Cloak and dagger
My sister's a fully-qualified teacher of English as a foreign language, and has been teaching around the world for a few years now. But apparently this isn't good enough for the Greek authorities, oh no. To teach legally in Greece she has to pass her Proficiency exam, and that's all there is to it. This is roughly as hard as an English O'Level, i.e. it proves you can speak and write the language, but this is taken as a better indication that you can bloody teach it than, y'know, actual qualifications And That. I've always had the feeling someone got the words "proficient" and "professional" mixed up when they made that rule. Yes, it seems that the decision about who can teach English was made by someone who didn't actually speak it properly.
So to make everything legal and above-board, the night school where she's been teaching have sent Penny to take the exam today. Unfortunately this means she's going to be taking it alongside some of the students who know her. To avoid awkward questions, the headmistress cooked up an elaborate cover story: She announced to the students that they'd had a lot of complaints about the examination conditions, so as the youngest (and therefore most plausible) member of staff Penny was being sent to take the exam herself, to investigate. That's right, today my sister's Working Undercover.
At least it's probably had a positive effect on the students - it sounds like they're so excited about all the cloak and dagger stuff that they won't have time to be nervous. Now Penny's only problem is that she's been finishing practice papers in about 20 minutes, but she'll have to stick around and not leave the room that early - after all, she wouldn't want to blow her cover.
So to make everything legal and above-board, the night school where she's been teaching have sent Penny to take the exam today. Unfortunately this means she's going to be taking it alongside some of the students who know her. To avoid awkward questions, the headmistress cooked up an elaborate cover story: She announced to the students that they'd had a lot of complaints about the examination conditions, so as the youngest (and therefore most plausible) member of staff Penny was being sent to take the exam herself, to investigate. That's right, today my sister's Working Undercover.
At least it's probably had a positive effect on the students - it sounds like they're so excited about all the cloak and dagger stuff that they won't have time to be nervous. Now Penny's only problem is that she's been finishing practice papers in about 20 minutes, but she'll have to stick around and not leave the room that early - after all, she wouldn't want to blow her cover.