Forced to demonstrate scholastic achievement, the Headmaster decides to enter Chiselbury in a radio school quiz programme. To ensure a win, masters are dressed as boys and the answers are relayed up to the cricket scoreboard.
A sexy Latin mistress from Paris on a temporary Anglo-French teachers’ exchange, has boys and masters alike fluttering around her ‘like a lot of old bees round a young honey’. Jim decides this can’t go on, and chooses one lucky member of staff to spend the evening with Mam’selle.
A distinguished visitor, Prince Gopal of Jakari, turns out to be an 11 year old boy wishing to continue his education at Chiselbury. Chaos breaks out when the VIP student does a bunk just as Mr. Burgess of the Foreign Office is due to visit.
When Lady Uppingham withdraws from the book prize-giving ceremony, Jim has to manage with only 17 dust jackets and one spicy confiscated novel, Piccadilly Gun Moll.
Brigadier Taplow wants to see the new TV he has donated to the school, unaware that it is no longer in a working condition. The staff and students are forced to create their own broadcast, projected into the empty TV case via a giant pen-scope.
Professor Edwards awaits the arrival of Harry Littlewood, son of the British Consul-General to Fernando Po. But when young Harry turns out to be a ‘Harriet’, a deception must be staged, with Pettigrew playing the Consul-General’s wife.
Following a spate of schoolboy pranks, the school governor warns the Head that he must earn the boys’ admiration. Jim decides to be seen saving the school trophies from a dangerous, armed burglar (Pettigrew).
When Jim hears Dr. Sopwith of Melchester is to meet a new prospective parent, the Marchioness of Retford, he ensures that Chiselbury will take on her 13 year old son instead. However the Marchioness insists on a married Headmaster, and a suitable woman cannot be found.
The Headmaster finds himself needing to replace the Lower Third’s outing money, which he has borrowed to purchase a Ph.D. gown and degree. Suddenly hope is offered in the guise of an old schoolboy burglar and a falsified insurance claim.
The school governor is aghast when Wordsworth’s Daffodils is judged the winner of the original poetry competition, and Edwards is sacked. Pettigrew is duly promoted, introducing new ‘progressive education’ policies.
On the last day of term, Jim has written a vindictive damning report. As a result, he falls victim to a campaign of psychological warfare, aimed at persuading him to produce a more favourable assessment.
A wealthy American, Mrs. Van Stuyvesant, enrolling her son Marvin for the new term, turns out to be a Sunday newspaper reporter, investigating corruption in phony private schools. Jim endeavours to prevent the story from being published.
Unable to produce Pettigrew’s back-pay enabling him to visit his elderly aunt in Australia, Edwards offers to bring her to England instead. The plan is to encourage the BBC to feature his assistant as the subject on This Is Your Life. A fictitious Pettigrew story is concocted, highlighting daring sea rescues and heroic action with the Indian army.
The masters have to take on all the domestic duties following matron’s departure. When Mr. Lumley sees the appalling condition of his son, he insists that a replacement be found. His choice is a dictatorial battleaxe, so Jim dreams up a bogus illness to force her resignation.
When the cash box from a £500 laundry robbery is found in the school grounds, Prof. Edwards suspects Lumley and Taplow, and the boys suspect their Headmaster. Then the real burglars return…
Mr. Lumley wants to see his son achieving something, so Jim decides A. J. Lumley should win a boxing championship. The boy is initially reluctant, until he falls in love with Deirdre at mixed ballroom dancing classes.
With his flogging arm in a sling after a football ‘accident’, the Headmaster is at the mercy of schoolboy pranks. That is, until he introduces a caning machine, dubbed the ‘TERRA’. Is Chiselbury about to enter a ‘golden age of obedience’?
An old boy has left £100 to be awarded to the most popular school personality, as decided by ballot. Jim is determined to win, so he organises a publicity stunt. Our hero will overpower a maniacal Pettigrew, who is threatening to blow up the school.
In preparation for a visit by the Russian Under-minister of Culture, the Headmaster orders in various exhibits from the Victoria & Albert museum, hoping to pass them off as the pupils’ handiwork. Meanwhile, a booby-trapped bottle of whisky almost starts World War III!
The Head is told he is eight years in arrears with the rent for the school playing fields, and that consequently the land has been sold for industrial development. With his protests falling on deaf ears, Jim impersonates the proposed factory owner in a bid to enlist support from the villagers
In need of money to settle outstanding bills, Jim decides to make use of an unwanted Greek statue. He sends out letters requesting donations for the purchase of a memorial to spurious old boy, Samuel Upjohn.
Keen to once again host the annual village fête, Prof. Edwards promises a performance of the Chiselbury floral dance, con-ducted by Mr. Halliforth. When the boys discover they will be dressing up as flowers, a sit-down strike is called.
Charles Phipps’ father wagers £50that the Headmaster cannot outwit his son within a month. Jim arranges a public flogging for Phipps, until he finds something worth more to him than money — the perfect wife.
Jim pays his staff using the money given to him for the purchase of a sports day trophy. A cup is ordered on approval from the jewellers, with the Head relying on his champion to win the race. But hopes are not high as Mr. Pettignew dons his running togs.
When Jim learns that the Americans have taken oven a local airfield and a Headmaster is needed to teach their children, he offers his services. Unfortunately, his Chiselbury contract can’t be broken unless he is dismissed for gross moral turpitude.
Crombie overhears a conversation about a schoolboy taking his teacher to court for excessive cruelty. After receiving six of the best, he too brings his case before a magistrate, alleging that Prof. Edwards administered 347 whacks!
Jim allows his boys to become guinea pigs for St. Tallulah’s girls’ cookery class, believing it will become useful as a threat. When the meal turns into a success, the threat becomes an incentive for hand work before the inspector’s visit.
The governor’s chartered accountant nephew, examining the accounts, finds a cash box with £30 missing. To replace the money, Prof. Edwards takes over Crombie and Potter’s insurance scheme against whacking.
Jim attempts to fund an advertising campaign for new pupils. A commercial is filmed, but must be scrapped when the son of a BBC governor is sent to Chiselbury.
Pettigrew has promised Mr. Dinwiddie a cottage for his long service present, and the Headmaster decides a hit tune for the school will bring in the loot. Vera Lynn is persuaded to come and sing The Chiselbury Boating Song at Dinwiddie’s bedside, unaware that her performance is being recorded!
When Jim hears the boys’ detested new Eton suits have been stolen in a burglary, he smells a rat. Then the masters’ clothes are also pilfered, with the village ladies arriving any minute to hear a recital by the musical Moussaka Ensemble.
An old boy now in commercial TV offers the Headmaster an appearance on the Break The Bank quiz show, with questions supplied beforehand. Jim chooses maths as his subject, relying on his top pupil to come up with the answers.
A photo of a naked lady is found in the school magazine under the heading ‘Proposed new addition to hobbies room’, and Edwards is sacked! Mr. Foster takes over as Head, but, determined to clear his name, Jim stays on — as a schoolboy!
Lady Westbury offers to halve Prof. Edward’s rent if he helps her humanitarian cause by accepting an ex-Pentonville inmate on the staff. Mr. Tozer gains the respect of the boys, but Jim is adamant that he must go.
The Headmaster decides to accompany the boys on their form outing to the Tate Gallery. All his trepidations prove well founded when one pupil and a piece of sculpture disappear.
As chief of entertainments, Jim books Max Bygraves to perform at the Chiselbury village hall Grand Variety Concert.
Seeing no benefit in his £38,000 pools win, Pettigrew plans to give it all to the Four-Footed Friends Fund. Disgusted, Jim urges him to first sample the fleshpots, so they head off for a night of wine, women and song at the flashy Ritz-Canton.
The lovesick geography master, Mr. Halliforth, announces his engagement to Mildred, daughter of the village tea shop proprietor. The Headmaster convinces him of the folly of such a union until he learns of a £8000 inheritance.
Mr. Halliforth departs and his Welsh replacement, Mr. Morgan, demands that the teachers’ salaries are raised to regulation levels. To find the money, Jim plans to run adult evening classes, until he discovers a demand for English lessons for foreign domestics.
Jim decides to give a poor urchin free education at Chiselbury and ensures maximum publicity by appearing on the Tonight TV show. Suddenly he has two weeks to make a gentleman out of a young tough from the Dockland slums.
The Head is preparing for a winter holiday in St. Moritz when the doctor diagnoses an infectious case of measles in the school. Jim upsets Pettigrew by refusing to authorise extra food for the quarantined boys, and so suffers a troubled sleep during which he is visited by his conscience.
Visiting disciplinarian Admiral Sir Archibald Ballard is concerned about Chiselbury’s 95% school leaver unemployment figures. He insists that before his next visit, Prof. Edwards appoint a vocational guidance master and find a position for the unemployable R. A. Hunter.