1B
The short story ”Sports Leader” by Jane Rogers is about a sixteen-year-old boy who cannot go to college to do his Sports Leadership, because he hasn’t passed his exams. Therefore, his foster mother, Eileen, finds him a job working for a window cleaner named Phil. Part of the boy’s job is to collect the money for the window cleaning by going from door to door. In one of the houses a boy from school, Martin, lives. When Martin finds out how much the boy collects by the end of the night, he decides one evening to pass the boy up and steal the bag with the money. The following day Phil and the boy go to Martin’s house, but he denies stealing the money, and his mother defends him as well. The next day Phil is advised to let the boy go, which he ends up doing.
The story ends with the boy fantasizing about becoming a Sports Leader.

2B
In the short story, the reader doesn’t know the boy’s real name - he just goes by “the boy”.
This could indicate that the boy is a somewhat anonymous kind of person. He is someone who no one really notices, and who no one really cares about. We don’t know why he is in foster care, but he refers to his real parents home as something that “was”, so he might have lost his parents.
The boy is presented as a person with very little intellect. He is not good at math, which makes people around him impatient. He doesn’t really understand why he can’t go to college, and he is surprised that the other kids are going. The fact that he is not able to attend college, doesn’t take away his dream of becoming a Sports Leader though. In fact, he is deeply convinced that his dream will come true one day. This makes him seem a bit naïve, since the chances for that to happen are very small. When he sees the beautiful girl on the magazine, he fantasizes about marrying a girl just like that, and strongly believes that one day he actually will. He likes to look through peoples’ windows, because he enjoys observing the daily life of random people.
The boy is very honest, and he would never steal any of the money he collects. He seems like a trustworthy person who doesn’t mean harm to anyone, but he gets pushed around easily, and he doesn’t defend himself at any point throughout the story. He thinks to himself, that when he finally becomes a Sports Leader, he will be able to decide things for himself.

3B
His foster mother, Eileen, doesn’t seem to have much interest in him. It seems like she’s tired of having him around, and she’s referring to him having to move out when he turns eighteen.
It also seems like the boy is controlled by her, since she is the one deciding if he can watch daytime television or not. She thinks he has his “head in the clouds”, which indicates that she finds him absent-minded, naïve and stupid.
Phil, the window cleaner, seems to have some extend of good faith in the boy. He thinks he’s imbecile, but that’s what makes him trust him not to steal. Phil thinks the boy is very slow, but reliable. It also seems like he feels a bit sorry for him, and even though he ends up letting him go, he does defend him at the Bennet Road chippy.
Martin, the boy from school, is a real bully, and he doesn’t care for the boy’s feelings.
He takes advantage of him, and finds it easy to threaten him. He sees the boy as an easy target as well. Martin’s mother also thinks the boy is stupid, and tells Phil that he “isn’t the full ticket”, and she might be using this against him to cover for her son.
Finally, the boy is accused of being a pervert, and almost a threat to women and children, even though the accuser doesn’t know anything about him.

4B
Personal dreams and ambitions are very important. They are what make a person unique in his or her own way, and to pursue them is even more important. In the short story the boy has a big dream of becoming a Sports Leader. Unfortunately, it seems like the chances are small, and he might not be very realistic about that. Being realistic about your dreams and goals is important too.
Some things are harder to achieve than other, and it’s important to be sure about your goal when you set one. Some people get lost into dreaming about being successful or rich, and they might end up losing themselves in the end. No matter who you are and what your story is, it’s still important to listen to your heart. But it’s crucial to have something to fall back on if what you aimed for doesn’t work out. Having friends and family to support you is a very important factor as well. If your environment doesn’t believe in you, it will automatically be more difficult to believe in yourself. The boy lacks support, and perhaps if he had been supported or helped more, he would’ve been able to attend college and finally become what he had dreamed of.