According to this story, I don’t need to do my job anymore. My pupils are now learning to write by blogging and social networking. Awesome.

And of course, they really are learning to write well and pass their exams. This will surely be a good example of how much they’ve learnt: “Liz Bennett, imho, is not a heroine cuz she is 2 proud and judgemental, lol.”

God help us.

 An article in The Telegraph  a month or so ago (I only got through the papers from the last two months at about 4pm on Boxing Day, made a great distraction from the horror of listening my aunt talk about her hernia).

Anyway – this article says that children are getting more aggressive at primary school, and have too much power over teachers. Did they not read my post on ‘compostation’; or read about ScissorGate? But seriously people, some rationality please. These are CHILDREN.

The teachers interviewed in this asrticle have spent far to long living in their heads; making out the little monsters, to actually be very big monsters. I know kids are hard, I find them difficult sometimes, and they can be aggressive – but it’s up to us give them a sense of authority and help them with behaviour. Not run to the papers about it again, and whine about – again.

Two days in, and I miss the kids. What a tragedy. But it’s true. I’d take their bickering, pointless chatter about their supposed sex lives and always inventive homework excuses over the debate that is now raging downstairs between my wife and my mother about who deserves a Christmas Number One, out of Angelic Faced Jo, Rage against the Machine, and SuBo. To demonstrate how little I care about this debate let me share this gem with you. Until about five minutes ago I thought SuBo was a black rapper from Peckham who grabbed his crotch a lot. No, in fact he is actually a generally unattractive Scottish woman with odd hair and a moustache. Christ, really, you chose this circus to be celebrate your birthday? Why?

So, the ‘top’ Christmas presents from my pupils this year include:

1) A Waitrose Christmas Hamper – amazing present, am eating my way through the mince pies rather well.

2) 35 different coloured pencils….in a High School Musical Tin

3) A set of stamps chronicling the locomotive history of England, address to Mr Wilson. (I have swapped these with Mr Wilson who was given a pink, glittery scarf by the same child. I think he wanted to keep the scarf, actually.)

4) A bottle of wine – I love this child.

5) A book on summer flowers, which had written on the inside cover: “Dearest Mary, lots of love on your birthday, From Auntie Sally.” (Don’t you just love recycled presents.)

Still, it’s the first day of the Christmas holidays and I am full of festive cheer! Happy Christmas readers.

The end of term has come finally. And I am free to wake at midday and consume hot wine all day. It’s been a fairly bearable last few days, actually, showing videos in class, putting up decorations, getting presents from my students – luckily as a man I am always bought wine, preferable to the seriously questionable scarves my female colleagues in the maths department have been blessed with. Yuck.

So, all in all, a fairly inoffensive end of term. Apart from, that is, the horror of the School Christmas Show, for which I somehow got roped into singing Mistletoe and Wine while wearing a pink reindeer costume, a ‘sexy’ santa hat and some Jimmy Mallet specs. A whole world of badness that I would rather forget. I’m not even sure the kids thought it was funny; some of the looks I got as I was leaving this afternoon verged on pity, I think.

It always astounds me that teachers still approach this end of term concert hooha as an opportunity to make their students like and respect them more. Our students will only ever laugh AT us, not with us. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change this. Certainly not a poorly executed comedy routine from a bunch of overtired teachers. But still they persist in this tragic silliness; with bad costumes, and dated jokes. And, as it does every year, the tumbleweed rolls across the school hall, the kids check their watches and roll their eyes, and we’re still the idiots they always thought we were. Happy Christmas One and All.

The big question on everyone’s lips this term has not been about SATS, funding or whether the new Year Five teacher is in actual fact insane.

No, this term we have mainly been consumed with the big dilemma of who will eventually play Mary in the Nativity Show tomorrow. Regular readers will remember that a certain possible act of sabotage meant Mary 1: aka Little Lucy, grazed her cheek, and Mary 2: aka Little Rosie had to become her understudy. Suddenly a compromise has presented itself – we are having two nativity shows; one on Thursday and one on Friday – they can both be Mary.

We can sell more tickets, make more money for the new school rabbit hutch, and I won’t have one devastated ten year old on hands. Hallelujah.

It’s about Ofsted. This.  It’s funny and so bang on, it’s scary. Ofsted has totally become a magic word, with the power to make good teachers go weak at the knees and bad teachers get away with shoddy teaching. It’s like a validation for everything crap, and a way for bad managers to completely demoralise good teachers. The idea behind Ofsted was good, but as usual, the delivery is shocking. Can someone put them in Special Measures?

Sorry, I’m in a bad mood. I had to spend five hours filling in a self-evaluation form this morning.

I just heard the most ridiculous thing. Putting door handles high enough so children can’t reach them does indeed mean they can’t escape from school. But isn’t it also a fire risk? And if we can’t have doors open on warm days (because the windows are jammed and don’t open anyway, do they ever?) what are we supposed to do? Just swelter in the boiling heat? Turn the classroom into a human greenhouse and then note down the results of our experiment?

And, anyway, aside from this – I have never, ever had a child attempt to make a desperate break for freedom – they’re too busy working their small socks off to make ridiculous government targets and pass another SAT.

I love free stuff, oh yes I do. And this competition is wicked. Teachable is awarding free access to its site for a year – and £1000 to spend on whatever you want  – for the best digital teaching resources. You have till 22nd Jan to submit your entry, check out all the details here.

We have decided on a vaguely traditional nativity – usual No-Room-at-the-Inn, shepherds, kings and the Virgin Mary story (as we are a technically Christian school), interspersed with songs and readings from other religions, some classic carols sung by our small but sweet choir, and a whole school rendition of Jingle Bells in several different languages. I predict a large amount of carnage.

I have also chosen a Mary, after a short audition process that mainly revolved around which child would be most likely to a) not cry throughout the performance b) not stamp her foot throughout the performance c) not  shout ‘hello granny’ throughout the performance. And my Mary of choice, Little Lucy, was doing rather well, she’s definitely got that sweet, innocent smile down, and looks good in blue; but then disaster struck this morning, as she apparently ‘tripped over’ in the playground and has grazed her left cheek – not a good look for the Mother of Christ. Her role as Mary is in peril, will it heal in time? Will she able to rehearse? Can we replace her? Will she ever stop crying?

However, what is perplexing me the most is how she ‘tripped’ over in a playground that is virtually new, and has no holes, bumps or anything trip worthy. With the raft of health and safety these days we basically like our children to play sitting down, on cotton wool.

So, I suspect foul play – and am wondering if the girl who is to potentially take her place  – Little Rosie – might be the culprit. She seems far to pleased about becoming the Virgin Mary.