I'll ask the questions, thank you

So here I am, two days back into my teaching career. I'm still breathing, I haven't fallen asleep on the sofa half way through the evening through sheer exhaustion, and I haven't locked any children in my stationery cupboard.

So far, so good.

Yesterday, a couple of year 8 boys declared I looked like Susan Boyle. I said, 'I wish I had her singing voice and money.' I did not say, 'And you look like a pile of doggy doo,' which, I confess, flit into my mind, but I managed to remember that I was the grown-up in this situation, so didn't actually say it, for if I had, that way lay fisticuffs.

And yesterday, a Vicki-Pollard sound-alike year 11 girlie scowled at me for pretty much the entire lesson. I was very good; I did not scowl back. I thought, ah well, she'll be gone by May, into the land of GCSE never to scowl at my door again.

And then this morning she appeared, all sweetness and light, and conversing like a proper human being. Apparently, she'd be 'talkin' to 'er mate,' who attends the last school in which I taught and who remembered me, and 'er mate sed I woz a ledge. (A ledge, I hasten to add, is short for a legend and not the thing many teachers consider jumping from from a great height at least once during their career.)

I resisted the urge to engage Vicki P. in a discussion vis a vis the definition of the word 'legend,' and that I was not a legend because my existence is beyond doubt. I thought, I'll quit whilst I'm ahead. Me and Vicki? We're like this now. (Crosses fingers - you'll have to imagine that bit!)

Questions I have been asked in the last two days :

'Ma'am, have you ever been drunk?'
'Ma'am, have you ever been stopped by the police?'
'Ma'am, are you religious?'
'Ma'am, is Susan Boyle your sister?'
'Ma'am, how much snow will be enough to stop us coming to school?'

(The answers were : No, yes, I believe in God, are you related to a pile of doggy-do, a bucketful.)

But the thing that really made me smile to-day was a Year 7 who solemnly informed me that William Shakespeare came from Stratford on Haven.

So THAT'S where he went for his holidays!