1. The Disgruntled Goth

This student began the schooling year as a regular, sentient human being, aware of the full spectrum of colours on the colour wheel. Some traumatic event such as watching their favourite reality show contestant being evicted turned them dark. The disgruntled goth dresses in black and listens to emo bands from the 2000s. Across all online platforms, their username is ‘Dark Angle’ which unfortunately for them is a spelling mistake leading to others online thinking they are interested in maths and not the dark overlord.

2. Cat Child and Horse Child

Cat child (despite being a teenager) prowls around the schoolyard wearing cat ears and acting as a cat. Horse child is under the illusion that they are a horse and they subsequently gallop from classroom to classroom. These two unique individuals befriend one another and live in blissful harmony amidst their fantastical farmland fantasy. Until one day… cat child and horse child become sworn enemies intent on destroying one another. The duo spend the rest of their schooling lives engaging in symbiotic vitriolic hatred.

3. The Nerd

The nerd’s thick framed glasses rest on their oily, pimple-stained face. Their favourite pastime involves informing the internet of continuity errors in their comic book collection. The nerd is captain of the school’s Star Trek chess club which the school continually threatens to shut down due to its lack of members. They are fluent in five languages: English, C + +, Python, Quenya and Klingon. The nerd lists their most embarrassing moment as the day they visited the local department store. They walked in with a suspicious protrusion coming from their pants and asked the shopkeeper where the role-playing games were located. The nerd was escorted out of the store before they could remove the Rubik’s cube from their pocket and explain that their role-playing interest lay innocently with Dungeons and Dragons.

4. The Perfectionist

The perfectionist has each subject’s optional reading material printed out, colour-coded into all 10,000 shades of Dulux paint shades and arranged by Dewy Decimal Classification. On one occasion you spot the perfectionist crying in the corridor accompanied by a friend. You enquire as to what has happened. Their friend says the perfectionist scored 99/100 on a test. You say “congratulations” to which the friend snaps at you and the perfectionist emits a dog-like howl. The perfectionist’s life can’t continue as they were docked one point. This day haunts them for the rest of their life.

5. The Student on the Precipice of Snapping

This unhinged individual is misanthropic and anti-social yet enjoys awkwardly staring at people. He (they are always guys) has long, unkempt hair and is rake-thin. This student hasn’t been the same since his girlfriend broke up with him in grade 3 after he purposefully trampled on an ant’s nest. He keeps a notebook containing the names of everyone who has wronged him. It lists most of the school including the cafeteria workers who made the list by virtue of not having raw broccoli available for purchase one day. The entire school is unsure whether to be nice to the student on the precipice of snapping. They reason that if he snaps then there is more chance that they are spared.

6. The Cult Leader

The cult leader speaks in something resembling ye olde English. They spend their days trying to recruit fellow students into their cult as minions which they will invariably lead. The cult leader’s status is diminished when the principal suspends them for starting a cult. As punishment, the cult leader’s parents insist they have to be in bed by 9PM and their mobile phone is taken from them for one month. The uprising must wait until they have their mobile phone returned. The cult leader argues that if one defines a cult as ‘brainwashing people to think a certain way’ then surely the school is a cult.

7. The Student with Demanding Parents

This student is grounded if they are home from school just one minute late. On their return from school, they are locked in their room by their parents and forced to study for eight hours straight in a situation more akin to being held hostage. Basic food and drinks rations are occasionally deposited into their room in what the parents claim is a privilege. If this student’s end-of-year report is tarnished by any grade that is not an ‘A’, they are banished from their family and sent to a child labour camp. This student finds the child labour camp much more pleasant than living with their demanding parents.

8. The Wannabe Lawyer

The wannabe lawyer has an astute interest in all facets of law, stemming from watching repeats of Judge Judy and by having a third cousin who claims to be a lawyer. Alongside offering unsolicited legal advice on Facebook, school is where the wannabe lawyer uses their jurisprudence prowess. Due to poor behaviour, the teacher punishes the wannabe lawyer’s class by keeping them inside for 10 minutes of lunchtime. This incenses the wannabe lawyer who promptly prints out the Geneva Convention and highlights various subclauses that emphasise the cruel illegality of the teacher’s actions. The wannabe lawyer argues that by losing 10 minutes of lunchtime, the classes’ civil rights have been violated. A class of breathing, sentient beings. The teacher quickly retorts that the class aren’t sentient beings.

9. The Student with the Unspellable Name

This student has a double umlaut over the second ‘x’ and third ‘z’ in their name, making it impossible to pronounce unless you hail from some remote Star Trek planet whose inhabitants produces sounds by clicking their tongue. The teachers who fail to include the double umlaut in their reports are threatened with legal action by the parents (who should themselves be sued for providing their child with such a burdensome name). The school reaches an out-of-court settlement with the parents when they explain that their report software is not equipped to handle umlauts.

10. The Hypochondriac

The hypochondriac asks you to check their glands. With a wry smile, you inform them that they are raised. The hypochondriac turns to trusty Doctor Google. They search ‘raised glands’ and sigh, “Well, that’s it- I’m dead”. The hypochondriac has diagnosed themselves with 100 terminal illnesses this week. They are consigned to the fact that they will die by the end of the month- for them the only pertinent question is which disease will kill them first. The hypochondriac trundles to the sick bay and addresses the nurse by their first name. “I’m very sick, I can’t move and it hurts everywhere”. The hypochondriac spends more time with the school nurse than the remainder of the school combined. The nurse phones up the hypochondriac’s parents- a number that’s on speed dial. Another student enters the sick bay vomiting and encroaches on the territory of the hypochondriac. The hypochondriac makes a remarkable recovery and leaps to their feet, fleeing from the potentially infectious vomiting student with the vigour and speed of an athlete. Since COVID struck, no-one has heard from the hypochondriac.

11. The Wagger

The wagger has concocted an array of schemes to avoid gaining the obligatory education that accompanies school attendance. For starters, they fill in a sheet of paper at the start of the school year in which they are instructed to write down the phone number of their parents. It is in this space that the wagger creatively fills in their own mobile number. When the school phones the wagger’s ‘parents’ to enquire into their absence from school, the wagger will answer their phone and provide an excuse. Another of the tricks in the wagger’s arsenal involves feigning a fever. They place a hot water bottle on their forehead which provides the thermometer with a reading of 50 degrees Celsius (117 Fahrenheit). The wagger is a medical marvel that defies the scientific literature. Any regular mortal would succumb to the inevitable death that accompanies such a temperature yet the wagger avoids such a fate. All of the wagger’s scheming to avoid school is for the outcome of attending the local mall. It is here that the wagger sits around bored, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the end of the school day when they can socialise with their fellow students- something they could enjoy more of if they indeed attended school.

12. The Essay Manipulator

The essay manipulator can only muster 300 words on an essay topic that requires 500 words. As a result, they use double spacing and size 28 font in the hope of making their essay appear longer. Additionally, they add an extra 200 words of white text that is invisible to the teacher, to their essay. This is as an additional measure to trick the teacher’s word counter. To increase the apparent length of their essay and to appear wordier, the essay manipulator use the thesaurus function to change random words. The resultant essay contains sentences such as “My favourite folk singer is feline Stevens”.

13. The Car Enthusiast

Whilst normal humans have an image of themselves on their Facebook profile, the car enthusiast displays a photograph of a car. What is doubly peculiar is that they don’t own this car- it is simply one they have seen online and spend every waking hour fantasising over. The car enthusiast has a unique condition in which they “rite lik dis n dohnt uze normall spelin oar gramma”. Whether this deviation from the normal rules of the English language is a consequence of petrol fumes is contentious. The car enthusiast lists their Facebook relationship as “In a relationship with a Ferrari XYZ1234”. This leads other students to question whether the car enthusiast is in fact being intimate with cars. The car enthusiast criticises every teacher in the school for their substandard car parked within the school car park. When the car enthusiast is old enough to take their learner’s permit, they arrive at the testing centre three hours early. This is the only test they pass in their life. They ultimately drive a cheap 1990s Holden Commodore that contains fuel worth more than the car itself. The car enthusiast modifies their car exhaust to create a loud, obnoxious sound in the hope that this will make people like them.

14. The Child Prodigy

This young, over-achiever has skipped three years and still outperforms their peers. They reach the waist-levels of their fellow classmates and look like they will never hit puberty. The child prodigy dominates virtually every class from maths to music. The child prodigy’s classmates collectively become frustrated that this baby-faced genius embarrasses them on an intellectual level. As a consequence, the classmates wreak their revenge in PE class, during any sport that permits a modicum of contact. The child prodigy’s glasses require a full-time optometry repair person and the child prodigy develops a lifelong extreme phobia of anything remotely related to sport.

15. The Tall Student

The tall student must navigate a school that simply isn’t designed for someone of their drawn-out proportions. Upon entering a classroom, the tall student must choose between partaking in the limbo or being knocked unconscious by the door’s upper frame. Often they choose the latter option, providing them with a bump on their head which only adds to their height. The tall student must then sit on a chair designed for someone half their height making them resemble the comical trope of a clown riding a child’s tricycle. The tall student is as conspicuous as they come as they traverse the corridors, grossly thin and standing two feet above the sea of other students. People naturally make assumptions about the tall student and assume they play basketball which is an example of blatant stereotyping. Although this student just so happens to play basketball. Countless times a day, regular sized people approach the tall student and inform them that they are indeed tall. It is not immediately clear why these smaller students are telling the tall student this. Perhaps they believe that the tall student is unaware of their exaggerated height and will provide them with money in exchange for this information. Additionally, the tall student is asked umpteen times a day “How tall are you?” They begin to answer this question in creative ways such as “Tall enough” or “5 foot 19 inches”.

16. The Self-Proclaimed Ladies’ Man

The Self-Proclaimed Ladies’ Man wears a shirt with the top three buttons undone and collar up. Additionally, the shirt has been drenched in the nauseating scent of an entire bottle of aftershave. This student believes their body is a temple and therefore they coat it in dozens of dangling chains and shiny rings. The self-proclaimed ladies’ man believes he is God’s gift to women. He uses every waking moment to hit on a different girl and he has extended his enthusiasm (creepiness) into the Instagram realm. He will type out a sleazy comment describing how unique a girl is. Copying and pasting this comment enables him to hit on thousands of these ‘unique’ girls at once. The self-proclaimed ladies’ man drops out of school to work on a building site. He drives a car with a personalized license plate to work and wolf whistles at every female that he deems worthy (they need to be breathing to be worthy). From an evolutionary perspective, the personalized license plate and wolf whistling are Darwinian traits that will stop females mating with the self-proclaimed ladies’ man and therefore thwart his genes from spreading.

17. The Student Who Suffered a Woodworking Mishap

This student failed to listen when the woodworking teacher instructed the class not to place their fingers in front of the circular saw. As a result, this student is missing the end of their little finger. The woodworking mishap student is too embarrassed to tell people this story in which they don’t follow instructions, appear simple-minded and come across as a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Instead, they inform anyone who will listen that the end of their pinky was bitten off as they bravely fought off a great white shark. The woodworking section of the school had proudly displayed a sign adorned with the words ‘NO ACCIDENTS FOR 1024 DAYS’. Post-accident, the sign changed to ‘NO ACCIDENTS FOR 0 DAYS’. The school now no longer offers woodwork as part of its curriculum.

18. The Environmentalist

The environmentalist is in a constant tug-of-war with the school to adopt more recycling bins despite the students filling the current supply of recycling bins with trash. The environmentalist has developed thick dreadlocks and a pungent odour thanks to their disdain for showering. They have initiated the school’s environment club that meets on the third full moon of every quarter. The environmentalist carries around a recycled notebook with a pleather cover as well as a sustainably sourced pen. They use these instruments to record the names of environmental villains. If the environmentalist spots a student using a tissue, they will say “You will be responsible for the death of a living creature”. The annoyed tissue user crassly responds “Yeah, you!”

19. The Old Student

The ‘old student’ has a thick beard, a receding hairline, the odd white follicle as well as facial wrinkles seeping through their skin. Their backstory is that they are repeating the last year of their schooling at this new school. One of the ‘old student’s’ classmates uncovers a LinkedIn profile of a 30-year-old man with a wife and three kids who looks suspiciously like this ‘student’.

20. The Chemistry Enthusiast

The chemistry enthusiast’s penchant for chemistry has blossomed from casual interest into all-devouring, life obsession. Over time, they begin to collect chemicals from the school’s chemistry lab to bring home. The chemistry enthusiast’s fellow students naturally assume that they are engaging in some form of Breaking Bad style, drug production scheme. This suspicious gathering of dangerous chemicals raises flags for the federal authorities who send out specialised agents from the anti-terrorism task force to interrogate the chemistry enthusiast. The chemistry enthusiast reveals that they have been stashing these chemicals in order to build their now completed nuclear reactor. The school is simultaneously shocked and impressed.

  

21. The Self-Described ‘Influencer‘

The self-described ‘influencer’ has chalked up a few hundred subscribers on their YouTube channel. On social media, they list their occupation as ‘International model’ after their parents took some photos of them whilst they were overseas. The influencer only allows photos to be taken of the left side of their face. Despite their face being perfectly symmetrical, they believe that if their “ugly” right side is photographed, the core foundations of planet earth will be shattered. The influencer drops out of school to focus on becoming a YouTuber. After their subscriber numbers fail to increase, the influencer spends their days eating junk food whilst watching other ‘influencers’ online. They attempt to gain subscribers by leaving pithy comments on other ‘influencer’s’ YouTube videos such as “When I am bored, I bury myself in my backyard and pretend I’m a carrot”. They also comment “first” when they are the two millionth person to watch a video.

22. The Bomb Hoaxer

This student failed to study for a test. They weigh up the wrath of their parents as a result of failing the test versus the risk of going to prison for making a bomb hoax phone call. The decision is easy. The student phones the school on their mobile claiming that a bomb is hidden within their very classroom. The school is dramatically evacuated and the police arrive. As the bomb hoaxer phoned the threat from their own mobile phone, they are promptly arrested. The bomb hoaxer isn’t entirely dissatisfied with this outcome. They would rather spend time at the police station than face their parents. 

23. The Conspiracy Theorist

This student was a semi-rational human being before they watched a YouTube video featuring two flat-earthers. Despite the flat-earthers actually proving the world to be round, this student has gone down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial YouTube Videos thus officially becoming a conspiracy theorist. The conspiracy theorist hangs up posters around the school, revealing to the school community the information that the scientists and mainstream media are working in cahoots to hide. The posters inform the ignorant public that the COVID vaccine has a particularly worrying side effect- it will make people like Microsoft products. The poster references some poorly chosen domain name as a source. A domain that any rational person would doubt the content of, such as www.somerandomstuff1.wordpress.com. The conspiracy theorist has cracked the COVID conspiracy and begins to branch off into other areas. They determine that the school emblem is actually a map created by the Freemasons that leads to a shapeshifting alien civilization living underground who come up during the day. They are known as ‘teachers’.

24. The Fitness Freak

The fitness freak has an Adonis sculptured body in which their muscles have their own muscles. This student enjoys downing raw egg yolks for lunch and always has a large protein shake sitting on their desk which they refill at hourly intervals. Eating 6,000 calories a day is a challenging enough endeavour without the added obstacle of school. The worth of a student can easily be determined by the fitness freak- it correlates with how many kilograms they can bench press. The fitness freak stares fixated at a window with a smirk on their face. At first it appears that the fitness freak has a newfound interest in the chemistry equations that lie beyond the window. It soon becomes apparent that they thoroughly enjoy looking at their body in any surface vaguely resembling a mirror. The narcissist, ahem….fitness freak physically picks up students and uses them as a dumbbell. The teachers have to regularly remind the fitness freak that they are prohibited from bicep curling their fellow students.

25. The Dodgy Salesperson

This student begins their exploits by selling the pizza slices they made in Home Economics class to their fellow students. The pizza acts as a gateway item. The student soon buys a stack of iPhones on eBay that have themselves been dubiously procured. Within hours, the dodgy salesperson sells their entire supply of iPhones to their classmates, making more money than their teacher’s make in a month. The dodgy salesperson can’t add 2 + 2 in maths class but transforms into a mathematical prodigy when it comes to making money. They earn the nickname ‘slippery……’ followed by their name. Life seems good for the dodgy salesperson until one of the iPhone buyer’s parents complains to the school. The principal punishes the dodgy salesperson but simultaneously would like a cheap iPhone for themselves.

26. The Harry Potter Fanatic

The Harry Potter fanatic is under the deluded belief that they are attending Hogwarts. They have assigned a Hogwarts character to every teacher and student in the school. The Harry Potter fanatic spars with their unique clique of fellow Harry Potter enthusiasts, over who in the group should be Harry. The Harry Potter fanatic has taken the online quiz that reveals your Hogwarts house umpteen times until they were designated Gryffindor house. Attending a school with muggles does have its challenges for the Harry Potter fanatic. Firstly, other students crudely refer to them as a ‘Pothead’. Secondly, a handful of their fellow students chant Lord Voldemort’s name aloud, causing much distress for the Harry Potter fanatic who mentally designates the offending commenters to Slytherin house. Finally, the Harry Potter fanatic enjoys borrowing the Harry Potter book series from the school library. Another student has already trawled through the books and changed each ‘wand’ to ‘wang’ causing great pain for the Harry Potter fanatic. Some sentences now read, “Your father, on the other hand, favoured a mahogany wang. Eleven inches”. 

27. The IT Whizz

This student’s level of knowledge about all things computers surpasses that of the school employed, IT worker. If a teacher requires a computing problem remedied, they bypass the IT worker and seek this student. When the IT whizz graduates, the school deviates from the standard employment processes and hires the IT whizz. They seamlessly become the school’s youngest employee. They also happen to be busier than all of the teachers. The IT whizz develops a monk-like patience when explaining computer fixes to the teachers who ask questions along the lines of “Where is the any key?”  

28. The Accident-Prone Student

This student sits tucked away in a corner of the schoolyard minding their own business. A stray ball is kicked into the air, hovering above the yard filled with one thousand students. Like a heat-seeking missile, the ball defies the laws of physics and heads straight towards the accident-prone student, striking them on the head. Fortunately, the hit isn’t overly painful as they already have a numb lump on their head from last week’s school assembly. They had carefully traversed the few steps leading up to the stage, whilst one thousand students’ eyes were focused in on them. Inevitably, the accident-prone student stumbled on the last step and face-planted onto the stage, in front of the principal’s feet, banging their head on the school lectern. The accident-prone student’s lack of co-ordination extends to non-stair surfaces. They have the impressive ability to trip on a completely flat, concrete floor.

29. The Fake ID Procurer

This student incessantly brags to their friends about their ability to obtain fake IDs. After gathering all of the necessary names and photos, the fake ID procurer promises to deliver each of their friends a high-quality fake ID within a week. After six months have passed and the student’s friends have started to turn 18, the fake ID procurer distributes poorly made knockoff IDs, produced on Microsoft Word and written in Comic Sans font, retaining the red, wavy, spelling mistake line beneath the words. The IDs are essentially cut out pieces of paper. Not only this but the fake ID procurer, has also mismatched the names and photos.

30. The Student Who Always Has a Runny Nose

Every school has one student who always seems to have a cold. Every time you see them, they are sniffing, clutching a tissue, have visible mucus discharge and have a nose redder than Rudolf. This student becomes ostracized during the COVID pandemic as everyone naturally assumes they have COVID and stays clear of them.

31. The Animal Hoarder

By day, the animal hoarder attends school. It is here that they are constantly on the lookout for stray insects or birds that make their way into classrooms. The animal hoarder will banish the class from their room and engage in some Wile E. Coyote like scheme to catch the trapped animal, often at the expense of the tidiness of the room. The animal hoarder will take the trapped animal home with them, to their rented house teeming with other injured wildlife. Food is left out, water is given and mouth-to-mouth is provided from the animal hoarder to the said animal. The animal hoarder frequently arrives at school covered head-to-toe in scratches. They fear some animal rescue organisation discovering their shanty menagerie at home so they must create some fanciful story to explain the origin of their scratches, “er… my parents are causing them”. The animal hoarder’s parents are removed and the animal hoarder replaces them with an abundance of stray cats. The neighbourhood children who walk by the house create folktales about the animal hoarder, portraying them as some mythological, villainous character.

32. The Mystery Farter

The class sit silently, staring blankly at the teacher who waffles on at the front of the classroom. An audible sound suddenly emanates from the rear of the room followed by a nauseating smell. The mystery farter has struck again. In what has become a school-wide mystery, approaching the intrigue of a Sherlock Holmes puzzle, there is a chronic, unknown farter on the loose. A few students in the general vicinity of the fart are accused of being the instigator but they naturally deny all accusations. After months of pungent farts by the same incognito student, the mystery farter eventually slips up. They fart in the corner of the classroom and their position is triangulated by three independent witnesses who can determine the direction of the fart. Much like the stench, the evidence for the culprit’s identity becomes overwhelming. They are outed. Like a murder mystery novel, the perpetrator was the person everyone least suspected- a shy, introverted type.

33. The Teacher’s Pet

The lesson has started and the teacher has forgotten about today’s test as well as the assignment that was due. The teacher’s pet raises their hand causing the entire class to freeze. The teacher’s pet proudly exclaims “We have a test today and our assignment is…” Mid-sentence, the student sitting next to the teacher’s pet pretends to hug the teacher’s pet by extending an arm around them. They continue this motion and cover the teacher’s pet’s mouth to gag them. It’s too late. The teacher has been reminded of the test and assignment.

  

34. The Covert Computer Gamer

The covert computer gamer simply views school as an impairment to becoming a full-time, professional gamer. They secretly play Call of Duty on their laptop during maths class. The teacher’s eyes scan across the class. They observe a sea of disinterested faces experiencing the monotony of solving trigonometric equations. The gamer’s face is different. They are wide-eyed, focused and generally too riveted for someone supposedly partaking in mathematical calculations. Just as the gamer has missions on Call of Duty, the teacher conjures up their own mission- to catch the gamer in the act. With the stealth of a soldier in Call of Duty encroaching on their enemy, the teacher quietly tiptoes around the classroom and sneaks up behind the gamer. “Got you!” exclaims the teacher. The gamer quickly retorts by claiming that a pop-up ad opened up on their screen and interrupted their trigonometry, which incidentally, they were experiencing oh so much joy in solving.

35. The Japanese Exchange Student

The Japanese exchange student doesn’t speak a word of English yet shares a common bond with their new classmates that transcends words- a crippling addiction to technology. The exchange student brought the unreleased iPhone 15 with them from Japan which is simultaneously the world’s largest phone and world’s smallest tablet. It also doubles as a PlayStation 6. The Japanese exchange student has a glut of ultra-modern gadgets that won’t be available to western consumers for 5 years.

36. The Music Student

The music student originally played a woodwind instrument but they grew tired of the incessant double entendre from the other students hence they made the switch to playing the double bass which has instead proven to be large and overly cumbersome. The double bass accompanies them on the school bus each day causing a blockage part way up the aisle, forcing students to clamber over the enlarged instrument. After school, the music student is invited to the mall by their friends. The music student’s friends have to contend with the music student lugging around a 50kg case and instrument. It knocks over shop displays, tramples fellow mall-goers and raises the suspicions of shopkeepers who suspect that some sort of Trojan Horse-style scheme is unfolding to steal goods. The music student isn’t invited to the mall again.

37. The Hipster

The hipster arrives at school on their fixed gear bike. They narrowly avoided being mowed down by a semi-trailer on their way to school as a result of purchasing a bike without a crucial component known as ‘brakes’. The hipster wears glasses with no lenses and goes to extraordinary lengths to dress like a homeless person, paying a small fortune for their raggedy outfit. During class, the hipster uses outdated forms of technology such as a Walkman and a typewriter in order to appear ironic. They enjoy unearthing new underground indie bands whilst browsing MySpace. At lunchtime, the hipster eats their artesian avocado toast with a fresh sprinkling of quinoa. The hipster prides themselves on being individualised and has developed very specific tastes, just like the millions of the other hipsters on planet earth.

38. The Absentee

This student shows up so irregularly, the teacher has stopped calling their name on the roll. The absentee appears at school on one random day a year. The other students introduce themselves to the absentee, with the mistaken belief that they are a new student in the school. The absentee surprises everyone by recalling every student’s name. The other students are envious of the absentee’s lack of school attendance until they realise that the absentee can’t string a proper sentence together.

39. The Tagger

The tagger’s downwards spiral into vandalism began in their formative years. They borrowed ‘Where’s Wally?’ (Where’s Waldo?) from the school library and using a thick, permanent, black marker, circled each Wally (Waldo) in the book before returning it. The tagger gradually transitioned into scrawling their tag all over their diary before graffitiing it on every available surface across the entire school. As the tagger’s tag simply consisted of their full name, they were quickly apprehended by the school’s detective (also doubling as the science teacher). The tagger argued that their graffiti was in fact art. The school detective responded that the tagger was anti-art. They cited the fact that the tagger themselves graffitied an ‘F’ on a sign preceding the words ‘ART ROOM’. The tagger’s locker was cut open revealing a cache of stolen goods. This included a bag containing a letter ‘S’ taken from each keyboard in the school. Hereby the long-running mystery was solved regarding why the entire student body had failed to use this crucial letter in their essays this year. The tagger ended up in juvenile prison but they would eventually gain fame thanks to appearing on a reality TV show filmed in juvie that glamourised the teenage, criminal life.

40. The Brooding Poet

The brooding poet regularly jots down their innermost nihilistic thoughts in haiku form. They read exclusively Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche. The brooding poet has a hatred for every subject on the school curriculum bar English. They particularly enjoy the creative writing branch of English and find great purpose in explaining with their writing that nothing has purpose. When the brooding poet’s class is dictated an English novel to read over the course of a term, the brooding poet completes the book in one night, much to the annoyance of their classmates. Their subsequent essay on the novel explains how the protagonist lived a futile existence and was doomed to failure by the text’s opening lines by virtue of being human.

41. The Student Who Hates Reading

This student is the antithesis of the brooding poet. They detest English with a passion. Despite having an entire term to read the prescribed English subject novel, they fail to progress beyond page 1. In order to write the requisite essay and appear at least semi-versed on a text they know nothing about other than what the blurb and first page informs them, they watch the movie adaptation of the book. The downfall in this student’s scheme lies in referring to actor Colin Firth part-way through their essay. The anti-reading student is blissfully unaware of the divergences between the movie and the novel, much to the mirth of the English teacher. When this student encounters a Shakespearean play, for which there is no Hollywood adaptation, they observe their teacher’s enthusiasm for the Bard and recycle a sentence that all English teachers love. “Shakespeare is as relevant now as he was then”. This sentence alone earns them a passing grade.

42. The Actor

This student’s acting oeuvre entails just one performance- sitting in the background of an ad played on a community TV station. Despite only the upper, rear of their head being visible, from the actor’s perspective, they are more deserving of an Oscar for best actor than Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in Joker. The actor dislikes Hollywood actors for being too cliché. Instead, they tell their fellow students that they idolise niche, arthouse thespians (a comment which their fellow students misconstrue as an insight into their sexual orientation). Whilst partaking in regular conversations with their fellow classmates, the actor makes sure everyone knows that they are a serious actor by overly articulating normal sentences whilst simultaneously using over-the-top hand gestures. These idiosyncrasies lead to a surplus of airborne saliva when they speak and a wide berth around them when they motion their hands. In the lead up to playing a mentally ill Blanche in the school production of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, the actor thinks of themselves as a method actor. This causes great suffering to anyone in close proximity to them.

43. The Secret Studier

This secret studier has developed just one interest in life- studying. They lack any other hobbies and any skerrick of a social life. This student spends every waking hour fixated on their unhealthy, single mindset. Every lunchtime, they sprint across the schoolyard to the library. Their parents, teachers and peers put obstacles in their way to thwart their obsession with learning, yet invariably, the secret studier resists. The secret studier’s parents leave their child home alone during a long weekend with a fridge bursting with alcohol. When the parents return, the alcohol remains untouched, no-one has entered the house and the secret studier is content that they’ve had an entire long weekend of undisturbed studying. The secret studier’s parents buy them computer games and comic books in the hope of luring them to the dark-side. The secret studier hides their calculus textbook within their comic book and continues studying in secret so those around them believe they are reading comics. Additionally, they study on the computer and switch tabs to a computer game when their parents walk by.

44. The Surfer

The wavy, bleached-haired surfer has a unique attendance record at school. In a remarkable case of psychic prowess, the geography teacher is able to predict when the surfer will come down with an ailment and thus be absent. The geography teacher has devised a formula. When there are strong winds and large waves, the luckless surfer seems to suffer from an illness and miss school. It happens to be a coincidence that the local swell is pumping on these days. When the wind is still and the surfer appears at school, they enjoy informing their fellow classmates of the time they almost got bitten by a shark….well, they saw a shark…actually, it may have been seaweed. The surfer is placed into the remedial English class as their slow voice, unique accent, swathe of colloquialisms and slow processing speed are misconstrued. The teachers believe that these traits of the surfer are the result of a minor neurological disorder.

45. The Identical Twins

The identical twins spend their time trying to convince anyone who will listen, how different they are. Detrimental to the identical twin’s argument is the fact that they speak these words in unison. The identical twins have worked out an academic perk that accompanies being an identical twin. Twin A can study for the maths exam and sit the exam for both themselves and twin B. Twin B can study for the English exam and sit it for both twins. The identical twin who is half-an-hour older coattails on their seniority for their entire life. Numerous students approach the twins daily and make the same comment that they deem to be unique, “If I punch you, will your twin feel it?”

46. The Student with Seven Grandmothers

This luckless student has suffered an unfortunate spate of family deaths during the school year. Their first grandmother died in February (incidentally the day their English assignment was due). Their second grandmother died in March (by chance on the due date of their geography assignment). During April the hapless student lost their third Grandmother (again coinciding with their English assignment’s due date). After a succession of more grandmother deaths, the student’s skeptical and heartless teachers gather. They calculate that the poor student has claimed a total of seven grandmother deaths this year alone. Rather than showing an ounce of empathy, the callous teachers punish the student who has already suffered such a grief-stricken school year.

47. The Prankster

The prankster’s proverbial trick bag is full to the brim with whoopee cushions, plastic wrap for placing on toilet seats and the mobile number of every teacher in the school. The piece de resistance in the prankster’s oeuvre is their carefully crafted senior prank (muck up day). The prankster devotes more time to this prank than time allotted to studying for their end-of-year exams. This final prank, which involves fire as a central theme, results in the destruction of copious amounts of school property. The police arrive on the scene alongside a local news crew doing a segment as part of their ongoing focus on out-of-control teens. The prankster is banned from attending the school’s graduation ceremony. The school, who never want to see the prankster again, are torn over whether to force them to repeat the year as punishment for their over-the-top prank. The prankster ultimately repeats their final year at another local school that fails to do background checks on new students.

48. The Teacher’s Child

This student has but one simple objective in life- to keep the secret from their fellow students that their parent doubles as the mortal enemy- a teacher at the school. The teacher’s child believes that their life will be irreparably ruined if the other students learn of this information. The teacher parent is forced to take the covenant pinky swearing oath that the student believes has legal bearing. “I hereby swear not to tell anyone that we are related”. There are a string of events that lead to the teacher’s child being outed. 1. The teacher’s child arrives at school one hour before any other student as a product of their daily carpooling with the teacher parent. 2. The teacher’s child conspicuously averts eye contact every time the teacher parent walks by in the schoolyard. 3. The teacher parent and student have near identical looking faces. 4. The teacher parent and student share the same, unique surname.

49. The Fluent Spanish Speaker

Despite speaking flawless Spanish, the fluent Spanish speaker is forced to sit through a tedious beginners-level Spanish class that largely involves watching their classmates attempting to learn how to count to 10. Over the end-of-year holidays, the classmates forget how to count to 10 in Spanish and as the next school year begins, the language teacher again devotes the year on educating them to comprehend these basic numbers. Incidentally, the Spanish teacher knows very little Spanish and mainly teaches Home Economics and PE. They lied on their teaching application form in order to gain employment. No-one at the school knows of the Spanish teacher’s ineptitude at speaking Spanish other than the fluent Spanish speaking student. The Spanish teacher informs the fluent Spanish student that they speak a different regional dialect of Spanish that thwarts any conversing.

50. The Emotionally Mature Student

This student has the mind of a 90-year-old and they find it wildly infuriating dealing with the gamut of immaturities that accompany teenagers. Their favourite pastimes involve rolling their eyes and sighing with derision at the juvenile antics of their peers. The emotionally mature student can relate much more to the teachers than to the students. This student tries their best to spend their lunchtime with the teachers. This involves either: A. Following a teacher around on yard duty, B. Sitting next to the teacher in the classroom and talking about how immature the other students are or C. Hovering outside the staffroom and latching onto teachers when they exit. If the emotionally mature student observes any behaviour by their peers that they deem to be infantile, they will reprimand the offending student. The emotionally mature student has to be regularly reminded that they aren’t a teacher and therefore don’t have the power to hand out detentions.

51. The Essay Outsourcer

The essay outsourcer pays a fee for some person in a third world country, who speaks English as a second language to write their essay. The essay writer learnt English by watching reruns of Jersey Shore, unaware that most English speakers would find the Jersey Shore lexicon rather exotic. As a result, the essay on pre-industrial England has a befuddling writing style with repeated references made to gym, tanning and laundry and a mythical creature named Snooki. The essay outsourcer has considerable amounts of money to spend on a narrow, passing D grade.

52. The Artist

The artist is the proud owner of a set of 200 Derwent pencils that cost a small fortune, summing a total manyfold more than the artist is likely to earn from their artworks in their lifetime. The artist spends every waking moment doodling. Their tongue protrudes sharply from the corner of their mouth as they focus. Any scrap of paper in their vicinity has been tattooed with a collage of drawings swarming together, namely featuring anime characters. The artist hand up their doodles to the teacher. The teacher exclaims, “These are amazing! You have a real natural talent. You definitely deserve an ‘A’…except these drawings were done on your maths test and you didn’t actually answer any of the maths questions so I have to fail you”. The artist is the only person that can accurately pronounce Van Gogh’s name. They also claim to know the true identity of Banksy but they keep this a secret. 

53. The Test Cheater

This student is consistently striving to be one step ahead of the teachers when it comes to cheating at tests. They have tried scribbling the answers on their skin, covered by rolled up sleeves. Notes are written on their smart watch and on the inside of their water bottle’s label. This student has developed a coded method to communicate answers amongst their fellow test takers involving an elaborate system of coughing ala ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ style. The test cheater takes toilet breaks every 30 minutes in order to look up the test answers in the text book stashed away in the toilet’s cistern. Additionally, they have contacts in the year levels above who have sat the tests previously. The test cheater knows that a specific teacher provides the same questions every year and thus the test cheater memorises these answers. Post-test, the teacher speaks to the test cheater, “Congratulations, you got perfect marks!….These are the words I would be saying if you had sat last year’s test, however you simply filled in last year’s answers to this year’s new questions”.

54. The Student of Few Words

The student of few words spends the entire school year mute. One day a year, they utter a one-liner that has the entire class rolling around the floor in stitches. They are lauded as a hero for that single day. Their hilarity is short-lived as they again return to muteness for the next 12 months.

55. The Work Avoider

The work avoider spends all school day putting in copious amounts of effort to avoid partaking in anything vaguely resembling work. They conjure up the most creative excuses as to why their assignment wasn’t handed in. After the teacher has reached the end of their tether and the student has claimed that their house was struck by a rare solar flare for the seventh time this month, the work avoider is given a punishment. They are instructed to handwrite 100 lines consisting of the same phrase- ‘I will do my work’. Invariably, they tape 10 pencils together to get the job done faster.

56. The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan wakes up before dawn in order to volunteer at the local soup kitchen each morning prior to school starting. Once at school, they harass…ahem, ‘ask’, teachers to donate to the charity de jour. Despite regularly passing out in class, the Good Samaritan insists on partaking in the 40 hour famine on a weekly basis. In what can loosely be described as ‘extortion’, the Good Samaritan has convinced their parents to donate their entire wage to a charity that supplies food to those living below the poverty line. In a remarkable twist, the Good Samaritan’s parents now have little food to eat, live below the poverty line and are eligible for the charity’s handouts.

57. The Rich, Shady Student

The rich and shady student’s parents don’t work yet they live in the most bourgeois house in the suburb. Their property is circumferenced by security cameras and patrolled by a team of Rottweilers. Anytime the rich, shady student is asked about the source of their family’s wealth, they cast a stern glare and quickly change the topic to being unsure about which of their family’s 10 dubiously procured sports cars is their favourite. During a parent-teacher interview, the teacher enquires as to what line of work the parents are involved in. In unison, the parents reply “We run a business”. The teacher continues their line of questioning, asking what they sell. Simultaneously the parents reply with differing answers. The mother claims “confectionery”. The father claims “clothing”. This leads the teacher into thinking that the family sell edible underwear.

58. The Student Who Sleeps During Class.

This student views school as an obstacle to gaining 9 hours of daytime sleep. Five minutes into the lesson, the teacher’s monotone voice droning on about the different types of soils acts as a sleep-inducing panacea that should be marketed to insomniacs. The student dozes off. Whilst the expert student sleeper selects a seat that shields them from the teacher’s line-of-sight, the amateurish sleeper will wear a pair of glasses with crassly printed out eyes stuck on to the lenses to provide the illusion of wakefulness. This disguise will only fool the most inattentive or nearsighted teacher. The student sleeper plays a perpetual game of risk by falling asleep in a room crammed full of bored teenagers. This results in the student sleeper departing the classroom blissfully unaware of their new texta moustache.

59. The Dramatic Lovers

The dramatic lovers live out the plot to the Bold and the Beautiful on a reoccurring, weekly basis. The couple begin the week by acting out graphic displays of affection in the school corridors. When their tongues aren’t down each other’s throats, they are swearing their life-long devotion to one another. By mid-week, both lovers have cheated on each other with the other’s best friend, forming some sort of contorted, love-rhombus. By Friday, every student in the school has sided with one of the lovers in the prelude to an imminent WW3. As the weekend arrives, one lover stalks the other by hiding amongst the bushes in their front yard. By Monday, the couple have reunited and are again hooking up in the schoolyard for all to see. This cycle continues ad nauseam.

60. The Mystic

The mystic arrives at school draped in an array of colourful crystals. Each crystal supposedly provides a different power. Unfortunately for the mystic, none of the crystals provide the ability to think scientifically. The mystic rolls their eyes during science class and engages in an argument with the science teacher over the incorrect definitions of ‘energy force’ and ‘quantum’. The mystic regularly informs the science teacher that astrology is the only true science. After much debate, the science teacher calls the mystic the offensive ‘C’ word- Charlatan. The mystic attributes their continual heated arguments with the science teacher to their incompatible star signs. The mystic is an open-minded Scorpio whilst the science teacher is a fiery, Leo. The mystic’s morning horoscope warns of bad events awaiting them that day. As a result of this ominous foreboding, the mystic stays home. The principal phones the mystic’s parents and the mystic is suspended for skipping school. The horoscope was correct- bad things did happen!