Book 1
Mr Gorzug – Substitute Teacher
He came through a portal to conquer a world. He stayed to mark its homework.
The series
Mr. Gorzug
A nine-foot orc war-chief fell through a portal into a Sussex school car park and, against all sensible advice, stayed to teach. He cannot fathom email. He can read a frightened child across a crowded room in seconds.
Each book stands on its own. Read them in order and you also get the love story, the found family, and a quiet argument about where “home” really is.
What readers say
Praise for the series
★★★★★
“It's heartwarming, funny and thought provoking. He may be an orc, but Mr Gorzug would have been very useful in my school.”
★★★★★
“Funny but heart-warming at the same time. Unusual premise for a book but it works exceptionally well.”
★★★★★
“The story is clever, funny, and heartwarming … a feel good story that had me smiling all the way through.”
★★★★★
“The Art of War meets the Department of Education.”
★★★★★
“Hilarious in the so very English way! … should be required reading for all teachers in training, and for everyone who enjoys laughing at the bureaucracy we inflict on ourselves.”
★★★★★
“With how accurate Mr Moody is regarding the inner bureaucracy and over documentation of the public school system, I could have sworn he spent time teaching. It is funny, dry, and thoroughly entertaining in a way truth often is.”
★★★★★
“This series has been amusing on every page, occasionally hysterical and always accurate.”
Behind the books
Questions about Gorzug
- Where did the idea for the books come from?
-
As a child, I was not always an easy pupil. I grew up in a home shaped in part by my father’s PTSD, and the usual school punishments never carried quite the weight adults seemed to expect.
What I needed, though I did not have the language for it then, were teachers with steadiness, clarity, patience, and the courage to see difficult children as more than the trouble they caused.
These books are, in part, a way of allowing that teacher to exist.
- Is Mr. Gorzug based on you?
-
In part, yes, but he is definitely not a realistic representation of me. He is closer to an idealised version: the person I would like to have been, and the person I still try to become.
The other major influence on Mr. Gorzug is an old childhood friend of mine who went into teaching and now specialises in working with teenagers who face particular challenges. He is extraordinarily intelligent, patient and kind in a way that most of us can only aspire to.
- Why is Gorzug so good with difficult children?
-
Mr. Gorzug was not only the leader of a warband, but also its trainer. He had teaching experience long before arriving in England. His previous students simply tended to carry rather more weapons than most English teenagers.
- Why does Miss Khan always make Gorzug’s tea?
-
Tea, and particularly knowing how someone takes it, is one of the few publicly intimate parts of English life. If someone knows you well enough to simply make you a cuppa exactly the way you like it, without asking about milk, sugar or strength, it says something. You are accepted. They know you well enough to know your preferences.
For Miss Khan and Gorzug, that small act became a useful way of showing intimacy long before either of them was particularly willing to call it that.
- What frightens Gorzug?
-
Mr. Gorzug doesn’t particularly fear injury or death. What frightens him is being unable to protect those in his care.
Translation desk
A Small Guide for American Readers
Halcyon Comprehensive is an English secondary school. Most of the language in this book is perfectly ordinary in Britain, but a few terms may require translation across the Atlantic.
- Comprehensive school
- A non-selective state-funded secondary school. Roughly equivalent to an American public middle/high school.
- Year Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven
- Roughly equivalent to US grades 6 through 10. Pupils are generally aged eleven to sixteen.
- Sixth Form
- The final two optional years of secondary education, usually ages sixteen to eighteen. Roughly equivalent to 11th and 12th grade.
- Headteacher / Head
- Principal.
- Deputy Head
- Vice-principal.
- Head of Year
- A teacher or senior member of staff responsible for the welfare and behaviour of one year group.
- SLT
- Senior Leadership Team. The headteacher, deputies and other senior school leaders.
- Form / Tutor Group
- Roughly equivalent to homeroom or advisory.
- Supply Teacher
- Substitute teacher.
- Cover
- Having another teacher take a class because the usual teacher is absent.
- Staffroom
- Teachers’ lounge.
- Parents’ Evening
- Parent-teacher conference night.
- Safeguarding
- The systems and procedures used to protect children and respond to concerns about their safety or welfare.
- Pastoral
- The part of school concerned with pupils’ welfare, behaviour and personal support. It is not necessarily religious.
- QTS
- Qualified Teacher Status.
- NQT / ECT
- Newly Qualified Teacher / Early Career Teacher.
- Non-Uniform Day
- A day when pupils are allowed to wear their own clothes instead of school uniform, often in exchange for a small charitable donation.
- Revision
- Studying or reviewing material before an examination.
- Skiving
- Skipping school or a lesson.
- Rota
- A duty schedule or roster.
- Marking
- Grading pupils’ work.
- Jumper
- Sweater.
- Trainers
- Sneakers.
- Crisps
- Potato chips. British chips are what Americans generally call fries.
- Canteen
- Cafeteria.
- Postcode
- ZIP code.
And finally, maths really does have an s on the end here. No administrative error has occurred.
Where he fits
He is, technically, a leak
Gorzug came through a seam between this Britain and the older, stranger one pressed up against it. He is not the only thing that has. He is simply the largest, greenest and least easily overlooked.
The rest of what gets through — quieter, damper, and rather more polite — lives next door.