These days the type of thing that classes as fashionable is enough to make you beg for a staff uniform. Aside from the flock of students following their every move, here are five ways to spot a so-called ‘trendy’ teacher:

1. Owl-eyed spectacles
   ‘Trendy’ teachers think their circular frames help them to appear wise and erudite. But their pupils think otherwise and have taken to drawing lightning bolts on whiteboards and referring to said teacher as “the boy who lived”.
   
   
   
   
    
2. Skinny anything
   Suit jacket, tie, trousers… The only thing that the ‘trendy’ teacher is really proving by wearing skintight garments is that they can avoid the biscuits in the staffroom. And nobody likes a brag.
   
   
   
   
    
3. Tattoos
   School policy requires that tattoos are hidden from sight, but your ‘trendy’ teacher will have gone out of their way to roll their sleeves up just a tad too high so their ink is partially visible. They tend to combine this with tales of spiritual moments in Thailand. Both tattoos and ‘moments’ in Thailand are fine on their own, but both shoved in students faces reeks a little bit of desperation. 
   
   
   
   
    
4. Coiffured facial hair
   Well-groomed facial hair will always impress prepubescent students. Sadly the same cannot be said for the rest of the staff, who find the ‘trendy’ teacher’s whiskers more Wednesday night in Wolverhampton than Saturday night in Shoreditch.
   
   
   
   
    
5. Impractical shoes
   Fashionable footwear may enhance a ‘trendy’ teacher’s look, but there’s nothing more amusing than watching them spear, and subsequently struggle to remove, a discarded sandwich from their five-inch heel while on break duty.
   
   
   

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