MS HUSSAIN Favourite book? “Todd… Todd… I need a poo...” Which other book would start with your pet dog’s bowel movements? The Knife of Never Letting Go is a tremendous journey following Todd Hewitt as he tries to work out what the hell is going on. It’s hilarious, terrifying, heart-breaking, poignant and beautiful all in one. Best thing about HGS? School dinners. I’m not even going to pretend it’s anything else. I’ve worked in a few schools and shuddered as I’ve walked by the canteen, sniffing the terrible waft from the trays… Do you guys know how lucky you are?! What punctuation mark would you be and why? The dash because I’m a little abrupt, sassy and sarky. I never shut up about anything and ask any of my students, I tend to jump from topic to topic to topic in half a second! Favourite teacher when you were at school? My English teacher Mr Haddon was a spectacular human being. Ferociously intelligent and incredibly kind, he had the patience of a saint when dealing with the ridiculous amount of questions and rants I had as an A-Level student. The rest of the class kept sighing and rolling their eyes in disbelief – “Again?!” Would you rather be a novel or a poem? Oh, a poem. I first thought about being a novel but, on reflection, I always had a thousand things on my mind so to be a perplexing, beguiling (and probably, irritating) poem would fit me perfectly. Claim to fame? I went to school with Lewin Nyatanga – no, I had to google who he was too. Naughtiest thing you did at school? Not surprisingly, I was a goody-two shoes at school, never setting a foot wrong, so I was mortified and incensed to have been kept behind by the notorious battle-axe Mrs Beck, the geography teacher. Apparently, I had been “misbehaving” in class – I hadn’t, obviously. Mrs Beck left the classroom to do something else, perhaps roar at someone or other in the corridor, I can’t remember what so I was left loitering by her desk at the front of the class with my classmate who was equally perplexed at my presence there. Now, Mrs Beck was an ‘old-school’ teacher – she literally taught in the oldest part of the school and had an old chalkboard which she refused to upgrade for either a whiteboard or an IWB. So, while Mrs Beck was out of the classroom, I spied her coffee cup on the table. Beside it was an assortment of chalk. Of course, I did what any goody-two shoes did and plonked a small piece of chalk into her black coffee. I wasn’t satisfied by the short ‘plop’ of the chalk dropping in her drink so I dropped another piece in. My classmate gawped. “What are you doing?” she hissed as the black sludge lightened ever so slightly. Once those words had left her lips, an uncomfortable feeling sank in my stomach and I reddened with embarrassment and shame. What exactly had I done? Mrs Beck returned and nursed her coffee in her hands as she reprimanded us a little more. I can’t remember a word she said, I only recall praying, wishing and hoping that she didn’t drink the coffee. “She could die! Get chalk poisoning! Get an ulcer! What about blood poisoning?! I’m sure that’s a thing!” Slowly, she sipped from her coffee and I felt electric with fear and shame. “She knows, she’s tasted the chalk. I’m dead…” She paused after she gulped her coffee and I waited for her to annihilate me. Except she didn’t. She sent us off on our way and I wonder whether or not she suspected a thing…. Motto for life? “People who read, succeed.” Read anything, read everything. Be a voracious, challenging reader and question everything. KING OF THE ROAD! I enjoy fond memories of my secondary school education, attending the same school as the lovely Miss Brown, Duddeston Manor School. Whilst focusing on my studies, I also found time to excel at a number of team & individual sports, before deciding to dedicate my spare time to playing basketball. I was made captain of my school, city & county teams. After leaving school, I embraced advance level studies and combined my learning with playing in the national Under 19 Basketball League and was selected to represent the England Under 17 basketball teams in several European tournaments, traveling to many exciting and fascinating cities including Paris, Dresden, Liege, Amsterdam & Zagreb. I quickly learnt that traveling enables you to gain a broader perspective on situations and consequently, when I was presented with the opportunity to play basketball at a leading American High School in Oklahoma via the Rotary Internal Exchange programme, I eagerly accepted the invitation. My additional roles as a Rotary Student also included visiting local schools and embracing the ethos of service above self via several community based initiatives. Living independently overseas, at the very impressionable age of 17, was certainly extraordinary and helped to define my character. The culture and habits of living in America were very different from life in Birmingham; from the simple idiosyncrasy of being taught American English, which is a variance of traditional English language, to learning that you could legally learn to drive a car at the age of 15 through driver education classes at school, were all very novel concepts to me. After graduating from Shawnee High School and achieving further sporting success I was fortunate enough to be offered 48