“Finding the most Rocking Teacher in the UK!” All kinds of surreal images sprang to mind, but we read on...

Shine Communications, the PR outfit for the DVD release of School of Rock, was inviting The TES to help run a competition to find “the maddest, baddest, craziest most rock-barmy teacher in the UK”.

The film itself, a kind of Dead Poets Society for rockers, is a reasonably well produced piece of Hollywood schlock, but Shine’s competition idea sounded altogether darker and more worrisome. A prize of pound;1,000 for music equipment was on offer to the school with the“most rocking teacher”, but how would heshe be chosen? From the wording of the email, it seemed teachers would have to nominate themselves and then lobby their students to support their “rocking” credentials. A dedicated website, www.doesyourteacherrock.com, had already been set up “inviting school kids to post their teachers in rock poses on site”.

Aargh! Fortunately, it seems Paramount, the film’s UK distributor, has had a belated attack of common sense.

A disappointed Alex Grier, from Shine, announced on Tuesday: “Paramount has made the decision not to run with the Rocking Teacher competition. I don’t know the reasons for the decision.”

We think we do, Alex.