Redtape High School has been all about the ‘green agenda’ for a couple of years now, and I’m quite frankly sick of it. Well, i’m not sick of it, but I object heavily to having to take my pupils out of their lesson this morning to clear up the ‘recycling’ which has blown all over the school grounds because of this hideous weather. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind the excuse to enjoy a quick cigarette and coffee while watching my pupils trawl about in the wind picking up litter, it’s like some sort of mini community service (which I reckon is a great idea) but they’ve got mock exams coming up and we were finally making some progress with romantic poetry – a feat of genius when dealing with a load of oversexed teenagers who couldn’t usually care less about what Keats thought about nightingales or Grecian urns.

Another day, another ‘healthy eating’ initiative from the geniuses in the kitchen. Today we enjoyed tomato pasta with bacon and olives. Not bad I thought, till some delightful child found it necessary to remove every single olive from their meal and give all twenty of them to their friend. Said friend promptly ate every single one of them, and then threw up in the corridor. Guess who was on clean up duty?

I do wonder sometimes if our overly litigious and health and safety mad society is leaking into my classroom ever further.

Today a classic example – Jenny drop her apple juice on the floor; not that I mind that much, full as it was off E-numbers and too much sugar. As my TA goes to clear it up, Jenny’s supposed best friend this week, Casey, says, clear as a bell: “Ummm, you should clear that up. If someone falls over on it and it’s not their fault they can get compostation.”

I believe she means compensation. And I also believe she has been watching too much mid-week, mid-day TV, the kind littered with those Accident and Injury adverts.

Telling this story later in the staffroom leads to this pearl of wisdom from the deputy head. “Obviously you need to select a health and safety monitor, one of the pupils, to keep an eye on the other pupils.” Ok then, one scrappy seven year old telling another scrappy seven year old what to do; I forsee trouble.

I really, really, really hate parent’s evening. A three hour marathon of either indignant  and misplaced pride, or total and absolute apathy, served up in our freezing school hall, seated on crippling plastic chairs. Agony, in every respect.

But what I hate the most is those parents who think that they are too important to come and see me for the allotted (and unutterably dull) 20 minutes they’re supposed to. No, instead they have other more important engagements and of course I’ll work around them because I don’t have anything else to do.

This year it was the turn of sulky Sally’s parents. I believe Mrs Sally couldn’t come on Tuesday like everyone else because she, and I quote, ‘had to go to PC World’ on Tuesday evening. Anyway, I kindly gave them a slot at 4.30pm after school on Thursday, thinking i’d be done by five at the latest. Not so, oh no, at 5.30pm when the cleaners came into empty the bins and hoover I was still locked in a  debate with Mr Sally about his daughter’s inability to write about poetry, or perhaps it was my inability to teach it. I remain unclear as I zoned out at 5.45pm, coming back to earth around 6ish to discover, happily, that they were finally leaving. I think Homebase was about to close or something.

Great, great disaster of a lesson today. Took the children into the garden for a hands-on approach to understanding the natural world. Little Jamie found a half dead slug (mangled previously by a year three class I think) and threw it at little Lucy, who screamed, a lot. She in turn threw mud back, missing little Jamie – whose dodging tactics will make a great footballer of him yet - and getting not-so-little Dylan, whose mother terrifies me and who I will now have to explain about the whole sticky-mud-on-the shirt fiasco.

Next week they’ll be looking at pictures of leaves on black and white print outs. That’ll learn them. If I can ever get to the photocopier that is.

My most favourite of royals – I have a thing for people with big ears, bygones – Prince Charles has waded into the education fray again to say that constant reforms and new initiatives are failing teachers, who as a result don’t have time to train. Thank god someone has finally had the (Ed) Balls to say this.

Training for teachers is woefully inadequate, and while I don’t hugely want to spend my precious holidays and weekends ‘improving my craft’ I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to spend a few days every term away from the classroom with other teachers, sharing ideas. But there simply isn’t the time. Our non-contact time during the day usually involves detentions, speaking to parents or internal meetings and the entire rest of my life, it seems, is spent marking. So when are you supposed to improve?

That said, I doubt Prince Charles’ comments will make much difference, we’ll still have to spend most of the day chasing our tails and filling in reports about one agenda or other, but at least someone’s noticed.

On the subject of sex education, this has me in a quandry. I can’t decide if i’m worried about it, happy about it or think it’s a terrible idea. Some of the five year olds I teach already use certain phrases that would make my grandmother blush, (and me at times), but I wonder if that’s exactly the point? I mean if they’re hearing bad language about sex at home, perhaps it is up to us to help them develop a more mature approach to sex. But then using the word ‘mature’ when you’re talking about a five year old is just ridiculous anyway.

There’s no harm in them learning about the parts of the body; but really, learning about sex age five – I cannot think of a good reason for this. The kinds of things they study in secondary – puberty, relationships, STIs - it’s simply not logical or necessary to teach a five year old that, or a seven year old even.

All of this just sounds like another way to put a plaster over the cracks in society – i.e. not dealing with the bigger issues of thousands of children growing up without the proper parenting and support, hence – among numerous other issues – there are far too many teenage pregnancies, and the solution is to hope  this won’t happen  if you teach them about sex early enough.

Was perusing the Guardian this morning, getting my daily dose of leftist sentiment, and saw a rather interesting article about how primary schools need to be teaching pupils to become more ‘media savvy’. I’m not even sure what that really means, because I’m pretty sure it’s a phrase the media themselves made up. But actually the concept behind it….not too insane for once.

A professor at Warwick University says that children should be learning media language and literacy, along with maths and English, to ensure they’re not too susceptible to advertising campaigns. Sounds good, infact, sounds like something we could all do with a refresher course on. Sign me up.

I know they say they’re putting billions into education but I swear to god I haven’t seen any of it yet. I’m still freezing in an unheated classroom and eating soggy ginger biscuits dipped in crap tea in a chipped Arsenal mug. (NOT mine).  Honestly the state of education today.…

Oh I see this, this is where it’s going. On first class rail tickets. Well that is reassuring and really great great news. Because train travel today is challenging and difficult, and there’s no way government officials could manage to come up with as many ‘innovative’, ‘inspiring’ and down right ridiculous initatives without travelling to meetings in warmth, comfort and style. I feel so reassured and calmed by this news; I know that education is safe in the hands of namby pampy wimps with a skewed perception of what really matters.

Actually, why am I suprised. This is how it’s always been right?

We have the lice. It’s revolting. I can’t stop walking around shaking my head and looking alarmed at any pupil that comes too close. Which isn’t really conducive to managing 30 young children on an afternoon trip to the local duck pond. I toyed with scarpering half way there to nip home for a quick hairwash, only to be stopped by a TA who kindly reminded me that lice ‘love clean hair’ – delivered with bulging eyes and a mad sort of Hannibal Lecter sneer. I rethought the cleanliness strategy and have opted for total isolation. I shall mostly be calling sick till it’s gone.

Worse thing is, I think I know the cuplrit; it’s this kid in year three whose mother seems to blind to his plight and is living happily in a make believe X Factor world, where Cheryl’s dress and ‘Deadlock’ seem to be her only concerns. So while we send home the letters, with the instructions, and every other parents sorts out their child’s hair, and combs it excessively, this poor child will come back into school, scratching fiendishly and reinfect all the other kids. I am despairing somewhat. It’s like there is literally no end in sight.