When I first started writing funny poetry for young readers, I decided that kids spent so much time at school that the last thing they would want to read were poems about the place. I found that I was wrong and that although many children have a love-hate relationship with school, they do have an appetite for funny school poems. So here they are, a collection of funny poems about horrible teachers, boring lessons, naughty pupils, cruel punishments and lots of other school related activities.
A poem about a pupil daydreaming in one of those really long, really boring classes which seem as though they'll never end.
Patrick Winstanley
Rhyming Poem
5-12
KS1, KS2
8 lines
I wonder why the sun is hot
I wonder why it rains a lot
I wonder why the sky is blue
I wonder why a cow goes moo
I wonder why the clouds skip by
I wonder why a bird can fly
I wonder will the lesson end
Before I'm driven round the bend.
Firstly, an apology, because if you're somebody who counts the number of lines in each and every poem, this is a really long poem at 28 lines. It is, however, written in the form of a short poem with very short lines and lots of rhymes. Anyway, it's a poem about the rules and regulations dictating what you can and can't do in a library.
Patrick Winstanley
Short-Long Rhyming Poetry
8-14
KS2, KS3
28 lines
No Eating
No Drinking
No Talking
Or Shouting
No Swearing
No Spitting
No Hopping
Or Skipping
No Smoking
No Smirking
No Pushing
Or Shoving
No Coughing
No Sneezing
No Sniffling
Or Wheezing
No Pets and
No Petting
No Singing
Or Dancing
No Doodling
Canoodling
Or Fooling
Around
And The Last
Golden Rule
No Reading
Aloud.
A boy playing in the school orchestra has a desperate need to go to the toilet, but what can he do to get the attention of the teacher in charge?
Patrick Winstanley
Rhyming Poem
8-14
KS2, KS3
8 lines
The orchestra's mid-rehearsal
And I'm dying for a pee
But, although I'm holding up my hand
I can't make the teacher see
I clash the cymbals, bang the drum
But he doesn't hear my plea
If I have a tinkle on the piano
Then he's sure to notice me.
A poem about the first day in a new school, or perhaps the first day in a new class, when the teacher in a completely cringe-worthy manner, and in front of the whole class, asks the pupils about themselves and their families. The whole exercise is meant to put everyone at their ease, but in this poem Timmy's answers to his teacher's questions are less than reassuring.
Patrick Winstanley
Rhyming Poem
5-14
KS1, KS2, KS3
8 lines
'Timmy, please tell the class
What does your father do?'
'Miss, he's a magician
He saws people in two'.
'So, who else lives with you?'
'Well, there's me, my mother
My two half-sisters and
My other half-brother'.
I was at school long enough ago that pupils who had been really naughty were caned and those who had been quite naughty were put in detention. Being in detention meant doing extra school work or the dreaded 'lines' when all your fellow pupils were enjoying themselves, or after they had gone home. Crime and Punishment is a poem about being put in detention and writing lines in which the teacher seems to have gone a step too far whilst administering justice.
Patrick Winstanley
Rhyming Poem
8-14
KS2, KS3
9 lines
Miss Tibbs put me in detention
For a moment's inattention
Now I'm to write a hundred lines
The same six words one hundred times.
You may think that punishment's fine
But shouldn't the sentence fit the crime
Perhaps, 'I will not doze in class'
But not, 'I will cut Miss Tibbs' grass'
One hundred times.
Never, ever argue with your teacher, unless of course you're cleverer than them. This is a poem about how to avoid punishment for missed homework and annoy your teacher at the same time. Follow its example with extreme caution!
Paul Curtis
Rhyming Poem
8-14
KS2, KS3
8 lines
Sam asked a question of his teacher
He asked it of the stern Miss Meacher
You wouldn’t punish me, would you?
For something that I did not do
Of course not boy, answered Miss
Spitting the reply out with a hiss
That’s a relief he began to explain
As I didn't do my homework again.
I have to warn you that whilst this poem is quite horrible, the introduction to it is really, really disgusting. At the age of seven, I was sent to boarding school. The was nothing particularly wrong with the food at boarding school, but there was no choice of menu and you were forced to eat everything. If it was something you didn't like, you could ask for a small portion, but you had to eat it. There was a boy in my class called Andrew who didn't like bread and butter pudding. He didn't just not like bread and butter pudding, he really, really hated it. Unfortunately for Andrew, we had bread and butter pudding for lunch nearly every week. He would dutifully ask for a small portion and sit shuffling the bread and butter pudding round the plate with is spoon, or hiding lumps of it in his pockets, or bribing his neighbour to eat it for him. Eventually the teacher would give up and say he'd finished and that he could leave the table. Except that on one occasion there was a particularly mean and sadistic teacher in charge, who sat right beside him and said he was going to watch him eat every mouthful, even if it meant they both stayed there till tea time. Andrew begged and he cried, but eventually he was forced to put a miniscule spoonful of bread and butter pudding into his mouth. He was immediately sick, right back into the bowl of bread and butter pudding. The teacher - I did mention, didn't I, that he was cruel and vicious - said that he'd done it on purpose and made him sit and eat the bowl of sick (diced carrots and all). The good news is that the poem isn't about bread and butter pudding; the bad news is that it's about my least favourite school food, which is even more disgusting...
Patrick Winstanley
Short Rhyming Poem
8-14
KS2, KS3
4 lines
I've eaten worms and woodlice
Frog's spawn and field mice
But nothing as disgusting
As school rice pudding.
