It's Your Time You're Wasting: A Teacher's Tales of Classroom Hell

Gordon Brown likes to boast that our schools are the envy of the world. Sadly - as ever - he's fibbing.

FRANK CHALK has spent his adult life in the modern education system, so - unlike the Prime Minister - he knows what he's talking about.

He is an ordinary teacher in an ordinary British school… a school where the kids get drunk, beat up the teachers and take drugs - when they can be bothered to turn up.

IT S YOUR TIME YOU'RE WASTING is the blackly humorous diary of a year in his working life.

Chalk confiscates porn, booze and errant trainers, fends off angry parents and worries about the conscientious pupils whose lives and futures are being systematically wrecked, recording his experiences in a funny and readable book.

He offers top tips for dealing with unruly kids, muses on the shortcomings of the staff (including his own) and even spots the occasional spark of hope amid all the despair.

So forget Gordon Brown's boasts - and prepare to be horrified and amused by the unvarnished truth about the bottom end of our state education system. A must-read for parents, teachers and anyone who cares about our country's future.