Episode 17

Susi is worried about the forthcoming First Year Exams - her parents are pressuring her to get into the top "sets" for all her subjects, and threaten to send her to another school if she does not perform well. Penny announces to the first years that there is to be a referendum on whether school uniform will be made optional. Staff, Parents and Pupils will all be given a vote. Tucker, Benny and Hughes discover a geography exam paper and delightedly vow to find out all of the answers before the exam takes place. The school librarian is surprised when she is inundated with first years coming in to the library to find out what the "Corealis Effect" is! Susi is copying Maths homework questions that Keating has set off the blackboard after class when Madeline comes in and wickedly scrubs it off. Susi asks to copy the questions from Penny but Penny cannot assist as she is in a hurry to get home. Susi goes home where her mother ensures she gets on with her exam revision immediately. Next morning Susi tells her mother that she doesn't feel well. They go to see their doctor who says that physically Susi is fine. Mrs McMahon unsympathetically insists that Susi must go to school immediately, although her books are still at home.Keating gives her a detention when she has no homework to hand in and no doctor's note. The next day is the first day of the exams and Susi is clearly unwell this time with a high temperature. Mrs McMahon phones the school and is pleased when the school confirm that Susi can take the exams when she returns. On hearing this news, Susi breaks down in tears. The Geography exam comes around, and Tucker looks pleased with himself at the start. However none of the questions that Tucker predicted would come up are in the exam and afterwards he is given a "doing" by his irate Classmates. It was a second year paper that Tucker stole! Susi returns to school and Summers tells her that she is doing well academically and that she worries too much about matching the achievements of her "clever" elder brother. The results of the uniform referendum is announced, from next year school uniform will be optional.