The accompanying news story reads: “Yoda has overcome his demons and passed an exam in GCSE English. The pint-sized Jedi had long struggled to formulate sentences properly, meaning that he had failed the test aimed at 16 year olds no less than 728 times. Yoda received his GCSE result last week but wanted to keep the achievement quiet in order to avoid a fuss. ‘I just want to carry on like normal,” said Yoda today, “I really don’t want to draw any attention to this, I am like, ok, I’ve done this, I’ve passed, let’s move on. There are far more important things to be dealing with, such as the rebel alliance and that troublesome Darth Vader.’”

There’s nothing like the smell of bad taste humour on a Friday morning.

Genius.

This is most alarming. They already think i’m a loser, what happens when I fail to post lots of pictures of my *raging* nights out and they discover that i do infact spend most of my nights sitting at home with Horlicks and  episodes of Silent Witness?

And, equally, I really don’t want to see pictures of three of my female students drunk off their faces with their tongues out. It creates all sort of unnerving visual flashbacks in the class the next day when I’m trying to get them to talk about iambic pentameter and I realise how much they must pity me and my tragic life.

On a more serious level though, I do wonder about the proliferation of Facebook at schools; i’ve heard of at least three teachers who have been ‘victims’ of pretty serious hate groups about them on the Facebook; that’s gotta be hard to take…

Asking nicely -  not really an option (is it ever?). Bellowing at them seemed to work for about five minutes (but is also rather counter productive, yelling at someone to be quiet just doesn’t seem to hold any weight). Standing at the front of the class with my arms folded and glaring was also pointless, they just ignored me. So then I attempted to stop the lesson ask them to talk more quietly. At which point CLS Tommy muttered (loud enough for me to hear): “How are we supposed to know what’s too loud?”

 How do you respond to that? I mean honestly? There I was, floored by a seven year old, with absolutely no come back whatsoever.

The caretaker swears it’s pistachio – it’s a very seasick pistachio if that’s the case – and said that it was approved by the bursar because green was more ‘cost-effective’ than red. I don’t know about the current costs of cheap green paint – but I can’t believe the difference was so much that they couldn’t have managed one wall of red paint. What this smacks of is the usual purse strings bureaucracy that we are increasingly dealing with in schools. Jobsworth, glorified accountants who have to change what you’ve requested simply because they CAN. I know they’re stretched for cash, but splitting hairs over some paint really is going too far.

That said, the silver lining on this pistachio cloud was the reaction of my class – a real bunch of little treasures for once – who politely told me how great it looked, before setting about, like a tiny interior design army, sticking up their art homework all over it. And little Timmy even passed this inspired comment on it: “Miss, it’s not red. But now it’s not peeling. Lovely jubbly.” And promptly sat down. Out of the mouths of babes. I feel a classwide gold star coming on.

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.

However his parents came in for parents evening last night, and I thought that finally I’d be able to make sense of everything, and discuss him getting some extra help. It started well, Mr Samir smiled, shook my hand and said: “Hello, we are pleased to meet Samir’s teacher, thank you.” I smiled and started chatting about Samir. He nodded, as did his wife, and they both agreed with what I was saying. In fact after ten minutes of me speaking, and them offering periodic ‘yes’ responses I began to experience some rather unnerving déjà vu. I changed tack, asking them what they thought Samir needed more help with. My heart sank when Mr Samir smiled and said: “Yes.” His wife nodded frantically and added: “Yes.” Suddenly it became clear why Samir wasn’t learning any English. If he’s not speaking it at home how on earth is he ever going to learn it here?

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.

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.