It started at a low point and went downhill from there

It started off at a low point

And went downhill from there

Packed lunch went uneaten (again)

But for dinner, a chocolate eclair.

The children were generally horrid

And didn't want to know

About Gothic horror or Shakespeare,

Oh, the day it went so slow...

...in fact, I'm surprised the poetic muse is with me, because if I were a poetic muse, I'd have left the Denise-building ages ago, and gone to live somewhere intelligent. Like Wayne Rooney.

Year 11 bottom set are objecting to having to do Romeo and Juliet. They said, 'Can't we do something different?'

I said, 'What, a different Shakespeare play? I think The Merchant of Venice is in the cupboard...' And they said, 'No, something different to Shakespeare.'

And I said, 'Well, no, not if you want to stand a snowball's hope in hell of answering the Shakespeare question in your exam.'

They are CONVINCED I'm making them do Romeo and Juliet out of sheer spite. They are CONVINCED the rest of Year 11 are doing something else. Like Teletubbies. Or Winnie the Pooh.

Year 9 persist in slinging insults at each other. Their favourite activity today was telling each other to 'SHU' UP! NO, YOU SHU'UP.' I'm doing 'The Gothic Novel' with Year 9. To be honest, I'd rather teach Frankenstein's monster, Dracula and as many Ravens Poe can summon than Year 9 the way they are at the moment. I never knew children could be so...well, spiteful towards each other.

Added to my 'To Do' list today were the following items:

1) get classroom ready for Open Evening - posters, displays, sample materials, my soul nailed to the wall...

2) fill in Connexions career applications with the Year 11s - 'So, what do you want to do when you leave school, Danielle?' 'Git a job at H & M coz they've got a wicked staff discount.'

3) give two detailed lesson plans to SLT for 'quality assurance' - so, that'll be 2 plans out of the 60+ I've wasted my life writing over the last 3 weeks that no-one (myself included) has bothered to look before now

4) prepare a Focus Day for Year 10 on the evils of alcohol consumption -'You could get someone in from AA,' said a helpful learning leader. I sat there thinking, 'They want me to book someone from a MOTORING organisation to talk to 15 year olds about Smirnoff Ice??' Well, it was the end of a two hour meeting and I hadn't eaten for 9 hours. A feeling of light-headedness had descended 'pon the mind.

5) hand out school photos, school trip letters and monitoring cards to the naughty children in mentor time tomorrow. I have a very naughty girl in my mentor group. She has a very stiff face. Too much make-up. Too much attitude. Too little humour.

6) fill in a grid of when I teach Year 11. This information is freely available to the requestee on my timetable which is on the staff area of the super-duper IT system. But it's easier for the requestee to ask me to fill in the grid and waste my time, than look up my timetable for themselves and waste their time

7) support a young teacher in her Year 7 Nuture group during my free lesson on Wednesday because she is starting to have murderous thoughts about them and she's not getting any support from people who are supposed to be supporting her and she's too nice a person to end up in prison

8) catch up on homework marking because my detention threat for non-production of homework has worked rather TOO well and I had a flurry of it appear today and mess up my tidy desk

Eventually, I came home to find Tybalt and Pandora eyeing up an open drawer in the kitchen.

'And what are you two up to?' I said.

'We're going to Banarnia,' said Tybalt. 'It's a country that can be reached through the back of the drawer.'

'Behind the colander and cheese grater,' added Pandora.

'Banarnia, eh?' I said. 'I might just come with you.'