Today I was instructed to discuss the three types of chairs available in the sixth form, the advantages and disadvantages of both and the type of people who might use them.

Chair 1 – the ‘Plastic Chair’
The first chair I’d like to discuss is the blue plastic model, which is pretty much standard across education in most primary and secondary schools. We grew up and learned on these types of chairs, four legs and a seat made of plastic. Of course we must remember that the rabbit hole goes much deeper and that this ‘entry-level’ chair is available in multiple colours ranging from ‘urban brown’ to ‘sea blue’ to ‘rustic orange’, which can maintain one’s interest even when more advanced models are released. The colour I am concentrating on however is the blue one, the colour we see everyday here in the sixth form. However, in this day of modern technology, the advanced models have become the main focus of everyone’s attention and the plastic model is now but a last resort when there is nothing else to sit on, including window sills and the floor.

This chair is most likely to be sat on by a few different kinds of people;

Poor People, who can’t afford to sit on more expensive chairs, in case they damage them and have to buy a replacement.
Weak People, who in the fight for supremacy over the best chairs will lose out to Strong People who get to the best chairs first and impose their authority.
Late People, who turn up after everybody else and have to settle for whatever is left.

This chair is most likely to be found in: classrooms and corridors between classrooms.

Chair 2 – ‘The Supremo’
The Supremo is the mother of all sixth form chairs, and it looks something not entirely unlike this chair:

Ever since the opening of sixth form, this chair has been the most popular causing many riots and age-old friendships to collapse. Saying this however, competition was a lot fiercer back in the old days when this chair was first released, and things have since calmed down a bit. Still – the first thing everyone does when they enter a room containing known Supremos is try to snag one. There are certain hot-points around the sixth form where you are more likely to find a Supremo than in other areas. For example, Business Studies have a very large amount of these chairs, and average of 8 or 9 p/room making it the densest subject area in the sixth form. Most of these seem to have been stolen from Media and English rooms, which will only have 1 or 2 of these chairs on the average day during peak season. You are least likely to find one of these chairs in central meeting room, and most likely to find one in an office or of course Business Studies.

So why are they so popular? They offer the enhanced comfort and manoeuvrability that the plastic model doesn’t; they also have extra features such as being able to move vertically and an adjustable seat back. The extra padding certainly helps long sitting-around sessions, and well... I don’t think I even need to mention the fun.

This chair is sat on by;

The Obsessive-Compulsive, who recognises the popularity and has to be involved every time. These people may even refuse to sit down completely if a Supremo is not available.
Rich People, see opposite of Poor People.
The Daredevil, Break dancer, Artist, Evangelist, Poet or Advanced Learner, will seek comfort in their sitting, and obtain pleasure from the advanced features of which they are fully aware and may even have written articles on.

and so the third chair in the study;

Chair 3 – ‘The Modulator-Demodulator’
This chair is basically a static version of the Supremo. It has the comfort of the padded material seat and backrest although lets itself down on other fronts such as compatibility, manoeuvrability, speed, control, damage and aggression. Whilst if all you’re going to do is sit on this seat it’s fine, but once you try to push the limits of conventionality; that’s when this baby will crash and burn.

It’s big and hard to move about, the wooden frame is heavier than the plastic model and the dimensions clearly show a much wider structure – one of the reasons these chairs are not used in classrooms. The rarest model in the collection, you are most likely to find the Modulator-Demodulator at the side of the meeting room and around the edge of the corridors. A peripheral competitor in the overall scheme of things, this chair isn’t really a force at the current time, but with market forces as unpredictable as they have been for 20 years, we could easily see a rise in fortune for this outsider.

This is pretty much a middle class chair, and you’re most likely to see an average student resting on one. Users of the Plastic model may hesitate to use it whilst the users of the Supremo will not – we don’t really know much about this chair at the current time.

There is also rumours about of a ‘Mega-Supremo Ultra Xtreme Model’ in which the backrest is significantly larger than the usual model, but these are currently unsubstantiated, and so this study must be brought to a close for now.

Article Written by Jay