Newsletter V Us

With very little news and lots of letters, what has the latest newsletter got to say? You could check out the PDF, or read the Templar Truths condensed version, complete with what we'd say.

Autumn Term
"beginning to see the new school take shape", "learning to share the reduced space", "setting and maintaining Standards", "Standards Assemblies", "world class students"
The builders are getting somewhere at last. But behaviour's going down the pan, so the school is forcing yet more assemblies upon us. And they're deluded about the quality of Templars.

Holidays
"Staff development day", "Christmas", "closed at 2:00PM on Friday 21"
They're letting us leave when? The 21st? That's just four days before Christmas. Is this legal?

Communication With Temple Moor
"always available to speak with you", "ring to make an appointment", "contact numbers:"
Apparently, the school has an email address. Who knew? Actually, several Nigerian bankers...

Wild In The Woods
"project at Skelton Grange Environment Centre", "wonder and adventure", "pond dipping", "students have used sticks, string and elastic bands to make their own sculptures"
A desperate attempt to get kids interested in nature, by making art on the cheap. And a snigger-inducing name to boot!

Lost Property
"accrued a large amount of lost property", "be much easier...all their belongings clearly marked"
The school's fed up of picking up dirty old jumpers - write your name in them, will you? What if you lose, say, a watch? How do you write your name in that, eh?

Year 11 Trial Exams
"begin week commencing..."
Great...but most Year 11s only got this newsletter after the exams. Smart.

Travel And Tourism
"organised a visit to London", "world famous 'Madame Tussauds' "
Look, they've put Madame Tussards in quote marks...perhaps it wasn't the real Madame Tussards, but just some Travel & Tourism students standing really still.

After Hours
"sessions have recommenced", "catch up on any coursework", "complete homework"
You can do homework at school. Defeats the point, though, don't you think?

Attendance
"this half term parents will have received letters", "raising the awareness of attendance"
Basically, school's attendance is bad. What can improve it? Only RAG, clearly...

NER Engineers Forum
"attended a lecture", "building a human bridge", "a fantastic success", "children were well involved...well behaved"
School took some kids to participate in a fun day out. No-one died, did any killing or anything bad. Hmm...sure they were TMHS kids?

Homework Club
"running well again this year", "get on with their homework"
Has After Hours (above) got a rival? This is the most boring rivalry ever. Hands down.

RE Gifted and Talented Conference
"a Philosophy & Ethics conference", "range of discussions", "where is God?", "nihilism", "problem of evil", " 'it opened up my mind' "
It's a good job they talked about nihilism. In a conference like this, I'd be fairly nihilistic!

"Coca Cola Challenge"
"helping Coca Cola produce their range of drinks in a more environmentally friendly way", "we didn't get through to the next round"
When it comes to Templars trying to be eco-friendly, they fail. Maybe because their school sets an example like Hitler at a Pro-Semitism Conference.

Performance
"samba band (TEMPOAGOGO)", "Soul Singers continue to grow", "successful performance", "rehearsals...underway...for Little Shop of Horrors"
Little Shop has plenty of potential to be a good performance, if the acting and singing is up to scratch. But pray it's better the samba band's name - TEMPOAGOGO. Yes, it must always be written in capitals.

Temple Moor Award Winners!
"International Development work rewarded by receiving a prestigious government award", "work to promote awareness of the wider world"
There's an oxymoron.

Great Gifts Campaign 2007
"helping less fortunate families overseas", "gifts from the World Vision alternative gift catalogue", "mosquito nets", "a myriad of goats"
Let's forget those less fortunate families who live in the UK for a moment. You know what happens when you send goats (especially a "myriad", of which one definition is "ten thousand")? These poor, starving families need to feed the goats. Where will they get that food? Think these gifts through, please.

Free Books for Year 7
"lucky enough to receive a free reading book", "a list of twelve titles"
Free books? If anyone knows what they were, please email or leave comments. Because free books doesn't usually inspire quality, does it?

Design Faculty Clubs
"Art Club", "Food Club", "Drop In Art Club", "Textiles Catch Up Club", "Resistant Materials Catch Up Club"
Plenty of choice - and you'll need to choose, some occur at the same time on the same day. Clever, huh?

New Building Progress
"first phase...well underway", "design block", "Science, ICT suites and dining area", "sports hall extension", "an indoor 'street' lined with lockers", "planned to be complete by December 2008"
Well it's all very exciting and we can't wait to see how good/awful the new building will be as a learning environment. But December 2008? Are they sure they can do all that's left in just one year? I know they're hopelessly optimistic, but someone's been feeding the school happy pills. Good news: chlorine levels down 100%.

Year 7 Induction Days
"team building games", "tug of war"
After stupid games and a tug-of-war match, they've still decided Temple Moor is the place to be.

Cook-Off Competition
"very popular house competition", "submit their own 'healthy' recipe"
Don't use quote marks! 'Healthy' means it isn't. Fools!

BTEC Sports Course Kicks Off at Temple Moor
"introduction of the BTEC sports and Exercise qualification", "in-school placements", "equivalent of 4 GCSEs"
Kids are learning to be teachers. This is going to be a never-ending circle, isn't it?

Lower School Dance Club
"growing and growing", "dance performance of Fame"
It's dancing. What more can we say?

Sports Coats for Sale
"students are now able to purchase rain jackets", "new Temple Moor PE and Sport logo", "cost £25"
What are these things? Two words: Fleetwood's Macs.

"Moor" on the web

Oh, yes, isn't that pun just hilarious? It's like "more on the web", but incorporating part of the school's name. Either way you look at it, it's certainly a lot cleverer than this:

Don't ask me what that's all about. But here's what the uploader said about it:

This were i fell off my bike at my mates i broke my wrist and my elbow and went flying over my handle bars and did a 180 flip
-beastypie07

The video's got only 17 views as I type this, hasn't been rated out of five stars at all yet and has no clicks from any website. But if you're after more from beastypie07, the sensibly-named YouTube user, check out his other video "Garner v Danny" - yes, it's another appalling bad fight, set to awful music.

And now onto more positive news. The website Urban Dictionary is a bit like Wikipedia, but a dictionary. Users define new phrases and words that have come into use. What's "The Henry Winkler", a "vague chesire on AIM" or "glowmophobia"? I suggest you avoid them, and instead look at "cumhead". Not sure what it means? Well one definition is this:

The word cumhead orginates from Temple Moor High School.

The word means someone who puts so much gel on their hair, you can actually see little lumps of it. Making it appear to be cum in a sort of way

"Hey cumhead, what's that's in your hair?"
"Gel"
"It looks like cum to me cumhead"

Makes you proud to attend the school, doesn't it?

Website updated

About time! Today, the school website has changed its scrolling marquee of news text. School's shut tomorrow.

Finally, they've sorted out the website. You can now click on "Post 16" and go to a functioning webpage. The latest newsletter is available in PDF format, though Tempo magazines are still missing. We at Templar Truths applaud the effort made by whoever's done this.

But don't you think it's a bit late to tell us today that we're off school tomorrow? Especially as no-one regularly checks the website for news, nor does the school offer RSS. We have readers, and an RSS feed. We haven't told you that you're off tomorrow because you should really know by now. In short, stick with us!

Happy now, Nick? We've linked to the official website.

Power Surge

If you were in a lesson during Period 2 today, your classroom lights may have turned off and back on again. If you were in IT, then I hoped you saved your work before this power surge.

So that's another disaster to add to the growing list. Granted, it was a mild one and no one got gassed, but still...it's a disaster. Even more so when you realise some nearby houses lost power, too. Sorry to let our readership down, but we've gained no information as to why the surge occurred.

Our expert speculation, however, leads us to believe the BSF builders may have been responsible. This is pure guess work but, if we're honest, who's it most likely to be? Those builders on their perpetual lunch break.

Attendance: The Sticker Version

So Temple Moor's attendance sucks. It's officially recognised and, to their credit, the school is trying to do something about it. Not just via the RAG system's implementation, either. No, the school's latest weapon is...a sticker.

The sticker is to be stuck to the inside cover of your planner. The very first bit of it, that's how "important" it is. It then has a space for your name and form. Hang on, your name and form? Well that's on the front page of your planner! Whose idea were those boxes? Anyway, the next space for writing is last year's attendance. Don't know it? Don't worry, your form tutor probably has the information.

Then, as the year progresses, you get to fill in your attendance for each half term. Brilliant, except how will we find out our last half term? We'll be in the summer holidays, so it's pathetically useless. Add to that fact that Year 11 won't give a damn, seeing as they're off during most of that time - some won't be returning for Sixth Form, either.

You know what's crazier? The "targets" boxes! Surely, your target attendance should be 100%, right? Not at Temple Moor - the school with bad attendance records. Say last year and the past half term's attendance was 80%. Your target, then, is about 90%. Which, effectively, means you can skip a few days at school. Awesome!

Post-It use #7

We all love Post-It notes, don't we? Especially at Templar Truths, because they're the ultimate guerilla revolt tool. So this is the latest use:

Writing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" and posting it all over the place.

This is a good idea for several reasons:

1. To show support for the blog
2. Revolting against work (which is ALWAYS a good thing)
3. An homage to the shining

I encourage you all to do this and show solidarity against oppression!!

OK that last bit was a bit over the top...

It Ain't All Bad...

Now, before you turn away in disgust thinking we've defected with a post title like that, bear with me. Temple Moor has some good points, but we'd be crazy to cover those. So instead, I'd like to tell you about the idiocy of another school. OK, they don't gas their pupils, flood their kitchens and set fire to their trees, but their lunch rules are crazy.

Whitkirk Primary School is one of Temple Moor's "feeder" schools - a load of pupils go from their to TMHS. Let's forgive their mistake there, though. Lunch times at Whitkirk, from what we've heard, are madness. Why? Because the school is so focused on idiotic healthiness and getting rid of the apparent obesity "crisis", it won't let children take chocolate to school!

That's right. If a child is spotted munching a Dairy Milk - and who can blame them? It's delicious - whoever's on patrol at break/lunch (and this really is a patrol, of Gestapo magnitude) will basically confiscate the chocolate.

Now, that may seem unfair. It is dreadfully so. But it gets worse. You can't even take in Smarties. But, in one class recently, children played a game of sorts that involved counting Smarties or using Smarties in some educational way. After this activity was finished, guess what happened? The children were given Smarties to scoff.

So if you thought Temple Moor had you drowning in hypocrisy,
a)you're completely right; but
b)it gets worse in other schools.