Tim the tadpole’s exams

Prince Bertie the Frog’s friend, Tim the Tadpole, is extremely upset because a
certain person on the pond has called him “stupid” for not doing well at school.
No prizes for guessing that the name of that person is Colin the Carp.

Read by Natasha. Story by Bertie. Duration 15.02

… And this picture of Bertie and this Pondlife friends is by Phoebe Katsaiti,
aged

It was end of term at the Tadpole School, and all the tadpoles had to do exams.
When Tim came home for the holidays, he was terribly excited about his
results. He was turning in cartwheels and calling out

“Mummy Mummy, Can you guess where I came in class?”

Tim’s mum – who is of course a frog – saw that her youngest tadpole seemed
ecstatically pleased and proud with himself, and she thought he must have
done very well indeed.

“Er, did you come first?” she ventured.

“No -oh ! – you’ll never guess” said Tim as he stopped to catch his breath.

“Er did you come first equal”

“No-ooooo”

“Well then did you come second?”

And Tim gave his mother a little tadpole kiss. “Oh Mummy. You’re taking simply
ages to guess the right answer, and I can’t wait to tell you. I won a really really
big number. The teacher told me that I cam 2974th in my class. Isn’t that
fantastic?”

But Tim’s mother found it hard to smile sweetly, and her expression looked just
a bit, well, weak. She didn’t want her little Tadpole to feel bad about himself,
but at the same time she really would have preferred him to come first or first
equal, or even second – or even third come to that. She tried to think of
something nice to say – which normally she was very good at – but this time it
was quite hard. Eventually she said softly to Tim.

“Oh well darling. I suppose somebody’s got to come 2974th.”

Tim was very pleased, and he swam off to tell Colin the Carp – which wasn’t a
good idea, because Colin isn’t quite as nice as Tim’s mummy. Colin would say
that he’s a harbinger of the truth. But most people would say he’s just plain old
rude, which only goes to show that everything depends on your point of view.
Tim found him lurking around the east end of the pond looking sinister, which
is what carps are good at. When Tim told him about his exam result, Colin
replied.

“I suppose you could say that’s a unique achievement.”

“Oh thank you Colin, you always say the nicest things,” said Tim with a happy
smile on his face.

And then Colin couldn’t quite help himself. He just had add what is called the
“sting in the tale” because that’s what Colin does. And so me muttered:
“Uniquely stupid”.

And although Colin said this quietly, Tim heard it. And when he thought about
what Colin had said, all his excitement suddenly turned to sadness. He was so
sad that he swam away crying.

“Oh No. Am I really really truly stupid? Oh it’s not good to be stupid, is it? Oh
dear. Colin thinks I’m stupid… I feel really bad about myself now now.”

And to tell you the truth, Colin felt rather guilty. It was an unusual feeling for
Colin, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. Eventually, he decided to
go and tell Bertie the frog that Tim was a bit upset. When Bertie what had
happened, he searched and searched the pond for his little friend. Finally he
found him in the water under the overhang of the weeping willow tree. He
seemed to be concentrating very hard on something.

“What are you doing here, all on your own little Tim?” asked Bertie.

“Counting green Algae”

Green Algae are tiny little plants – so tiny that they are even smaller than
tadpoles – and very hard to see. But lots of water creatures eat them because
they are extremely nutritious.

“And how many algae have you counted?” asked Bertie.

But Bertie assured him that he wasn’t at all stupid. He was just original.

“Is that just a big word for stupid?” asked Tim. And he started to cry. Nothing
Bertie could say would cheer him up. All Bertie could do was to lead him home,
and when they got there Tim had cried so much that he was really quite
exhausted. His mother tucked him up under a leaf, kissed him, and soon he
was asleep. She whispered to Bertie.

“Oh dear. I know he’s never going to be the brightest tadpole in the pond, but I
just want him to be happy.”

“Well I don’t accept that Tim’s stupid,” said Bertie. “He’s just silly, which is
another way of saying he gets over excited sometimes. Don’t worry. We’ll teach
him to pass his exams. There’s just a knack to them, that’s all. If you have the
knack, and you work hard, you can’t fail. But if you start to think that you can’t
do them, then you’ll get into a state and do worse and worse. We’ll work up a
plan for him. A plan for success !”

And Tim’s mother thought that Bertie was being really nice – but she wasn’t
quite sure that he or anybody else could help Tim do better at school.

The next day Bertie took Tim for a swim around the pond, and while they
swam he asked him all about his exams. First, he asked him how the
geography exam was. And Tim said he didn’t know, because he got the time
wrong, and he turned up just as it was finishing.

“I see,” said Bertie. “Rule number one. Ninety percent of success is just
turning up. Always arrive at an exam half an hour early – and check and double
check the time table beforehand.”

And Tim thought that Bertie’s advice was jolly interesting, because he hadn’t
thought of that before.

And then Bertie asked him how the story-composition went.

“Oh I did really well in Storytelling. ” Bertie was pleased, because he kind of
hoped that a little of his own story-telling skill would have rubbed off on Tim.
But then Tim went on:

“I finished first by a mile. I just wrote, ‘Once upon a time. The end.’ Everyone
else took ages to catch up. ”
“Right,” said Bertie. “Rule number two. Slow and steady wins the race. Use all
the time available.”.

And then he asked him how he did in mathematics.

“On not not too bad,” said Tim. “The questions were really hard but guessed all
the answers.”

“Ah-ha. Rule number three,” said Bertie. “No guessing. And never panic, no
matter how hard the questions seem at first. Keep a cool head head and work
your way steadily through them.”

And they swim on, while thought about that one.

“Now finally, how was history?” asked Bertie.

“Well I thought I did really well,” said Tim. “Because I wrote done some really
funny answers.”

“Okay,” said Bertie. “Rule number four. Exams are no joking matter”.

And then Bertie gave Tim some more rules for exams.

Before you do anything else, read through all the questions.

And they swam round the pond three more times and made sure that Tim knew
and understood all Bertie’s tips.

“So you see,” said Bertie. “Exams aren’t really about being clever. They are
about having the right knack. Oh, and there’s hard work too. That’s the
downside. But we can make learning fun. ”

And Bertie and the pondlife helped Tim with his lessons. Bertie taught Tim
story composition – because making up stories is what Bertie does best –
Harry the centipede helped Tim with mathematics, because he can count to a
hundred on his feet, Colin helped Tim with History, because Colin is old and
remembers a lot of it himself, and the the swallows helped Tim with
Geography because they fly long distance every year and the see how all the
land lies, as well as the seas. By the end of the holidays, Tim had learned more
things than you would have ever thought possible for one Tadpole to hold in his
tiny pin head at one time. And then Tim went back to school and learned even
more interesting things. When the exams came, he followed Bertie’s rules –
and do you know what ? He scored better marks than anyone else in his whole
class. And it was a very big class indeed, because there are thousands of
tadpoles in the pond.

But even though he scored top marks, he only came 2869th in class.

When Bertie understood that Tim had scored top marks, but was still 2869th in
his class, he went to see the teacher to ask how this could be. The teacher
told him that the school had a rule that you could only improve by five places
in each exam, because to improve by more than that was impossible. Bertie
said that was jolly unfair and the school should do more to encourage
improvement. Tim swam around hanging his head low and saying that there
was no point in working hard and doing well, because your efforts weren’t
recognised.

But the next week Tim started at the Big School. And everything was new.
There was no unfair rule about how much anyone could improve and Tim
already knew lots of interesting things, and he also had the knack of doing
exams. From then on, Tim did rather well at school. And although some people
still call him silly every now and then, because he gets really excited and asks
lots and lots of questions – nobody calls him stupid any more. Well Colin does
sometimes. But that’s just Colin – and you shouldn’t take too much notice of
what he says because he’s a grumpy old carp.