As Headmaster at Judas College, sixth form to the Westminster Academy, twinned with Our Blessed Margaret Elementary School for Girls, it is my pleasure to be addressing you on this auspicious occasion.

First, let me welcome you to this twice termly newsletter cum pupil progress report. There have been queries from some quarters as to why such missives do not wing their way to you the parents and donors on a more frequent basis.

This is for two main reasons — there has been no progress, of progress there has been none.

Also, we surmise — with no small justification — that having paid handsomely to hand over your offspring to our tender mercies for a five-year term there is no need for you to be plagued with the bother of finding out what’s going on.

On to business. As you may be aware prefectorial elections are once more upon us. Those of you with a vested interest are reminded of the usual procedure for registering your concern (non-sequential low-denomination notes/Krugerrands/offshore share certificates, to be deposited in our HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) account.

In other news certain of the, ahem, more liberal elements of our august community have recently been expressing concern about the trifling matter of the potential presence of that benignly efficacious product asbestos in the school estate.

Ha ha, I hear many of you say. And you’d be right. Matron has just this morning informed me that such tiresome illnesses as mesophelioma and so-called asbestos-related cancer are exclusively the preserve of the proletarian classes.

I am further assured, by no lesser personage than our bursar Mr McAlpine and his colleague Mr Axa that due to their perspicacity no such material was employed in the construction of our halcyon spires.

What is more, due to their further prescience the school made a serious amount of money by investing in a particular Canadian company which specialises in such matters and made an absolute packet.

Elsewhere some of the wetter members of the PTA have been alarmed about the rumours circulating in relation to the possibility of our being forced to allow the working classes to roam our hallowed halls in the coming term.

I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. We have a rigid policy based on bigotry, self-promotion and social and racial apartheid and that will change over my dead body.

There are however disquieting suggestions that certain applicants may have indeed inversely represented their background and political allegiances in a bid to secure a place at our prestigious place of learning. Fear not! They will be dealt with.

It is also with great reluctance that I must inform you that, due to certain adverse — but wholly groundless — allegations in recent months the annual masters versus young boys naked wrestling contest is hereby cancelled indefinitely.

Finally, to more pleasant matters. I am delighted to say that, with one or two exceptions the entirety of year six have been given a glowing bill of health. At least that is what their submissions inform us.

I of course mentioned at the beginning of this epistle that it would also include pupil progress reports. But, time is money, in your case about £50,000 a term, and in my case even more so, so I’m damned if I’m going to write them all individually. Thus, without further ado:

Grayling, Christopher has taken to his self-appointed role as library monitor, in addition to his role as house custodian, with a relish seldom seen in these parts.

Unfortunately his popularity among the younger children has plummeted in inverse proportion — particularly his plan to make late returnees wear a noose for the rest of the term. Christopher has also come up with an ingenious plan which means the poorer applicants are no longer able to appeal against our arbitrary decisions.

The boy will go far, possibly a 10-20 stretch at Ford open prison.

What to say about young master Gove… Yet again Michael appears to be a dreamer living in his own fantasy world. He seems somehow to have got it into his head that his position as milk monitor actually means he is head boy.

On the plus side, his religious studies teacher notes that he approaches the task with a zeal not witnessed since Torquemada.

Since (shudder) the decision to allow girl pupils to attend top table at College Miss May has frequently made her presence felt. Repeated admonishments for breaches of the school’s dress code have yielded little or no return and due to her regular and implausible lack of punctuality she has developed something of a reputation as a scatterbrain and fabulist.

In particular she seems to have a bee in her bonnet over our foreign intake, slight as it is.

The job of giving the end-of-term speech fell once more upon Osborne (are we calling him George or Gideon these days? It is all rather confusing).

This was a source of some small embarrassment in certain quarters as Osborne has now given the leavers speech, a role usually only adopted in the singular, on five consecutive occasions now. But his consistent failure to scrape a qualification in rudimentary mathematics has meant that he at least knows the ropes by now.

Some wags in the staff room had feared that if he didn’t graduate soon we would have to make him a master.
And now we turn to the shining light of the class of 2010-2015, our valedictorian, Cameron. There were some concerns that our head boy was “getting in with the wrong crowd” but we have since been reassured that they are all true blue

Conservatives and a number have since been expelled.

Seldom are we privileged to witness a pupil who so wholly encapsulates the ethos and principles of Judas College. Namely ensuring that an almost total lack of knowledge or discernible ability need be no hindrance to a glowing academic career; as long as you ensure you are in the right position to take the credit and dodge the blame accordingly.

It is with great sadness that we anticipate his departure at the end of term.

I sign off as always by reminding you of our school motto, “Non Totem Sed Sidi.”

Yours,

The Headmaster.