The school’s dazed by work experience

In theory, work experience for students is a good idea. But in practice it can be a nightmare waiting to happen – especially when it involves some of the more, er, challenging pupils at Waterloo Road... Deputy Head Chris draws the short straw when he gets bad lad Finn as his teaching assistant. Finn thinks Chris’s job is a piece of cake so Chris sets him up to fail in front of a class of sixth formers. But, humiliated, Finn lashes out in the staff room. It takes Head of Pastoral Care Kim to make Chris see that he has been as immature as Finn and that he needs to set an example. But Finn is determined to be juvenile and make Chris suffer... Meanwhile, Sambuca’s work experience is in a sports shop. The perfect opportunity, she thinks, not to learn something but to nick a pair of shorts with Bolton. Now if she’d been paying attention, she would have realised the clothing is security tagged. As she wasn’t, her thieving sets off the shop’s alarm and she and Bolton run for it. Will they make a good Bonnie and Clyde? And will school cook Adam be able to whip up some fun for Head Teacher Rachel? He wants to see her enjoy herself, but can she fit fun in her timetable?

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.