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George Pointon is an actor turned teacher whose X feed – where he asks his primary school kids questions like: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and posts their replies – became a viral hit in 2021. Teacher Man is the full-length book version – there are plenty of kids’ replies, but it’s also the tale of him grappling with the first year of a job he’s uncertain about, starting work just as lockdown hits. His style is light and wry, and the impossibility of engaging bored pupils in online lessons is made more obvious than any headlines about Covid and GCSE results. Of course he falls for the kids, and there’s a happy ending of sorts. All the same, you feel the hopelessness of trying to help a kid with deep and damaging problems when all you have is one school year.
