Dear Mr Jones,
Sorry to hear that you are still unwell. We hope and trust that you will undergo a full recovery and be back amongst us at William Farr School as soon as possible. This is particularly important as in your absence your lack of guidance for our young minds is affecting discipline and order in the classroom.
The class council has decided to rearrange the desks a little. This has been done because we found that at this time of year those of us sat at the back had the sun in our eyes for most of the afternoon. In consequence we have put your desk at the back and moved ourselves to the front, in effect rotating the classroom by 180 degrees. The council assumed that you would be ok with this because it was put to a democratic vote. In any case a decent pair of sun glasses would get round any problems you might have.
Moving the desks wasn’t too difficult and in fact hardly any of them were damaged in the process. Not as many as were damaged during the class party we held at the start of term in any case. Before you get excited and start laying blame it wasn’t our fault at all that the desks were broken during the party. In fact none of the damage would have happened if William Ward hadn’t discovered the process of distilling alcohol during chemistry lessons. Some of the kids were just not as used to hard drink as the rest of us. So it is not really anyone’s fault.
You will be pleased to know that we eventually moved the home brew out of the stock cupboard. It was starting to smell a bit anyway and got in the way of couples looking for a bit of privacy during the party. Some of us with responsible heads on our shoulders did make the effort to tidy up the cupboard the day after the party (the cleaner wouldn’t go near the classroom let alone the stock cupboard). I have to confess that we weren’t completely sure which inserts went with which folders but we had a pretty good stab at it so I imagine it will largely be ok.
I’m sure that you will agree it is also good news that Jane Smith’s pregnancy test proved to be negative. Imagine the worried looks on a number of the lads in the class over the past 2 – 3 weeks. Boy I tell you we aren’t going to have too many parties like that in one term.
On to more mundane things the new whiteboard is due to arrive next Monday and should be up on the wall before you come back. We wouldn’t have had a problem if William Ward hadn’t used permanent marker pens to write his poetry. Even then you could probably have worked around the verses – they only took up half the space on the board. The Headmaster suggested, however, that some of the words were a bit on the strong side and might confuse some of the younger kids who might happen to pass by the classroom and read the whiteboard through the door. Creative individual that he may be, spelling was never one of William’s strengths, and the poem was all in all probably not worth keeping on display.
Fair play to William he is always ready to admit when he has made an error of judgement and he did try to rectify the problem. He found, though, that using white gloss paint didn’t work out and in fact the resultant collateral damage to the polished wood floor from the splash-back from the paint roller was not really a desirable outcome. Again to William’s credit he did bring in a rug from home to cover the spot where the paint has stuck. His mother was a bit annoyed at losing here best rug but it just goes to show you can’t please everybody.
She should be glad that Jane Smith didn’t sue William for damages following the accident she had when she slipped on the rug and went flying into the classroom window. Jane herself was partly to blame because she ran into the classroom in careless jubilation having just had the results of her pregnancy test. The Headmaster has very generously said that the cost of replacing the glass in the window can be covered by their insurance policy and that Jane could take the rest of the term off to give her injuries a chance to heal. I think she is in a ward quite close to yours at the hospital so you two might be able to get together for a chinwag when she gets a bit more mobile.
Well Mr Jones that’s it for now I think.
Get well soon,
Tom