"Don't blame yourself, Sir"

4 months to go until the GCSEs. A crucial Parents' Evening. Most of the parents and carers are on form: shouting at their lazy children in front of me in Igbo, Twi, Yoroba, Arabic and Urdu. Threatening to cut off X-Box rights, access to the internet or, and I suspect (though admittedly my Yoroba lets me down at this point) promising a good thrashing if their attitude does not improve.

Up comes CM with her mother. CM, the worst and rudest student in my experience of the school. Who shouts back at me in class, refuses to pick up a pen, encourages other students to misbehave to annoy me and is a fully fledged Lady Chav. The mother, as it soon becomes clear, is painfully afraid of her own daughter.

I extend a welcoming hand, and then hear the most crushing opening gambit from a parent that I could have never even dreamt up:

"Hi, I thought we'd come to hear the bad report from you. I just want to take this opportunity to say that I think we all know that CM will get a U in French and I don't want you to feel responsible or to blame yourself. I've come to apologise and just to say that really."

And this from a parent! What hope is there for the kid if their own mother doesn't think it's worth her daughter studying for her GCSEs?! CM followed up with a prepared comment of her own:

"You hate me and I hate you. So I wouldn't even bother, Sir".

I was stupefied and did nothing for a moment. I struggled for the words to explain to CM that she had grossly overestimated how much her bad behaviour got to me and that far from hating her, and quite in contrast to the pre-emptive forgiveness her mother was offering me, I felt responsible for her French mark and just wanted to help her complete a GCSE.

I'll see if it isn't too late for her to change subject.