Thursday 28 February 2008

School Production 2009

Just a short supplement to the previous article on the Little Shop of Horrors (final night tonight, if you haven't seen it, I advise you buy the remaining few tickets on the door), and the rumour that High School Musical will soon be staining our eyes and ears in the form of a school play.

Whether this is the plan or not, we're not sure, but no matter what, please support our Blues Brothers 2009 Campaign. It's definately possible to recreate as a school production (schools have done it before), and it's both one of the best comedies and best musicals of all time. It's an ideal choice. So if you happen to have lessons with any of the staff involved in the productions, or if you just fancy backing our campaign to honour one of the best musicals of all time, please recommend it to them. If enough people show an interest, they can't turn us down.

Other possibilities brought forward by those often associated with the annual shows are Sweeny Todd and Rocky Horror - though, by all accounts, they could be construed as too gruesome, offensive or sexual to warrant a school play based on them; and a watered down version just wouldn't do the same.

So remember to show your support for our Blues Brothers 2009 campaign. If you haven't seen the film, go pick up a copy now. It's a legend of a film. Unlike a certain High School Musical...

Wednesday 27 February 2008

Little Shop of Horrors

It's been mentionned here on numerous occasions, but now that the show has opened, it's only fair we devote a full article to the show. And we'll be as impartial as possible.

As writer Noodle previously wrote, the budget for the performance was blown on the flower alone; and after watching the show, it's easy to see why. Almost every scene saw a new, bigger plant introduced, resulting in it's final incarnation as the stage-dwarfing behemoth of fake foliage we saw by the end of the night. Whether it needed to be so massive, we're undecided (apparently it took 3/4 people inside the plant to lift it, making it appear to "speak" etc), but it certainly looked impressive. And though an odd one or two leaves has fallen off prior to the show, taking a bit of the sparkle from it, it still served to amuse the entire audience.

The rest of the stage looked mighty fine, and must've been a mammoth task to produce - including the inbuilt doors and shelves, and it never ceases to baffle quite where they obtained a dentist's chair.

The acting, in whole, was of a great standard - although, it must be noted, some of singing by the supporting cast was too quiet to make out. And certainly around the area in which one informant was sitting, it caused quite a stir amongst the crowd. It's only right to expect that not all of the cast would be immense singers, but at times it appeared they were mouthing but silent, which really did prevent the show reaching it's full potential. However, this may not be as much of an issue during the second and third nights of the show (tonight, and tomorrow), if those in question can try and work on it for the final shows.

All in all, whilst minor irritations did subtract from the atmosphere, it proved to be a great night for all, or at least the majority, of those in attendance. However, the school did seem slightly desperate to recoup some money of the back of the show; charging £5 for child's tickets and £7 for adults (though some people may not mind paying that ammount). It all depends on one's own perception, but to this "one"s perception, the cost was slightly overblown. Though feel free to disagree with me.

The website, which has already been discussed in passing, looks much less impressive however. Underpublicised, and rather bland, it certainly wouldn't have interested me to attend the show. So what, exactly, is it for? Nothing, we assume. Even now, with the final night only a day away, it has next to no content, and the "links" section is described as coming soon. The site will be obsolete by around 7pm tomorrow, how much sooner can it come?

All things considered, it's worth going to see. And whilst it's a bit late to convince you to attend tonight's performance in little over an hour, it's definately worth buying tickets at the door for tomorrow's final night showing. Not all Temple Moor shows have been this good, so we suggest you make the most. And whilst we're yet unsure what next year's play will be, we hope it can irradicate the nuisances in this year's show to make the subsequent one our best ever.

Thor: while this one was great, and we can hope next year's will be better (as F43L mentioned), do remember there's rumours floating around that the production will be High School Musical, the chirpy, happy Disney musical that's unreasonably popular. We will very likely boycott such a move.

Monday 25 February 2008

Car Park

The builders are up to more of their evil ways in their latest endeavour. Because their equipment take up a lot of space, teachers have now lost their parking spots and are now forced to park outside of school.
Brown Cow pub and behind the C0-op are two popular car parks for the teachers. However I wouldn't be surprised if people even park in Temple Newsam.

So that's another fail under the builders' belts. We might have tally up the fails and see who has more. The school or the builders.


In other news their is a rumour of a Temple Moor related sex video on the Internet somewhere. At this time we can't confirm this is true but as one writer put it "It's damn hot!"

Maths trip for year 11s tomorrow. And even though the people at Tempo-online won't have a clue what we're on about, we're still going to blog about it tomorrow.

[Commenting disabled on this post because you're all horny teenagers. Apart from the staff. Also, please don't post senseless comments elsewhere or we'll turn off comments all together!]

Random collection of unrelated topics

It lacks the imaginative title of many of my previous articles, but in this instance, I feel the title is apt. This is nothing more than a random collection of unrelated topics. Starting with a rather ironic quote from a certain English Teacher (whom teaches both GCSE and A-level classes, as we are aware) - apparently, it should be "more wider". Rather poor grasp of the language from a teacher of the subject, is it not? And worse still, she didn't even attempt to correct herself. Did she not register her own mistake? That's even worse for a teacher. But all in all, it created a semi-humorous talking point for the next few minutes, so all is forgiven. We're not so mean after all, are we?

Moving on to a Year 11 History lesson, Templar Truths is aware that a torrent of racist abuse was hurled back and forth today - though neither of the "Jews" as they referred to each other were Jewish. As far as we know. It certainly wasn't meant in a joking manner, so besides the fact the two involved need to work on their insults, the other major matter at hand was precisely why the teacher of this lesson took such a long time to intervene. Is the school publically condoning racism now? Perhaps, perhaps not. It's not our place to say. But maybe we'll consider this for next week's poll?

And in a final topic, a certain Mathematics teacher has recently launched into multiple monologues on how the blog - yes, gasp, teachers have found out about us - is always so negative. So as a personal favour, we've seen fit to be a little more constructive in our next article about them. But since we have little to blog about on this occasion, let's just discuss the new stamp in the Maths department. It's... nice. Certainly the new Pi-shaped stamp is a lot more appropriate than the previous, dull as dishwater 'X' that would emblazon every planner it touched. However, we can't let the teacher in question got away scott-free. It has to be said that the new stamp has a much greater surface area (something they should know a lot about given their profession), and so it wastes more ink. But then again, the previous stamp wasted huge areas of blank space, meaning the excess ink was thrown away. I guess it's a no win situation. Prizes for anyone who can calculate which is more wasteful. Joking aside, yes, it is (as close as we'll find to) an improvement. So there you have it - we're not so cruel after all, are we?

And that's pretty much it. English errors, racism and maths stamps. Interesting, aren't they?


[Thanks to Atomfox for correcting a spelling mistake.]

Sunday 24 February 2008

The PD Shop

Here's the reason we get those red pigs in our planners. The PD shop. When you can exchange your pig stamps for whatever is being sold.

They've taken this concept of rewards for getting rewards for doing good stuff and taken it to their own level. But what's it like? What does it sell? Why do you even care?

Walking into M4 - the classroom that becomes a PD store after Period 5 - you get a sense that it's all been FUBAR (a military acronym - if you don't know what it means, Google it). There's children lined up behind tables waving their planners around. Some people have just one pig, others have stupidly high amounts. Occasionally, they will be offered the chance to buy something. For one stamp, you can get three pens or pencils. Two stamps gets you a bit more, or possibly a maths kit. Remember: pigs mean prizes. Or something.

The other selling point is the raffle. Buy a ticket and be entered into the draw. For an iPod Shuffle. We've heard that the school has only procured this iPod because they didn't give it out in a past competition as a prize, even though they were supposed to.

The PD Shop is, as far as we know, currently closed until some later point in the year, when it will be open for "business" once again...

Saturday 23 February 2008

Tempo Online

Don't be fooled by the title, this isn't about Temple Moor uploading issues of Tempo onto the web in PDF form - they haven't done that in ages. No, we're talking about the brand new blog Tempo-Online (odd hyphens are definitely cool, didn't you get the memo?).

"This is not a rip off of Templar Truths" they quickly assert under their title. The aim, though, is quite similar to Templar Truths' aim:
This isnt a copy of templar truths they are legend. we just thought that the current half-termly tempo magazine really is a bit shit so we thought hey lets start this up and you can write articles in for yourself with your name included or not w.e so jus email tempo-online@googlemail.com

We're legendary, apparently. But the real question: will they be?

Well their grammar and spelling isn't perfect - neither is our's, but we capitalise the first letter of sentences - and they only have two posts so far. One is their introduction, and the second is actually about the lack of fire alarms.

Currently, they're quite low on content, then. But even we took a while to evolve into the beast you see today. We'll have to give them a chance to see how well they develop, and we encourage you to do the same.

Why the need for another blog, anyway? What's wrong with this one? They explain in an email:
we feel that as we arent from your year (we r yr 10s) half of the time some of your posts dont make sense to us

Sorry to all of those who don't understand some of our posts - we hope you like the rest of our blog. And Tempo-Online are after some writers, so email them if you're in need of somewhere to vent your anger about TMHS.

Deputy "Principal" Interviews

Note that I still use quotation marks when using the term "Principal". In fact, forget it, I'll just continue to use the term headteacher. Curse the day I become an American.

So, on the Friday just gone, pupils were unceremoniously pulled out of lessons to attend mock lessons with potential deputy headteachers. What really bemused me was that Year 11s, with just months left ahead of their final exams, were pulled from crucial lessons to attend these sessions - many of us shall soon be taking exams that determine our futures. But why learn the material, when we could sit listening to a candidate who, quite frankly, brought many pupils to the point of cringing. As if being oblivious to the concept of a joke wasn't bad enough, they proceeded to try and force a continued smile when, deep down, they were surely feeling as miserable as we were.

That's one candidate you can knock off the list, Temple Moor. In fact, why don't you knock them all off, and just put one of us as deputy? The Templar Truths team are ideal candidates, any one of us. The majority of us have near-impeccable grammar and spelling, know exactly what pupils want (we ARE pupils) and probably have a better idea of how to run the school. Oh, and I dare say we're just as educated as some of the teachers already present at the school.

If all the candidates are this bad, just give up now. And please don't be so stupid as to pull Year 11s out of lessons that could well prove the difference-maker in our approaching exams. It's just ignorance.

Wednesday 20 February 2008

Little Shop gets own site

There's just a handful of Temple Moor websites. The official one, the Wikipedia article and this blog. But now there's another officially sanctioned website - and it's to publicise Little Shop Of Horrors.

lsoh.co.uk is, currently, a large image - basically a digital version of the poster you can see around school. "Site opens: 18th Feb" declares the page. Today is the 20th Feb, so who knows when the site will have more stuff on it? It's all very nice and colourful - generally looking pretty good.

But there's still one question: why? It's most likely because the school has blown its budget (covered here by Templar Truths) and so they want to boost ticket sales to their maximum. Well, guys, if all you've got is a big picture then it's not likely to work.

Now, you don't think all we're going to do is praise, do you? The webpage title is "Little Shop Of Horror". Pardon me, but it's "Horrors" - there's many horrors, not just one. A look at the source code reveals this mistake is everywhere - in the description and keywords. "Tickets on sale from W3" it says - but if they're trying to attract a large audience, they might need more detail than that. Like where the school is.

Finally, if you hit Ctrl+A (for "select all"), you'll see tiny text with keywords - is Temple Moor trying to boost its Google PageRank by adding lots of keywords? Tut, tut. Would they like it if we appeared top of a Google search for "temple moor"? I doubt it. But what the hell...

Temple Moor, TMHS, Temple Moor High School Science College, Leeds, school, chlorine gas leak

Smoking Man adds:
Ironically enough, even though the school has gone to the trouble of sneaking in these keywords, googling "Temple Moor Little Shop" or "Temple Moor Little Shop of Horrors" brings us up as the first result! lsoh.co.uk is not, in fact, on the front page at all. Way to fail guys!

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Drugs Raid

Today, all year 11 Templars were told that they would be having a visit from a drugs dog who was going to see if it could catch anyone 'red handed', so to speak.

The first surprise was the dog. Most people were expecting this huge vicious alsation, that snarled and growled and was generally scary, but no. It was a cute, lovable spaniel, who, by all accounts, 'just sniffed people'.

The second surprise was, only seemingly random forms from each year were picked to have this 'opportunity' (or drug-bust, as we call it), after everybody had been sent a letter saying that this would happen to them.

The third, and possibly most humorous surprise, was that this drugs raid turned out to be a necessity for a certain pupil in year 10 who, after presumably receiving the same letter that everyone else got telling them the time and date of the drugs raid, thought it would be a fabulous idea to bring some cannabis into school. What a clever chappie (aka complete tool).

Also, in all seriousness, why did the school see fit to warn us of this? surely the idea is to catch people who do bring drugs in to school and make an example of them, not warn everyone of the exact date and time it would be taking place, thereby enabling people who would normally bring drugs to school (an intensely bad idea if a may add) to not bring them in! (apart from the tool in year 10, who is just foolish, or maybe toolish)

Turn up the Tempo

Only two days into the term and the school has unleashed its latest publication of the school magazine "Tempo".

This month edition boasts a front cover showing how brave templars are being made to slave away in the kitchen coming up with new ideas for school meals, however to me it would seem more like they're promoting international vegetarianism by the looks of the garden products on the table. I'm sure the current message on eating healthily is that you should be having a "balanced diet", but to the school this means that you are only allowed either vegetables or fruit. Also, it appears like they're trying to describe what they're making as fast food, "fast food wins fab four house points" is this some sort of joke or play on words, cause I don't really think wit is their strong point.

Turn the page and what does catch my attention is that of an article titled The Big Conversation, it describes recently how a group of year 9's made a video (complete with kaiser chief theme tune) for an entry into a national competition called (surprisingly) The Big Conversation. Well first congrats to the templars involved for being ranked in the top ten in the country...however, i must say the topic of your video was maybe slightly out of date. After all slavery was abolished a fair old while ago now.

Over the page once more and I find what i thought was some sort of bad art project printed in one of the articles, but no it is instead the London 2012 Olympic logo. The article (titled Young Ambassadors) details how two templars are helping to promote the Olympics. sport and healthy living, yeah cause the Olympics encourages healthy living. Many have already suffered epileptic fits from seeing the animated logo and there is no don't that countless athletes with be taking the customary performance enhancing drugs. Very healthy indeed.

One thing I do notice about pages 4 and 5 is that it seems the writers of tempo have adopted a policy of use alliteration and it makes you seem ten times smarter. Well that's not the case but there are some beauties in this issue such as, "Summer Sports Success" (unlucky for those with a lisp), "Street Smarts" (again with the S), "Trying for a Trophy" (not quite as impressive as the others as only the first and last words begin with T but a good attempt) and finally my personal favourite "Fast Food From Fab Four" now that really is almighty audacious alliterative accidence.

Now, a few little mentions now just to finish off with:
  • On page 6 it would appear the staff are improving their bilingual skills with such headlines as “Toulouse: Le Trek”
  • On page 7 it would appear that one poor templar has had to write an article about there self, although they do try and cover this up by speaking in third person, but I’m afraid there name was printed at the bottom of the article, unlucky.
  • On page 8 it mentions how the soul singers are now going out of school to do small shows. So now the school has resorted to busking in the streets to try and raise funds, for shame.
Finally, one quick check of the school website and it would appear there is no sign of the Tempo anywhere on site. The only thing that ever seems to get updated on there is the date in the top corner. See for yourself here. Last thing, you will notice on the logo of the Tempo magazine the "O" is leaning over, is this meant to depict how wrecked the school is? Decide for yourself.

Monday 18 February 2008

R.A.G

The curriculum for English at GCSE level requires students to study texts which were written for different purposes, one such article was the 'Cannabis: Should it be legalised' extract from the Daily Express. The argument for no, it should not be leagalised, had many convincing points, it would, it's cannabis people. 'Without exception, everybody who regularly smoked dope lost their motivation to succeed.' After receiving several letters that declared in bold that I was on the red cohort overall, the first of these letters was received a week or so before I started my trial exams, the thing that, as so often drilled into year 11 students, 'would be the thing that would be relied on as evidence if a accident occurred which prevents the students from entering the exams come June'. Now we all know what confidence is and how school aims to increase a pupil's confidence with policies & activities, but a letter???? A week before crucial exams???? The second letter I didn't care about, the RAG system no longer exists in my mind apart from the fact that it means that I have to take part in extra-curricular activities nearly every day of the week. After having to do ludicrous things last year such as 3 hours of science resits in one sitting I have lost all faith in gaining relief from this depressing system which is 'under review'.
As a direct result I have lost motivation for science, which was dull to begin with, even my second favourite subject, Art, has lost appeal slightly as I only achieved an A for my trial exam, which I did not even complete, I was placed on the list for after school sessions due to the fact that I was two marks below it. Which begs the question is the RAG system school's new equivalent to cannabis and if it is should it be made illegal?

Deal or no deal?


Well, if you're at Temple Moor, definitely no deal.

The brilliant staff at temple moor thought it would be a wonderful idea to reward people for coming to school by holding a "deal or no deal" style assembly for every year. The idea being that everyone who was at school the whole week before half-term would have the chance to win some money, deal or no deal style. There would be "money" (in the form of HMV vouchers) in boxes ranging from 1p to £25 (a 1p HMV voucher? I'd love to see one of those) and one person would pick which boxes to open, while 10 others would stand behind the boxes and keep whatever was in their box. There was also a very retro phone which the 'banker' would 'ring up' and offer the person a 'deal'.

What actually happened was this: after severe technical difficulties, 11 people were picked at random, one to play the game and the others to open boxes, and were made (to their shock and humiliation) to stand up in front of the whole year and stand behind the boxes, while the 11th person (even more to their humiliation) had to pick what boxes to open. Halfway through, the host (fortunatly NOT Noel Edmonds) randomly picked up the phone saying "oohh the banker has an offer for you!", which was some obscure amount like £5.20 (for some reason), the picker rejected this humble offering and ruthlessly went on to walk away with something like 50p (in HMV vouchers?). In all a fairly lultastic amount of fail (as per usual at Temple Moor).

All we are trying to say is Temple Moor should not try to emulate a crappy TV show hosted by Noel Edmonds.

Friday 8 February 2008

Is new building worth trouble?

Guest writer Zrawchs' previous post was a marathon of writing. Now a fully-fledged writing team member, is the new building worth its trouble?

New, expensive buildings for schools will always raise the question Is it all that neccessary?well personally i think the idiot who asks that question about our school needs serious help because clearly they have some sort of mental retartation!

The question they should be asking is in fact.. is it worth the trouble of having new buildings be built by the walking disaster that is the work force being payed to systematically try to kill us. I may seem a little harsh on the builders but please allow me to explain, there has been many an occasion in which their sheer stupidity has been blinding. For example i was quite happy walking around where art meets p.e, the site of ridiculasly expensive building 1 and they were using a crane to pull rolls of loft insulation onto the roof, sounds simple no? well they managed to drop one of those rolls off the crane sending it tumbling into the metal frame of the building and crashing to the floor in a heap of dust next to a group of rather scared looking work men, i know for a fact they are bloody heavy (the insulation not the builders, althought im sure there no bag of feathers) or another example when the art rooms flooded what did they see fit to do? well thats just it they did sweet F.A, and thats not to mention the wonderful demonstration of brains when they thought "oh look a chlorine tank, lets bust it open and see
what comes out..... oh no deadly gas who'd have thought?"

So i conclude that yes the new buildings are worth having but probably not worth the risk of having those half witted,
shovel happy builders around unless they start teaching "duck and cover" again in the classroom.

Bye bye budget

Introducing Templar Truths' brand new writer Noodle...

A few weeks past I was informed (by a reliable source) that the school, or at least the drama department has ridiculously blown its budget out of the metaphorical window. Apparently, the schools next production "Little Shop of Horrors" has broken the bank for the school. Although the show looks to have all the signs of a brilliant performance, the schools bank performance seems considerably less award worthy.

The story is that because the show is so high held in the performing circle it costs a lot of money to get the performing rights too, also some may know that within the show there is a large mechanical plant that has to be rented. I was informed that the school paid over £1000 for this one piece of equipment and apparently that's the cheapest it comes. The music departments yearly budget is around £2000, combine the cost with various other things needed for the show and the numbers get rather dizzying. Now, lets cast our minds back to one year gone by and to the last school production of "Bugsy Malone" (which i must was rather enjoyable) but to stay on topic this production also cost the school a fair old bit of money, a fair old bit of money that the school still need to pay out; around £200 of it.

So what does this tell us my fellow templars what does all this tell us. Well for a start the schools budgeting skills have a lot to be desired but also that the schools leading body doesn't believe it necessary to give the drama and music departments proper funding to make the show go as smoothly as possible, instead they believe it a better idea to under-fund them and cause panic and confusion to those who have enough of it putting up with actually trying to get the show done. It shows quite clearly how much certain pieces within the school are under valued, clearly the money doesn't go to anything worthwhile; lets face it the builders aren't exactly the cream of the crop, what is it now five fire bells in as many weeks as my fellow bloggers of pointed out.

I leave with this, my heart goes out to all those involved with the show as there's obviously a lot of pressure on you to do the best you can, under-funded or not I'm sure the show will be one of the best despite the schools plentiful slip ups. Good luck to you!

Burn, Baby Burn!

If only it would. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you're all aware, we've had 5 fire alarms in roughly as many weeks - not one of them being a genuine fire. Now we know some fires have been caused by construction work and so on, however, there is absolutely no excuse for the magnitude of false alarms we've seen over the past several weeks. It's simply stunning, and it leads one to believe that the school are entirely incompetant. Obviously they aren't deliberately sounding the alarm, but they're surely running out of excuses by now. In fact, yes they have; we're now blaming it on the P.E. Department once again. Or so it is rumoured.

As we revealed several weeks ago, one of the earlier alarms was caused by steam from the P.E. showers (confessed by a teacher), so how could P.E. have done it this time? Assuming they've done something about the utter fiasco that led to a shower of all things sending us surging out into the cold, how else could they have done it? A stary football knocking a builder off his perch onto a fire alarm mechanism? A P.E. teacher with a vengeance angrily putting his fist through the alarm? An elaborate ploy by a disgruntled headteacher to pin the blame on innocent P.E. advocates?

Lord knows how it's happened again, but it has. And if the fire alarm goes any more, I have a feeling it's going to turn into the famous story of the School that cried Fire. It went something like this;

A teacher stood around one day, looking after a herd of students who were happily grazing on a book of frustratingly tedious maths problems, when he decides to liven up the day by crying "Fire!". The fire engines come screeching in, as the teacher makes up a phony, obviously desperate excuse to get out of prosecution, pinning it on the P.E. Department. Well, the same thing happened week after week, until one day, annoyed beyond belief by the stupid staff, the fire department teamed up with a bitter group of pupils in one of the most harrowing massacres of modern history, leaving many staff dead or wounded. It's a sickening children's story, yes, but one that I just had to recount...

Drugs raid

Well, certainly an excuse for one.
Today Templars received a letter telling them about a passive drugs dog visiting the school (passive drugs dog? one that doesn't bite? Or does that mean it's just really chilled out all the time?) Pretty good ey? Templars will have an opportunity to "ask questions to the dog handler and their police colleagues." As part of the demonstration the dog will be circulating amongst pupils and if it finds anything "further action may be taken by the school, the police, or both". Does this or does this not just sound like an excuse for a drugs raid? I mean come on, they bring a drugs dog in and it sniffs around the pupils to see if they have any drugs, call it learning and bang! it's not a drugs raid, it's a "Drugs Awareness program." Yeah, you will certainly be made aware when you're in prison for possession!
Joking aside, this is a fairly good idea. Let's just hope the fire alarm doesn't go off halfway through this as well.

F43L adds..

A story which has been quite amusing since the letters were distributed today, I couldn't sit by and let Smoking Man alone take credit for breaking this news. But, importantly, I have to add that I feel it is a rather stupid idea. Not the drugs raid, but the fact we are warned in advance of it. I'm not sure whether we are forced to do so by law, or whether the school just didn't see the obvious flaw, but think about it - now the pupils likely to bring drugs with them will abstain from doing so until after the drugs raid. It's basically a letter telling potential drug handlers to hide their evidence before the police come. How stupid.

Thor says:
I hope the school now gets to sing Just Say No! And remember, kids, don't go planting drugs on your teachers.

Wednesday 6 February 2008

Credits Error/Cafeteria/Revision

Whether it be websites, computers or the prone-to-failure BSF project, there seems to be no end to Temple Moor's stupendous ability to turn every aspect of school life a farce. Except the Stock Market Challenge, where the Temple Moor team managed to finish second. Bravo!

Look in your planner. Go. Now. Check the amount of spaces for credits you've got in those green pages. It goes all the way up to 800 credits. How anyone is supposed to get there I don't know, but that's not the point. The SIMS.net database that's used by the school to centralise every bit of data - target grades, achieved grades, attendance records for every lesson and even photographs - has a space for teachers to input credit amounts during Guidance or registration. The maximum amount you're allowed to put in? 700. So if you reach that number of credits, just give up.

It may be over-priced, over-healthy and packed to its capacity, but enjoy the cafeteria while you still can. See, over Easter, it's going to be demolished. But don't worry! They'll build a new one. The new cafeteria will take the same spot occupied by the current cafeteria, so they need to knock one down before they can even start on the next. And they've got two weeks to do it in. What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, those on "amber" for History (using everyone's favourite system, traffic lights RAG) get more revision sessions than those on "red". We're not sure if this is true, but if it is, then Temple Moor have royally screwed up their own ridiculous system.

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Official site in update shock

You read that title right. The hardly updated school website has been updated. Actually, it's been updated more regularly than ever before...and all since this blog started and we criticised the site. What am I implying? Make up your own minds.

The most noticeable change is the front page spiel from Mr Fleetwood. Actually, that's probably a good thing - he'd kept the same text as Sheriff put up. But the new version is a lot smaller. Fewer words by far. Bizarrely though, the text has massive gaps in between lines of text? Why is this? A quick peek at the page's source code (the HTML that is rendered by your browser into the page you see) reveals this code:
< p >Welcome to the website of Temple Moor High School Science College.< /p >
< p >&nbps< /p >
What does this mean? Well, sensibly, they've put the text in a paragraph (denoted by the < P > tags), but then they've added another paragraph and all that's in it is a space. The next paragraph starts after that. But < P > tags cause spacing between paragraphs anyway, so the extra paragraph is redundant. Not only this, but as you can see on the site, it looks awful.

There's some news! Sadly they've kept the news presentation as awful scrolling news with marquee> tags that were last cool in 1996.
Look at me! I'm text that moves. Temple Moor is excellent...moving text proves it.
One headline is this: "
Half Term Holidays - school closes Friday 8 February and reopens Monday 18 February". Out goes succinct, then. The actual article text is this: "School closes on Friday, 8 February and reopens on Monday, 18 February." Honestly. It's shorter than the headline and discloses no extra information. What's the point?

Spotted something awful on the site? Made a mock-up of how it should look? Or something else related to the official website? If so, stick it in the comments.

Sorry about the awful representation of HTML tags, but if you put them in, Blogger thinks it's code you want - even when wrapped with < code > tags.

Monday 4 February 2008

Complaint Letter

It used to be the case where you carefully typed a complaint letter, but those days are over. Now you can get it automatically done at the automatic complaint letter generator. Can it surmise the missteps, errors, disasters, flamingo-ups (like cock-ups, but bigger) and general aura of failure around Temple Moor? Here's a three-paragraph letter of anger:

I, for one, will not waste my time criticizing or insulting Temple Moor High School as 1) it is unlikely to change, and 2) Temple Moor High School probably revels in the letters of shock and repulsion that it regularly receives. Instead, I will focus on its discourteous, pathetic morals, which, after all, are the things that brandish the word "counterexpostulation" (as it is commonly spelled) to hoodwink people into believing that the cure for evil is more evil. To begin with, I wish I didn't have to be the one to break the news that people should just treat each other with decency and respect. Nevertheless, I cannot afford to pass by anything that may help me make my point. So let me just state that as our society continues to unravel, more and more people will be grasping for straws, grasping for something to hold onto, grasping for something that promises to give them the sense of security and certainty that they so desperately need. These are the types of people Temple Moor High School preys upon.

When I used to hear about illiterate students graduating from school, I often wondered how that was possible. But after encountering some of Temple Moor's more prolix plans for the future, I now realize that not only is it possible for people to graduate without having learned fundamental skills such as reading and writing, but that it's possible for these same people to believe that the best way to reduce cognitive dissonance and restore homeostasis to one's psyche is to attack everyone else's beliefs. Let me begin by saying that Temple Moor may be reasonably cunning with words. However, it is entirely uncontrollable with everything else. The main dissensus between me and Temple Moor is that I claim that Temple Moor has been working for years to create a moral and ideological climate in which patronizing twits can malign and traduce me. It, on the other hand, contends that public opinion is a reliable indicator of what's true and what isn't. It seems ironic that I have resisted taking legal action against Temple Moor, as others have advised me to do, given that its cat's-paws are an amalgamation of slaphappy braggadocios, baleful fruitcakes, and other unpatriotic, lamebrained prima donnas. This is equivalent to saying that because of its obsession with pharisaism, Temple Moor's secret agents all look like Temple Moor, think like Temple Moor, act like Temple Moor, and push our efforts two steps backward, just like Temple Moor does. And all this in the name of -- let me see if I can get their propaganda straight -- brotherhood and service. Ha!

To use some computer terminology, Temple Moor's flock has an "installed base" of hundreds of barbaric pillocks. The implication is that the only weapons Temple Moor has in its intellectual arsenal are book burning, brainwashing, and intimidation. That's all it has, and it knows it. Clearly, Temple Moor claims that the average working-class person can't see through its chicanery. That claim is preposterous and, to use Temple Moor's own language, overtly shallow. No history can justify it. One last thing: Temple Moor's sinful snow jobs benefit from this sense of "us versus them".


Damn. I think I'm out of a job...

Don't give up on Templar Truths just yet though. We're still a great source of news. For example, Year 10 students studying business will be soon taking part in the Stock Market Challenge - well, someone needs to help. We also know that one teacher "bullied a Student to carry her hand bag as it was slightly heavy". Scandalous stuff.

It's the start of attendance target week thing. Ready for Deal or No Deal? I am. Can't wait to see how laughably bad the whole thing will most likely be. In case it's a success, though, we'll notice - thanks to our keen eyesight (we can spot tiny bamboo sticks from miles away). After that shambles-to-be (have they even signed up Noel Edmonds?), it's half-term, so teachers can take a break from boring us all with ox-bow lakes.

Friday 1 February 2008

What's The Best Policy?

On Temple Moor's often-joked about website, there's a list of the school's "policies". Because we at Templar Truths seriously have nothing better to do, here's some highlights from the policies.

Assemblies should "provide a collective act of worship". Never in my school life at Temple Moor has assembly ever created any atmosphere of religious worship. We've never bowed our heads to thank the almighty God for giving us builders who try to kill us with chlorine. Another point, not mentioned in the policy PDFs is that Temple Moor's assembly themes - pinned on noticeboards in all classrooms - are never adhered to.

"Pupils will be taught ways to validate information before accepting that it is necessarily accurate" says the Internet Access PDF. Here's a case study: Temple Moor's website and this blog. We try to be accurate, while maintaining high levels of satire and comedy. We're not afraid to speak the truth. Also, "pupils will be made aware that the writer of an e-mail or the author of a web page might not be the person claimed". Fair enough. For example, I - Thor - am not really a Norse God.

More from Internet Access: "the security of the whole system will be reviewed with regards to threats to security from Internet access". How about we stop using Internet Explorer 6? Even if Firefox/Opera is deemed a step too far (i.e. sensible), IE7 would be beneficial, surely? "Personal floppy disks may not be brought into school without specific permission and virus check" - this means if you bring in a floppy disk (because you're from the Dark Ages, I assume), it will be checked for viruses before you get to use it. Sensible? Perhaps. Complicated and slowing down education? Most definitely. Also, Temple Moor reserves the right to monitor every file you make, every website you visit and wants you to ask a teacher before you log onto the 'Net.

Does your form tutor "check that all pupils have a planner before they leave morning registration"? Mine doesn't. However, some (apparently) do this. You cannot be in a lesson if you "have a proper planner". I've known people go entire days without their planners - this system needs tightening up, or forgetting about. Ever been in a class where you're all on a verbal warning? "Whole classes must never to given verbal warning" says the policy. Ignore the awful grammar (it's supposed to say "whole classes must never be given a verbal warning") and remember this when your teacher says it.

"Do not leave students outside the classroom for more than two minutes" is one that's often adhered to, but it's not unknown for teachers to leave them longer. "It is essential", reads the policy in bold type, "that teachers read the [detention] notices to the pupils". That is a damn good idea. So why, I can only wonder, have Temple Moor abandoned common sense and gone with the idea of getting pupils to read the detention lists themselves?

If you really want to gain an understanding as to what happens in Temple Moor, and why, some of these policies are essential reading.

*Oink*!

So as it turns out the PD shop wont be next week but in fact the first week back on the Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Supposedly not all the teachers have their pig stamps yet so come Monday most people wont be able to use the PD store. However as it turns out some tutors do have a pig stamp.

Well for starters, the first key issue is that the page is titled "PD voucher Stamps" although these don't look like vouchers, they look like pigs. Well that's what most people would say. But to me it looks like it has a testicle for a nose. Secondly, it's not exactly pink. It looks more like a red to me. And in the land of TMHS what does red mean? Underachievement. Fail. Awful. Get it away from me before I gouge my eyes out with a history textbook. How ironically fitting.

We'll do a poll for the colour. Let the Templars as a whole decide on the vindication of this fail. Also, if you have an opinion on the stamp, e-mail us it and we might post it.