No more readin’ and rockin’ in this new chair

It’s dangerous and it drives teachers to despair. But now the problem of pupils rocking on the rear legs of their chair has been solved by a former teacher in the United Kingdom who has developed an untippable one. Tom Wates has taken orders from 18 schools since launching his product three weeks ago. “I’ve had orders from Glasgow to Belfast, Cornwall to London,” he said. “It seems that it’s a problem that touches everyone.”

Wates said he was “driven mad” by his students rocking back and forth, and often falling off their chairs. “It was something I was saying as much as I was asking children to be quiet. I couldn’t do anything about them talking, but I figured that I could stop this.” Of the 7,000 pupils admitted to hospital a year as a result of chair-related accidents, 70% resulted from rocking back dangerously, according to government statistics. Read about the new chair and see a picture in The Times online.