Education Mock the Week

This programme contains adult humour.

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Our next round is called Headliners.

Here's a picture of Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

But what does G.A.E.C. stand for?

Is it Gove attends elf college?

Genetic abnormality explains chin?

Amazingly not, no.

Is it something, something, something, cock!

Is it Michael Gove saying, "Gosh, actual ethnic children."

Is it in fact what the kids have done to him,

glued arse to edge of chair?

Is it adult literacy rates poor?

-Very good.

-Very good.

Gollum advises Earth children.

Is it Grindr adventure ends catastrophically?

OK, let's just have the correct answer.

Because frankly, nothing's going to top that.

Gove announced as emergency contraceptive.

Let's have the correct answer, please.

It's going to be something about Gove announces exam change.

Very good, thank you very much, Hugh Dennis.

Yes, the answer I was looking for was Gove announces exam changes.

This is the news that Education Secretary Michael Gove has announced

a new English Baccalaureate certificate to replace GCSEs.

From 2015, students will work towards a demanding three-hour exam

at the end of a two-year course, rather than the current

combination of coursework, modular exams and multiple retakes.

He's even invented an exam that

thicker kids won't be able to pronounce.

The bacca what? The bac, the bacca what?

Oh, give me a shovel, I'll go down a mine.

I think the idea is, if you're academic,

then you get a baccalaureate, and otherwise

they teach you practical skills, like how to back a lorry out.

APPLAUSE

The Tories have assured us that under this system, no child

will be left behind, but how can we take Tory promises that no

child will be left behind seriously when their leader's David Cameron?

There's been a lot of debate over, you know,

whether grades have been devalued, and I was discussing that

recently with my nephew, Professor Timmy, and...

So, hang on a second, sorry, because, you know,

it's one of these things that I genuinely am always perplexed about,

coming from a different country, as I have, with my spices and my silks.

Really?

And I have come to your nation, and there are

so many great things about it, except your exams, which are mad.

The education, by the way, is great, I'm not saying anything about

the education people get here, it's fantastic, but the exams are mad.

There are people who, when confronted with an exam paper, just go to

pieces completely and forget how to count,

and I think it's very unfair that they are marking the papers.

APPLAUSE

People make an awful lot about the pressure that kids are under

and I suppose they are. But speaking as an ex-teacher,

when it comes to exam time, there's far worse pressure on the teachers.

Because you have to spend sometimes four, five hours in those halls

just walking up and down and it's a recipe for insanity.

I had no choice when I was teaching

but to invent a game called Camp Aisle.

It was just to see who could walk up and down the aisle the campest.

We started off just slightly mincing. Honestly, by the end of it,

I was walking down a full aisle of children like this...

I knew it was time for me to leave teaching when I got to the end of

one aisle, genuinely, during an actual GCSE, a kid looked up at me

and went... "Tut."

So were you essentially vogue-ing your way?

I'm not exaggerating, by the end of it, I was, like...

The thing is, they want to make the exams harder, don't they, you know?

But surely, they're hard enough already

if your teacher is walking up and down camping it up.

Oh, no. I'm still qualified, technically,

-we'll have to cut this bit out.

-Really, is that your safety net?

-Yeah.

-Oh, that's really sweet.

Do you think anybody, having seen you in Inbetweeners,

anybody is ever going to employ you?

Well, you've always got a trade.

I did a gig at the University of Central England,

which is Birmingham, that's what they're trying to hide from you.

And as the opening line, I said, "UCE, so called because that's the

"grades it takes to get in," right.

And, yes, but I had to explain it to them.

I'll tell you what, I was in an exam when I was at school,

when my mate at the back of the hall went... We were all waiting to

leave, someone at the back of the hall went, "Miaow."

And Mr Meardon, the exam invigilator went...

And then someone else went, "Miaow."

And then "Miaow" from different parts of the hall, and it led

to my favourite sentence I've ever heard come out of an adult's

mouth, which was, "All right, no-one leaves until the miaowing stops."

Shall I tell you another episode from my life?

No wait, no actually, no, no, no, no, I want, no, rather than you

telling me another story from your childhood,

I want to pitch this question in, right.

Who else received an honour this week?

-I did.

-That would be Hugh.

-Oh, yeah, I saw that.

This is a photograph of Hugh receiving an honour this week.

I was awarded it for getting rid of all the rats in Hamelin.

What were you awarded?

I was given an Honorary Fellowship of the University of Northampton.

Northampton? Isn't that one of those jumped-up ones that used to be

-a swimming pool?

-Yeah.

Isn't an Honorary Fellowship of the University of Northampton similar

to getting like a VIP pass to Roxy's Nightclub in Milton Keynes?

What powers do you have?

Do you know, if you pull the little cord on the right hand side,

the hat flushes on my head.

That is the campaign poster for,

"Don't let your kids out of your sight."

This is the news that Michael Gove has called for tougher

qualifications for aspiring teachers, barring those who

continuously fail basic numeracy and literacy tests from teaching.

Gove has also hit out at teachers on their planned walkouts over

pensions, claiming they've a strong moral duty not to strike

and to keep their schools open. Now, are you aware of the tests?

I think it's a bit rich, really,

coming from Michael Gove, to put literacy tests down for teachers,

when his whole name sounds like a grammatical error.

You kind of go, "Michael Gove?

"No, Michael Gave is what it should be, Gave."

"Michael Gave. Try again, Gave."

I actually trained to be a teacher for a year, and they say to you

when you sign up, they say, "It's a very serious job, this,

"Don't smile before Easter."

It's a sign of weakness, apparently.

So I'm walking down the corridor on my first day's training

and a fat kid fell over.

I'm on him like a shot. Bundle!

I didn't pass.

Surely, the only real test of a teacher is to send them out

to the Middle East and see if they say, "I don't care who started it!"

Have you seen the level of the questions though? They're ludicrous.

They're sort of like, add 11 and four.

Every year you joke about A level tests getting...

These are the questions for the actual teachers.

Here's one, for example, genuinely off the test for teachers.

Can you answer the following multiple-choice question

that's included in the teacher training test?

Is the correct word...?

That's genuine, whereas obviously, the correct answer should be...

If they are going to make it harder for teachers, they should give

teachers something back - you should be allowed to knee them again.

Was that like a perk at the time, was it?

When they run in the corridor, "Slow down."

I'm beginning to wonder how you managed to last one whole year.

I used to be a teacher as well, and I found that marking was a problem.

But if you wrap the child in a mattress before you hit them...

Part of the problem, really, is that teachers are quite annoying,

even aside from politics.

I've got a lot of friends and family that are teachers

and they're annoying people to know, because they break the year up

in their way, even when you don't do the same job.

So they'll say, "Oh, I'll see you at half term."

And you go, "I'm 36."

I don't know when that is any more.

Could you give me a number and then the name of one of the 12 months?

That's the system I like to work from.

We had a teacher in school, right, and he was African,

and his mode of punishing you, he'd make you hold out

your fingertips, he'd say,

-AFRICAN ACCENT:

-"Hold out your fingertips." And...

No tension in the room now, is there?

It's just an accent, get over it.

Was that your racist impersonation or his racist impersonation?

-That's how he talked!

-OK. Well...

-He said, "Hold out your fingertips."

-And he would whack them with a ruler. Yeah.

-Yeah?

He was from Newcastle.

APPLAUSE

See, grown-ups, they know a good African accent when they hear one.

"It was quality, you must know that."

-Enough with the accent.

-OK. Sorry.

Once in the context of the story was fine.

Once you start doing Nigerian, you can't stop.

"It's almost impossible."

The next topic is education, who wants to come in on that? Russell.

I remember school being fun.

I think my favourite moment ever in life, pretty much, there was

a girl in our school called Lydia, and she was trying to make her

calculator work. She was repeatedly knocking it against the desk.

And after about an hour, our teacher went, "Lydia!"

"How would you like it if I banged you against the desk?"

It's the greatest day of school. But now it's more sinister, isn't it?

They're now talking about teaching five-year-olds sex education.

Of course, people are very angry, "It's disgusting! It's too much!"

You're like, "Calm down, they're not going to teach them technique."

They're not going, "This is how I like to do it, kids, that's right."

Kids aren't going to run home and put dolls around a toy car

and go, "Look, Mum, they're dogging, they're dogging."

It isn't going to be that. It's going to be some poor teacher trying

to talk to five year-olds about love. Can you imagine a harder job?

"Hello, children, I'm here to teach you about love."

"Good luck with that, mate. I'm off to lick that tree."

Thank you very much.

In other news, how have exam boards let down students this week?

-Poor students.

-By asking questions that are unanswerable.

-In what manner

-were they unanswerable?

-They didn't have enough information in them.

-The papers, there were typos or mistakes on the paper, yes.

-Yeah.

On one of the sports science papers, there was a really tough one,

it said, "Name."

They said these are impossible, this is an impossible maths exam.

Rubbish. You only know a maths exam is impossible when you hear

a voice at the back going,

-STEPHEN HAWKING VOICE:

-"This is bullshit. "I'm leaving."

Smashing into the other tables, bang. Bang.

Trying to reverse around. Bang. Bang, bang.

The best exam story ever, there were teachers given out to

once for doing... Because it's very boring to invigilate exams, and

they had games that they devised.

There was, of course, who's the ugliest student?

And the two of them, one of them would walk down

and stand next to who they thought was the ugliest student.

And then would walk back up again and the other would go... "Hmm."

They would walk down to who they thought was the ugliest student

and they'd go... "Yeah."

We did an exam once in college and it was shared, there were loads,

in all these big halls that loads of different classes were in,

and one girl had just a conniption fit, because it just went wrong.

Just, this is awful, and she started crying at the table really

loudly and they had to get her out.

Because it was only an hour into a three-hour exam and people

are like, "This is tough enough as it is without this going on."

So they took her outside and they put her just outside the door,

right? And then every time somebody went to the toilet, you'd hear,

-"Waagh!"

-That's awful.

And we knew the person was going to come back from the toilet

in a minute and you're all going, "I don't want to hear it." "Waaagh!"

Is that because the invigilator was standing outside the door

next to her going, "This one! It's this one!"

Our next round is called Newsreel.

We play a recent piece of footage featuring people in the news

and ask Hugh to suggest what might be being said.

This week's clip features the Duke of Edinburgh.

"Oh, bloody royal visits. Have you seen the bar?

"Is there a bar? Oh, the bar, it's in here, is it? Oh, hell.

"Just through here, splendid. I could do with a gin.

"What are you...what are you cooking? Yes.

"I tell you what I like to eat, swan, lovely swan.

"Golden eagle, I shoot some of them in Balmoral.

"Mind you, I'll tell you what you need for that, is a shotgun, yes.

"Yes, a bloody big one.

"I say! Do you...

"Can I just say, you really do have a terrific pair of norks.

"They are, my goodness, yes.

"Sorry to mention them again, but they are magnificent.

"Do you...are they your own, or...?

"What's this? Oh, Tekken, is it? Oh, lovely, yes.

"I play this at Sandringham, you know, level five.

"I tell you what you have to do, kick them, kick them,

"that's what you have to do. Oh, dear. No, you've ballsed that up.

"Oh, look out, it's the fuzz. Yes.

"I didn't know, I didn't know it was an osprey. I, I...

"Are you...are you a stripagram, or...?

"I tell you what I saw earlier, there was a woman in the kitchen

"with the most terrific pair of norks."

"Oh, look, lovely, a DVD, yes. Yes, my favourite.

"Normally, I have to go to Holland to buy these.

"Well, goodbye, goodbye. Do you want some? Yes.

"Yes, well, goodbye. No, I don't know where you've been."

Points there for Hugh.

And the topic is school.

That last bloke was a bit weird, wasn't he?

Anyway, I went back to my old school the other day,

first time in 30 years. I took a note.

The teacher said, "So, Jones, what have you done with your life?"

I said, "Oh, I'm just Britain's

"top Ofsted inspector."

They were a lot nicer to me after that.

I was there for the funeral of my old science teacher.

They asked me to say a few words, so I did...

"Method..."

LAUGHTER

"We put the coffin in the crematorium."

"Observations...

"It burned with an orangey-bright flame."

"Conclusion...

"No more homework."

On Twitter - we mentioned last week... I'm on Twitter, as I

think a lot of people here are.

I mentioned last week about the exam invigilators' game that they

play, where invigilators would entertain themselves by standing,

you know, they'd go, I'll stand next to the ugliest person

in the room and then walk down and just stand and go, like that, right.

The problem is, I forgot when telling that story that we

were right in the middle of state exams in both the UK and Ireland,

and I got hundreds of tweets from people going,

"I was in the middle of my exam today

"and the bloke just stood beside me."

"I didn't know why, it was really upsetting."

And then hundreds of other tweets from invigilators going, "Oh, no,

"no, oh, no, no, no, we play Pac-Man."

Where one of them is Pac-Man and they'd go, "Omp, omp."

And the others chase them into a corner until they're trapped.

Frankie, can you make your way to the performance area so we can see

your dating video.

Hello. I'm looking for a woman with massive tits...

..so that she won't be intimidated by mine.

I'm looking for a lady who can share the good times

and the council tax.

I've taken a lot of care with my appearance, I've taken care

to appear like a cartoon dog who's accidentally swallowed a pickle.

I've always wanted to have sex in a car, and I've got two.

So I reckon, if we park them side by side and take the doors off,

I could just about manage it.

So get in touch if you fancy friendship or something more,

by which I mean, intercourse.

Yes, that was lonely heart John Prescott, who performed a

spectacular U-turn this week when he decided to throw his weight behind

the government's education reforms after publicly criticising them.

What was John Prescott up to last week in this photo?

This was when he'd just fallen through a Stargate.

How far into the 100 metres final is he there?

-A yard, I think.

-Essentially.

Actually, about three yards later this is what he looked like.

To be fair, he pulled a muscle. It was a basic exercise mistake.

He seems to have become an awful lot shorter, as well.

He looks like he's offering an unusual service

to one of his juniors.

Why did he do it, though?

I mean, why do politicians do these stupid, humiliating things?

He's supposed to be busy.

I mean, we all know, he's certainly an embarrassment,

and the government, you know, are looking for a place to bury him.

But nominally, he's the Deputy Prime Minister,

and he turns up at a school and, what? Joins in with a race?

I mean...he's depicting himself as a moron.

Maybe he is a moron, but there should at least be a team of people

round him trying to stop him looking quite the moron he clearly is.

Clearly, there are three advisers there...

Going, "What the hell...?

"You joined in with the race, you wanker!

"They're children, you were wearing your coat,

"of course you pulled a muscle, you fat git!"

I mean, it's...

APPLAUSE

In other news, what is making a return to the classroom?

-Schoolchildren.

-Yes.

Well, specifically schoolchildren, that would be very topical, but no.

What are teachers now allowed to do that they haven't been

-allowed to do for a while?

-Punch them in the face.

-Now, that is...

-Knee them in the bollocks.

-That is... The correct answer is...

-Chinese burn.

No, they're not allowed to hurt the children, right.

They are allowed merely to lay on hands and separate them

if there's a fight, for example.

They're allowed to physically interact with the children.

Punch them in the face isn't specifically

what they're allowed to do.

I used to have a judo teacher, he would say... He was from China, and...

-Before you start this, right...

-He would say,

-CHINESE ACCENT:

-"Come here."

"Come here, you naugh'y boy."

And he would get his hand and pull his finger back

and he'd smack you on the forehead, propelling you across the classroom.

This is absolutely true.

And then he'd say, "Now, sit down, you irriot!"

Your teacher was Benny Hill?

You book Micky, you know what you're going to get.

The rest of the day, you would have a great big red welt on your

forehead. It was like a badge of honour.

Why did your school have a judo teacher?

Was that a part of the...? So what, you did maths, judo, English?

Thursday afternoon, double judo, art. What's going on?

They've introduced looting now, into the school.

But no, he was a PE teacher who was a martial artist of phenomenal...

You know, he was the man... In China, I think he was the top man.

So...

What are you, the Karate Kid?

He was working as a mild-mannered janitor in your school.

In China, he was a threat to the state and he was lying low.

-I don't know why he...

-Technically, when you were growing up,

the top man in China was Mao Tse-tung, I think it was.

I am overdoing it a bit with the accent, to be honest.

-The one you're using now?

-He was Chinese and, you know, all right,

I've embellished it for comic purposes.

So we had a bit more of that in schools.

I think they should bring back waterboarding.

Whoa, bring back waterboarding?

It was a tough school I went to.

The next topic is teaching. Who wants to come in on that? Greg.

I was a teacher for many, many years, ladies and gentlemen,

and I knew the day I had to leave teaching.

It was simple, because a very clear sign was given to me

that I should leave the profession by a child,

because a child walked into my lesson 20 minutes late.

I was a very strict teacher, I was livid. Yeah.

I was almost as mad as if that child

had been running in the school corridor, right.

I thought, I am having this little bastard, I am having this.

So I gave him my most ruthless teacher stare

when he walked in, something like...

Maybe not that sexually aggressive.

It wasn't...

That would work!

That would work though, wouldn't it?

They wouldn't be late again, would they?

"Oh, dear. Where have you been?" No, it wasn't like that.

I was furious, I went, "Oh, really? Oh, really?"

I could see that child didn't give a shit, right.

I thought, "Oh, no, this is the end of my teaching career." I went,

"Where have you been?" And he went, "Yeah, sorry." And I went, "Really?!

"Are you?! Well, where the hell have you been for 20 minutes?"

And I promise you, that child looked me in the face and went,

"Yeah, sorry, sir. I've been Livin' La Vida Loca."

What can you say to that? I said, "Fair enough, sit down."

Anyone who quotes Ricky Martin at me,

ladies and gentlemen, is a friend for life.

Well done, Greg.

Why have Michael Gove and Nick Clegg clashed recently?

They're looking to sort of bring back O and A levels,

because they think that GCSEs have been

devalued by people getting too many good grades.

I don't think that is the issue, it's just that they moved

the marking centre to Liverpool, so now it's all "A, A, A, A, A..."

So is it...? Cos I didn't come through that system, is it like...?

No, and I think it shows, I think it shows.

Yeah, I did come through a system, thank you very much.

What system did you come through?

I came through the Irish education system, where we don't tinker quite

as much as you do with the system.

Don't make that joke, don't make that joke. Anyway...

It's been the same for years, the Irish education system, hasn't it?

Because you're graded from too-ra-loo-ra-A's,

down to fiddle-dee-D's.

We're all looking for the Chris Addison Dublin gig on the next tour.

But going with the O levels,

was it some special, magical time, the O levels?

-The O levels?

-Yes. Is it...?

-It was a magical time,

it was roughly the same time as I lost my virginity, that's why.

That was a hell of a French oral.

Is calling for the O levels the political equivalent of going,

"I wish they'd put Top Of The Pops back on?" Is it like that?

-Yeah, it is.

-Yes, spinsters on bikes. He basically wants the '80s back.

He wants everyone driving an Austin Allegro,

-because they were great, those cars.

-Do I get the impression you lost

your virginity in an Austin Allegro, is that the...?

He lost his virginity TO an Austin Allegro.

-Austin Allegro.

-My God, that exhaust pipe was hot!

AUDIENCE: Oh...

I lost mine to an Escort, does that count?

APPLAUSE

The first subject is, Unlikely Questions From This Year's Exams.

Discuss the metaphysical meaning of the following poem.

"My friend Billy has a ten foot willy."

Would you like this exam to be A) multiple choice, or not?

The Bronte sisters - shag, marry, push off a cliff?

Discuss the following:

The Nazis got all their ideas from the History Channel.

Who was the chap in The A-Team who would not get on the aeroplane?

Was it A B, or B A?

If a bank loses £60 billion in a six-month period,

using numbers that you've plucked out of thin air,

work out what the Chief Executive's bonus will be.

Napoleon, a small man

or a long way away?

Quantify N in terms of Q

when Q is a positive integer that dissects a parabolic curve.

"How's your lucky pencil case now? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?"

What's the name of that round thing that they throw in the Olympics?

Discuss.

Poetry, is it all a bit gay?

Draw a diagram of the genitalia of the male elephant.

Use all 30 sheets of paper provided.

Biology. Without singing,

what is the knee bone connected to?

Explain the use of juxtaposition in Macbeth.

Alternatively, write down everything you know about Macbeth in a

blind panic because you've got no idea what the word juxtaposition is.

Drama. Question one.

What was it that first made you want to become a waiter?

What is your PIN number?

OK, the next topic is, Bad Things For A Teacher To Say.

Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!

You know the rules, Thomas, if you forget your PE kit,

I take the lesson in my pants.

Are you chewing, boy?

This is the worst blow job I've had all day.

I don't know the answer, Watkins. I just do this job for the holidays.

It turns out you're not dyslexic, you're just really, really stupid.

I have been at this school for over 40 years.

I buggered your fathers and I will bugger you.

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