't bastards of course)
Oooh. Where to start. I know, when, before entering the final year of primary school, we were all tasked with a summer holiday project.

This, in itself was unusual as normally, you’d leave for your summer break, safe in the knowledge that you’d have no homework as on your return to school in September, you’d have moved up a year and you’d have a new teacher and you’d start the new year at a leisurely pace.

Not this year. It was compulsory. But there were also big prizes on offer, prizes made of cash!

Now, to the average 11 year old, all money is good money, from the purse of your Nan, or the deep pockets of favourite uncle. Cash was king. Even though I was never allowed to spend it (no, not because I’m spoilt, but because requests to go to the shops were normally met with ‘Why?’ from my mother, to which I say ‘I want to buy some sweets’ this was always shouted down with ‘but you’ll be having dinner is 6 hours, I don’t want you ruining your appetite!’).

So, the summer holidays kick off and on my way home from school, safe in the knowledge that cash is king; I’ve decided that I want to win. 9 weeks of hard work and that money can be mine, not that I knew how much was being awarded.

Well, for some reason, (it may well have been an anniversary of its creation) all projects were to be on the Police Force. And that, therefore, was my mission, to write about and draw pretty pictures of all things police related. On the way home on that last day of term (where you got to wear your own clothes (I probably worn some jumbo cords)) I insisted that we stopped in the library and got some books to help me. My mother was shocked. Little ‘ole me wanting to get some books from the library? Books that would help me with my school project? Really?

That’s exactly what we did. So impressed was my mother, that rather than the 2 or 3 books I could take out with my own library tickets, she actually afforded me the honour of being able to take another couple of books out using her library tickets as well, and, because it was for a school project, the library extended the amount of time I could borrow them for, even letter me take a reference book (although this had to be on my Mum’s ticket)

So there I am, armed with books that weigh more than me, books that detail everything from the modern police car (a Ford Granada) to the early days of Robert Peel. Enough information to produce a project of immense proportions.

And so started the summer of work. Work that started early in the mornings, ‘Aren’t you going to watch Why Don’t You?’ ‘No, I want to work on my project’. Work that was taken with me on our annual static-caravan trip to Sandy Bay in Weymouth, work that accompanied me on a week away with my Grandparents in Wales, in fact, I think I carried on working on it, rather than watching the UK television premier of the Bond film ‘For Your Eyes Only’

By the end of the summer I was done. 50 or 60 pages of text and hand-drawn pictures. Of facts, figures and historical information. There was nothing in that project that could be bettered. Absolutely nothing whatsoever.

And so, the first day of school comes round, the assembled final-year of primary school students hand in their summer projects. Some were laughably bad, a couple of pages in a note-book that said quite clearly ‘I watched James Bond’ others, more detailed, but with none of the flair, design or craft of mine.

The money was in the bag.

The first assembly of the year came within a fortnight of the return to school, sat there in my grey flannel shorts, a young Mullered is almost bursting with pride, most people are resigned to the fact that the did a crap project having spent the summer waiting for Friday nights so they could watch The Fall Guy or TJ Hooker, not sweating over a kitchen table with the big-light on.

I knew I was on a winner.

Head teacher is standing on the stage and rattles off a bit list of do’s and don’ts – us old hands had heard this speech man times before, surely now it was time for ‘AOB’ a time where, towards the end of assembly, she’ll say, ‘and well done to the 4th years who completed their summer project, blah blah blah blah and the prize goes to Mullered’. But no. This doesn’t happen. Instead, the prize has gone to Lisa. Lisa the fucking simpleton. Lisa who pissed herself in the 3rd year and had to spend the afternoon sitting in her gym gear. Lisa who wore odd socks. Lisa who could hardly spell her own fucking name.

The reason? Her old man is a copper and because of her old man, they’d manage to arrange for some special demonstration by the emergence services, a few coppers come into school and tell us what we need to do to avoid going to prison (it was wasted on us, at the time we were all god fearing folk thanks to the church school) the fire brigade came in and told us no to play with matches and the ambulance service (pre paramedics this) told us that in the event of an emergency, you dial 999.

Her prize? A fiver. A fiver was (and still is towards the end of the month) an absolute fortune. You could buy yourself an original game for your ZX Spectrum with a fiver. You could buy more cola bottles than you’d want to eat in a single sitting with a fiver. A fiver? A blue bit of paper that held the keys to the universe. I’d have killed for a fiver in those days.

We were told before we broke up that there would be prizes – as in more than one. But no, because her old man was a copper, she gets given a fiver. My total reward for all that hard work nothing? The fact I went a whole summer without watching Junior Kick Start or Play Chess or Wacaday? What was in this for me? Absolutely nothing.

I went home that night and cried. And my sister laughed at me for crying.

I did get my project back and I kept it right up until I bought my first house, which was the point my parents insisted I take ‘all of your crap out of the loft once and for-all’ when I deemed it completely unnecessary/

Top tip kids, it’s better to not try than it is to try and fail.

Lisa – if you are reading this, it wasn’t me who threw your towel in the swimming pool in Easton leisure centre. It was my mate Matt Jefferies who felt aggrieved on my behalf. I’m now over this incident and I’m sorry you were forced to dry yourself with your (odd) socks and regulation school jumper.

I don’t know why I bothered with that last bit, she probably still can’t fuckin’ read, the daft, cheating bitch. Police corruption was clearly still rife in the 80’s.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:53, 1 reply)

Bath water level detector for the blind
Most of us tried to get an extra couple of marks in anything we did at school by mentioning the disabled. I almost passed out with relief in my A level "computer science" exam when it was divided into two halves - one half had the question "how do computers help the disabled?" and the other half said "think of a software application that could help the disabled in the future".

But my GCSE CDT technology project was a bath water level detector for the blind. It was a buzzer attached to two wires, inside a plastic case. When the water reached the two wires, the buzzer would go off, and the the grateful blind person could feel their way to the bathroom and enjoy a long hot bath without flooding the house.

But I left my testing phase until the day before it had to be submitted, and I forgot that once the water reached the wires it would continue to rise, buzzing regardless, until it engulfed the plastic case and the battery inside, killing the whole thing.

My mother found me directing a hairdryer at it, crying. (yes I know i said GCSE, I was a sensitive boy). But she found the perfect solution; I filed it down and down and down, put it on a string, and the next day handed in a colourful pendant for the deaf.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:48, Reply)

Thanks for the gift
When I was an adorable 5 year old girl in kindergarten I brought in my favorite toy for "Show and Tell." I was a fan of Sesame Street and my favorite toy was this vinyl expandable tube / tunnel with Snuffleupagus all over it. The fun part was to roll out the tube, the curvier the better and crawl through it on your tiny hands and knees. You felt so triumphant when you made it to the end. Okay, maybe I was retarded, but I LOVED this and was SO excited when my family said I could bring it to school.

So I excitedly bring it to my teacher, and she helps me unroll it and set it up in the middle of the classroom. She promises me we will play later.

When it came time to play in the Snuffleupagus tube, I jumped up like a spaz and crawled in. I made it about halfway in to discover one of my kindergarten classmates had taken a shit in it. They took a shit in my Snuffleupagus tube.
(persnickety I Am The Seaward, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:41, 2 replies)

MRS GORDON'S TITS
"Hey, Scary," said Mrs Gordon, "How would you like to do something special for me?"

Ah, Mrs Gordon. Our posh totty humanities teacher with an ability to speak in very sexy italics and to reduce teenage boys into gibbering wrecks.

"I would absolutely love it if you edited the next school newsletter."

"Lmpf snpp glaaaark."

I didn't even know there was a school newsletter, but – despite fearing this might be some sort of sexy trap – I eventually declared that I would be delighted.

"Oh, I'm so very pleased."

I went home and lay down for a bit.

Thanks to THATCHER coming to power, I had no access to any kind of word processor, and I had to write out the whole bloody thing long-hand and print it on the school Banda Machine. High as a kite on the booze-flavoured ink, it was little surprise that I got up to no good.

If you looked very, very carefully, you might have noticed that the first letter of every badly copied news story, teacher profile and sports report spelled out the words "MRS GORDONS TITS". Not for any good reason, except for the incredibly dangerous fact that I was thirteen-and-a-half years old, completely unsupervised, and damn the poor grammar. And she had a cracking pair of knockers.

So impressed was Mrs Gordon with the end result, I was called into her presence one day after school.

"Scary," she told me, her chest heaving in a way that would leave me with issues for decades to come, "your newsletter was quite marvellous."

"Blp snerrrg wum", I said, staring her in the chest.

"In fact, before I hand over the editorial reigns to somebody else," she said, fiddling with the top button on her blouse, "I've got something very special for you."

She got me a box of chocolates. Nice ones, too. I don't know whether this was reward for a job well done, or if it was some sort of come-on.

"Jolly well done, young man. I do hope you keep abreast of further editions."

Ah.

Full, 12-inch celebrity version with a guest appearance from TV's James May HERE
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:40, 1 reply)

step 4... profit?
Sometime during my early secondary school years we were taken on a field trip by the history department to look at some castle (no idea which one) and given a fact sheet that we had to fill out as we studiously went around the castle (read: ran about like lunatics hopped up on sugar and e-numbers).

in preparation for this fantastical outing we had been told to bring along a clipboard/folder of some description so we had something to lean on whilst we wrote down our answers to the questions on the fact sheet. the only thing remotely similiar to a clipboard that i owned was a rather smart looking presentation binder my dad had given me containing all of the genealogical facts he'd dug up about our family tree over many many years from photos, birth/death certificates and those organisation chart type diagrams all the way through to press clippings from newspaper archives all meticulously catalogued and indexed in a way that only a history buff with way too much free time on his hands could do so. so i thought 'meh this'll do' and took it along.

At some point during the day my history teacher had seen my fancypants binder and duly complimented me upon its smart appearance. 'thats nothing' says I and proceed to show him all the stuff inside (focusing mainly on the famous boxer peddlar palmer who killed a man on a train for refusing to stop singing www.worldboxingfoundation.com/wbf/?page_id=83 a sentiment i often have towards the james blunts who have their ipods up too loud on my train to work of a morning). he seemed really impressed by it all and once i'd finished my tale off i ran to go and cause some more havoc with my peers. the rest of the day was spent dossing about enjoying the sunshine in the field outside the castles walls.

Fast forward a few weeks to the monthly assembly for the whole of our year wherein they announce they're going to be awarding prizes for the best factsheets from the history trip, recognising those students who's efforts went above and beyond what was required of them and showed a real dedication to history and schoolwork in general. yawn goes i and mentally switch off.

but would you believe it they called my name out, which came as a bit of a surprise to me I can tell you... I hadn't even handed my fact-sheet in on the trip (i was a notorious homework dodger). apparently the teacher had assumed I'd dug up all the family tree info myself and had put me in as a special mention and I was given a commendation from the headmaster himself as a result.

still I kept schtum. the prize was a £25 book token and that bought a lot of graphic novels back then.
( HatBeard, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:21, 3 replies)

I was crap at D&T
My GCSE project (for which two whole years was alloted) was to make a cutlery set.

I managed a single fork.

It only had two prongs and was so crap I cut my tongue pretty badly during the show and tell with the external examiner.

For some reason I failed. The mind boggles, it really does.
( rofl harris, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:20, Reply)

School WAS one long project
H₀ : μ₁ = μ₂

Where:

H₀ = the null hypothesis
μ₁ = your school years
μ₂ = the best years of your life

Conclusion: Reject the null hypothesis
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:17, 1 reply)

Dave the Don
When I was doing my final year project at University, me and the other guy writing on the same author (I did English) used to traipse once a week on a Thursday morning to see our thesis supervisor, Dave, who was a young-ish don, friendly if a bit tweedy, and seemingly very content with his life of study and teaching.

One morning, having both been awake pretty much all night (Geoff writing his essay, me boozing), we both met for a bit of breakfast at 8:30am then headed off to our morning meeting with Dave. When we got there, however, we found him standing outside his office as a couple of guys in overalls carried piles and piles of books and papers out of his room.

'Sorry lads - burst water pipe in my office.We'll have to pick up tomorrow I'm afraid....'

Neither of us replied. We were both looking past him.

Dave turned round, following our gaze to the massive stack of porno mags one of the caretakers had just placed on the floor in the corridor, then returned his gaze to us, looking sheepish. Then, with a half-raised eyebrow:

'Amazing the stuff the previous occupant left behind...'
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:16, Reply)

Yessss!
I was waiting for a topic like this to come up after my visit to my sons parents evening at the end of last term.

As we were shown the pile of information the teacher was explaining to us the latest class project that they had just finished to create a perfect village using a mixture of papier-mâché, cereal boxes, yoghurt pots,plastic bottles etc etc.

“You can probably guess which one was designed by your son” replied the teacher in a sarcastic tone(We haven’t really seen eye to eye since the dream diary incident I mentioned in a previous QOTW reply)

Looking at the village I was thinking, does she mean the school that’s has shcool written on? Maybe the post office that’s looking deformed…..ah

I had found it

In the middle of the picturesque village with a playground, post office, shcool and swimming baths was a volcano lair, complete with bottle top glass dome, matchbox gun turrets, partially painted airstrip and yoghurt pot deathtraps for would be intruders- this must have taken him ages to complete and I will say that I was impressed.

Unlike my wife who pretended to be shocked at the whole thing I asked the teacher if it would be coming home with him over the summer (I was planning on adding a few pipe cleaner-skeletons on the beach for him during my week off).

The bad news is that the island won’t be coming back to my house until September as its being used for some schoolwide project that’s due to be shown sometime after school re-starts.

I will probably pass on a few more “creative plans" for his island before he goes back.

I love being a dad.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:11, 11 replies)

Aged 6
We were set a school 'project' to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. My Dad had recently just been telling me all about World War 2 and how we won (yay Britain!), so with my young heart welling up with patriotic fury, I naturally wrote that I wanted to be a tank driver and kill Germans. If I recall correctly I drew a touching picture of me in a tank replete with manic grin shooting a decapitated German Soldier who wasn't looking best pleased.

I think I got quite a bit of red pen telling me that this "Wasn't very nice" (this was 1994) and a sad face. Never did join the army. Probably for the best.
(xerophytic has no idea, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:05, 3 replies)

Boats!
I was obsessed with building a motorboat. The items I had at my disposal were lots of ice-cream tins, toys of various descriptions (with electric motors in them), sellotape, a good friend who was just as keen and a dirty, filthy stream filled with tadpoles and frogs of questionable hygiene.

We went through about 20 iterations. Our most successful boat went about 10 meters before sinking (I was 9 and didn't quite understand the concept of buoyancy), but it kept me out of PE class and I was happy.
(zero.coke, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 16:04, Reply)

Science
When I was 8 years old our science teacher would "teach" us science by making us do projects. Over the course of that year I built:

1. A water filter (with an old tin, gravel, sand, etc)
2. A model car (with manilla paper)
3. A weather vane (with a tin, cardboard and some plastic bottle tops)
4. A weather chart (with paper, pen and ruler)
5. Germinated an avocado plant in a jam jar
6. Germinated beans in a tin

While "fun" at the time, I didn't realize that he was instilling in me a lifelong interest in engineering and building things. It was a real pity when, two years later, he became an alcoholic and spent entire lessons telling us to do "homework" while he slept on the desk.
(zero.coke, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:59, 1 reply)

Soft rock!
When asked to write a poem for gcse english I couldnt be bothered to use my own mind so just wrote out chunks of the lyrics from 'Wind of Change' by the Scorpians. (Terrible 80s german soft rock band, youtube it).

Got a decent mark, the teacher obviously wasnt a fan, or at least didnt think she was.
(jonnyninetails, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:50, 1 reply)

Model of a volcano
when I was ten. Made from paper mache & then painted with whatever paint was left in my parents garage. I ended up presenting something that looked like a 32E magnolia coloured breast with bright orange discharge coming out of the nipple. Given a mark? It looked like it should have been given antibiotics.
(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:50, 2 replies)

Perhaps if we'd thought of the Eiffel Tower instead?
I was a bit good at science when I was at school, so when the local college announced a special science day I was one of the pupils picked to join the group. Excitement - a day off school!

When we got there we were ushered into the sports hall, where a bunch of other kids were gathered. We were presented with lots of sheets of newspaper and sellotape, and told that we were in a contest to build the tallest tower we could out of them, without any assistance from our accompanying teacher. We had an hour, if I recall correctly, and we all set to work.

We were sitting at the table discussing how to proceed. The teacher apparently considered this discussion to be a sign of weak-mindedness, and muttered loudly "Think about the Blackpool Tower!".

We spurned this advice. Our high concept design was a tripod, "because tripods can't fall over", made out of tubes of paper "because tubes are really strong". Faultless reasoning, I'm sure you'll agree, and we set to work with the newspapers and sellotape.

Fast-forward about an hour.

The other teams had produced some really good structures. Most of them were so tall that they were having to stand on chairs or tables in order to finish them off. Some of them were climbing the monkey bars on the wall to get the last bit of height possible. One of the more elegant looking ones must have been fifteen feet tall if it was an inch.

And what of our mighty, tube-based effort?

It was mighty, of that there is no doubt, with its three stout tubular legs. They were stout because our tubes kept bending, so we'd had to reinforce them with sellotape. Then the thing kept falling over, so we'd also had to bend the legs at the bottom to make feet, and then it started keeling over again where the bends were so we reinforced them with sellotape too. All this reinforcement had actually taken quite a lot of time and about three rolls of sellotape. And the time had come to put down our papers and step back.

Yes, time to step back and admire the mighty edifice of a two-foot tall tripod with three-inch thick legs. The whole thing was cased in lumpy sellotape that glistened stickily under the fluorescent lights. A fourth tube of paper with a hastily drawn Union Jack on top added another foot of stylish altitude.

When the judges came round, one of them made a stifled sobbing noise and had to turn away. I expect he was overcome with emotion. Our teacher certainly was: he had a face like thunder and didn't speak to us at all in the minibus back to school.

I still can't see the Blackpool Tower without sniggering. And I still have no idea what any of it had to do with science.
(richardm, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:47, Reply)

When I was about 13 we had to do an "investigative project" in RE.
This involved looking at the "historical evidence" of the resurrection of Christ (i.e the bible, apparently) and demonstrating that it really did happen.
I decided to write a mock Raymond Chandler style detective story called "The Case of the Missing Body". Most of the jokes were lifted wholesale from Oink comic.
When I handed it in the teacher tore it up in front of me and threw it in the bin.
That was pretty much it for me and religion.
( Zuowan, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:36, 5 replies)

The former Mr Quar was a high school science teacher
and had a project going with a girl in one of his classes.

Dunno what mark he gave her but the judge gave him two years.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 15:25, 1 reply)