LESSONS in magic for classroom troublemakers costing almost half a million pounds of taxpayers' money were branded a "joke" yesterday.
The "unruly" kids, aged 12 and 13, learnt to cut a pack of cards and how to make it look like they had reattached two pieces of string. Then they watched a puppet show to help them with "confidence issues".
But last night the Taxpayers Alliance slammed the £450,000 "Fast Forward" scheme at Stoke-on-Trent as a waste of money.
A spokesman said: "This is a joke. Schools should concentrate on teaching maths, English, science and other core subjects, not card tricks and vanishing acts. Such silly initiatives have gone unchallenged for too long."
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