Here's a length of rope

It’s four years ago once more.

When we became an InterBac centre, English B was extended to the A-level students as a way of trying to counter their disdain for English, which increased in their A2 year to the point that teachers would re-enter the office and announce that they’d seen <insert a number in single figures> students in their class. English B was meant to keep the A-level students from straying because there was an official exam at the end of it.

Last year, my combined A2 class managed to attend classes regularly until about a month before the exams when the dimmer bulbs probably tried to make up for their lack of work over the preceding two years by vanishing into various dark corners where they no doubt remained just as cretinous and unenlightened.

This year, I’m a little more confident that my A2 class will stick with me.

But as for next year, I have less confidence about AS2, who are the most infantile class I’ve ever had. I got so fed up with them this afternoon that I had to get Vlad to have a word with them, although his words clearly bounced in some cases.

Whether their attitudes will change when they see what effect it has on their marks, I don’t know, but since they don’t seem to respond to me, they might respond when they see their overall scores withering and dying. and their hopes of going to some better university dashed.

Later. Several days later. They’ve had a talking-to. It won’t stick. It never does. But for the moment, it might just have some effect on their appalling attitude.