The Saga of the Gnash Nullcurriculum

THE SAGA OF THE GNASH NULLCURRICULUM This ancient fable was discovered by antiquarians in a dusty filing cabinet that had not been opened for years. It concerns a mythical land long ago and far away. Its name has been changed to protect the guilty but old teachers will remember….. The barons had a lot on their minds that year. The peasants were revolting and the hay levels in the fields had not been as good as usual, which annoyed the King. He kept them busy in the castle with their bows and arrows, aiming at their Attainment Targets. He had insisted that they did this but these targets kept being changed. Most of the barons did not know what they were any more or even what they looked like. They were not going to be able to reach them anyway because they had not been given enough arrows. As usual, resources were in short supply in the Land of Scholastica. They were nervous because they had heard rumours of the arrival of a fearsome many-headed monster that had been let loose in the forest. It’s name was the Gnash Nullcurriculum. It had belonged to Kenneth the Baker but he could not control it and now the Thatcher had taken charge of it – and everything else, as usual ! No-one, not even the King, had seen this evil creature in the flesh. Some of the barons had seen bits of it – the more they saw, the more frightening it became. They said it was a ravenous beast that had consumed whole forests, that it lived in massive shiny ring-back folders and needed thousands of pages to list all its requirements. Many of the barons still tried to pretend that the Gnash Nullcurriculum was not real and said that, even if it did exist somewhere like Westminster, it would never reach their part of Scholastica. But other barons saw it as a great opportunity to impress the King and cheerfully went on courses in remote parts of the forest during twilight hours or busied themselves in workshops from which they emerged triumphantly waving strange objects that they called Key Stages or Profile Components. The trouble was that most of the barons could not recognise them and had no idea what to do with them – not even the oldest and wisest of them, Sir Norm Attive-Staytemente. The peasants, as always, did not really care about all this but some older folk who had been peasants themselves long ago thought it was a good thing that the Gnash Nullcurriculum was coming. They had mostly been taught in the old Dame Schools (also known as Granma Schools) that used to be found all over the forest. They remembered – or thought they could remember – when every peasant knew where places were; the dates of all the Kings and Queens; when they could all add up in their heads and when it was not just witches who could spell. Deep in the darkest part of the wood, in a      grotto, a person masquerading as Father Christmas was hibernating. He too believed that every peasant should know their granma, but then he had a relative expression on his face because he was just a Subordinate Claus. Soon it became clear that the barons had good cause to fear the Gnash Nullcurriculum. Its name became an evil talisman for the superstitious, to be invoked to prevent anything new being done. When anyone in the castle came up with an idea, everyone else would shout “We must wait until the Gnash Nullcurriculum comes out. We mustn’t do anything yet !” Finally the King got fed up. He put a Swear Box in the Baronial Hall and anyone who used the dreaded words had to put in half a groat (which was all they could afford). The money collected was used to buy some more arrows, so some good came out of it eventually. Henceforth, the Gnash Nullcurriculum was referred to as The Great Unmentionable, which everyone agreed was the best name for it.