If you can't beat 'em, give in.

Today was the last proper school day before Year 11 went on study leave. I use the words 'study' and 'leave' in the true teenager's meaning of the words in that Year 11 will not be using their school leave in order to study, they will, instead, be following the literal instruction i.e leaving their study. Are they going to pick up any form of revision tool over the half term? Are they cocoa!

Anyway, we were given strict instructions by our Head in briefing this morning that it was to be 'lessons as usual' for Year 11; there was to be no autograph book signing, no shirt signing, no photos, no eating chocolate in class, no malarkey WHATSOEVER. Any miscreants would be removed from class and sent home IMMEDIATELY.

You'll be lucky, I thought. My Year 11 set gave up the will to revise anything about a fortnight ago. Anyway, I didn' t think I'd have a problem; most of my group were sitting an exam when I was due to have them, and I was expecting a mere eight students to pitch up. I thought we could have a nice scholarly discussion about current affairs. Or sumfing, or nuffing, or sumfing.

Ha! My eight strays did duly arrive, and then another member of staff arrived with the dregs of her class - a total of six - and said, 'you don't mind having this lot, do you?' and dumped them with me whilst she went off to do I don't know what.

So I had a gang of fourteen. Who proceeded to get out autograph books, food, cameras, shirts to be signed and kissed with copious amount of cheap lipstick. I said, 'The Headteacher doesn't want you to do that. It's lessons as usual.' They looked at me like I was Attila the Hun turned up at a family picnic with a severed horse's head. And carried on regardless.

What to do? Complain? Insist they did some work? Risk being shouted down and end up sobbing in a corner because no-one was listening to me?

No. I tell you what is to be done in such circumstances. A Sing-a-Long-a-Michael-Buble 'n' Westlife' session, that's what's to be done. Which went down remarkably well, especially when I taught them the rude version of 'Seasons in the Sun'. You know - the original Brian Hyland one, not the wishy-washy version that Westlife massacred so shamefully with their squeaky-eeky voices. As the exam came to an end, more and more Year 11 drifted into my classroom, and I ended up with about 43 of them, all swaying and singing and having a right old time.

'You're a ledge, Ma'am,' declared one of the boys.
'No, Joe,' said I. 'I am a schmuck and a fool.'
'No, definitely a ledge,' said he.

(And when when they say 'ledge' they mean 'legend', not a wooden perch outside a window sill, because that would be stupid.)

So there we go. I am a character of dubious existence, possibly real, potentially not.

It explains a lot.