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When I first posted this I had a number of people make comments along the lines of: it’s the teacher/school’s fault for making her do pointless academic work when she is clearly going to become a beautician.

Of course, she is a composite and none of them people she was based on have, to my knowledge, become beauticians yet. If I hear of Chantel again it’s because her younger brother tells me she’s pregnant or because she is trying to get back into the sixth form to do resits and worthless vocational qualificiations. I have even known Chantel to get offered a college course in beauty (or whatever it is) and turn it down because she can’t imagine leaving school. When a girl tells you she wants to become a beauticians she means she wants to do her, and her friends, make-up all day. It’s barely more credible than the boys who think they are going to become professional footballers because they want to kick a ball around in the park all day.

Our Chantel is just about held in check. She has – Lord help us – decided that she wants to stay on past 16, and has been told that compliance is a prerequisite.

She habitually becomes ill on test days, particularly when she has failed to study for the tests, because she is just too busy with more important things like her part-time job. (Needed to pay for all the make-up.)

In different subject departments she has: claimed to have a pulled neck on a test day; burst into tears and started screaming when an external examiner had to see her (only to be seen happily stuffing her face with crisps in the pupil area five minutes later); faked a heart attack. (SMT actually had to call out an ambulance.)

And she has to have her mobile. It’s her human right and there might be an emergency, you know.

Please keep us posted. I want to know how it goes when she’s finally busted for good.

You will, of course, get comments from “teachers” who truly believe it’s all your fault for not being interesting enough or kind enough or understanding enough or knowledgeable enough about her home life/lifestyle, but the fact is, life is full of choices, and this girl and her minions have chosen to be idiots.

She’s in almost every class, every year. It makes me lose heart.

And you are absolutely spot-on correct about the difference between what a good school will do in such cases, and what a bad school will do. Or, rather, what a bad school will NOT do.