(Note to self: Must kill housemates for watching the Sound of Music the other week)

I made it. In spite of the incompetence and shambolic organisation (They invited me for an interview on the 21st of April last year - trouble was that they sent the leter in June) of my training provider I managed to complete my year as a student teacher.

The last day was highly emotional with pupils signing petitions to try to get me to say, writing poems about yours truly, shaking my hand and refusing to let go for a whole minute and lots and lots of "we'll miss you"s. Even the form that I'd been with seemed sad to say goodbye and I didn't even know them that well.

The problem now is that I've got a great big hole in my life left by 150 wonderful little (some not so little - bigger than me in fact) people who I will in all probability never see ever again: the girl who flirted with me at every opportunity, the girl sat next to her who acted as her conscience, the boy who couldn't stop himself singing, talking or getting out of his seat, the girl who couldn't do algebra because she was blonde, the year nines who wanted to know the answer to questions ranging from 'who was the first prime minister?' to 'can you cry under water?', the boy who had to misfortune of being born a generation or two too late to be in Monty Python, the year tens who couldn't do 2 x 4 without using a timetable square, the lovely year eights who always said 'hello', the year sevens who actually laughed at my terrible attempts at putting humour into the classroom, the year nine girls who used the mirrors I'd handed out for looking at symmetry to check their make-up, the boy who couldn't get his words out quick enough when answering questions in class, the poor girl who called me 'dad', the dangerously good looking sixth-former, the pupils who were prepared to do 'optional' work, the boys who valued my opinions about then world cup, the year nines with their breath-mints trying to cover up a smokey smell, the year sevens who worshipped the ground I walked on and so, so many more.

Having left secondary school some time ago - all of, oh, four years now - I'd forgotten the joys of trying to get high off non-toxic adhesives. But one of my pupils gave it a very good go. The irony being that because she was busy holding a glue stick next to her nose she was slightly less hyper than normal, though she still found time to ask if she could put Pritt-Stick on my nose - which was a bit messier and more flirtatious than I was really prepared to accept. Aside from that, and even more importantly, it would be a waste of valuable school resources.

Slightly dopey year seven: 'Sir are you leaving this week? Some people in our form were passing a card round for you - it's going to be a surprise.'
Me: 'Well it won't be much of a surprise now.'

Pause...

Pupil: 'Oh yeah.'

After countless lessons (too many even for a maths teacher to add up) I now face just one more day with the tag of 'student teacher'. Pretty soon I'll be a fully-fledged NQT, just so long as my academic tutor submits the marks to the university examination board on time, I don't call that cheeky year seven a 'little s***' and all the girls in my year eight class manage to resist making a last ditch pass at me.

It was a veritable feast of athletic goodliness at school today as the sun shone down upon the annual sports day. Much applause and heat-fatigue later and school records were broken, leading me to wonder if the pupils were really getting quicker or if standards are falling.

The final event of the day was the staff vs. sixth form relay. A race that my year sevens bullied me into participating in. It was a wonderful experience. The cheering, the encouragement, the adulation. If only I hadn't dropped the baton.

Top set pupils are strange.

Take one girl from my year sevens. I'd handed out a sheet for homework where the pupils had to do twenty of the fifty questions. She'd forgotten which ones they were supposed to do. What do you suppose she did about it? Many pupils would simply not bother to do anything and hope to get out of it, or maybe do a few token questions, or perhaps even ask which to do. But no, she chose to do all 50 of them! It took up fully three sides in her exercise book - it must have taken ages.

Crazy girl - only in a top set year seven class could that possibly happen.

The moment every school child dreads happened to one of my Year Sevens today. It was inevitable someone would say it and sure enough they did. Someone called me 'Dad'.

Bless 'em. Cue much laughter from the other pupils and I myself struggling not to giggle. When the pupil in question was born I'd have only been ten and still thought girls were evil. It's nice to know that they see me as a grown up though, I'm not sure anyone else does.

When you start your PGCE you say things like: 'I'm not bothered about being popular. I'm there to teach - if the kids don't like me that's their problem.' when what you're really thinking is: 'Please like me, please like me. Oh God! Please will you like me!'

And if you do happen to be popular it's quite nice... for a bit.

After a while though it gets dull though. Another teenage girl with a crush on you. Another boy wanting to talk to you about football. Another pupil being shocked when you know what 'LOL' stands for. How very drole - you start to wonder if they even realise you're a teacher anymore.

It all cumulates with a year nine meathead saying 'Sir's cool, we've accepted him now'

Oh joy. I have acceptance from someone who pretends the banana he is holding is a gun and shoots it at passing cars (This is something to be included in the 'any further information from the class teacher' box on my medium term plan proforma). Who needs the freemasons if fourteen year old muppets 'accept' you?

I'll have ot start shouting more and pretend I don't know who's top of the Premiership.

With my summative review out of the way I'm free to be as sarcastic as I want towards my pupils. They've taken the piss out of me for long enough - isn't it time I got my own back?

'Sir! You've given me two worksheets, but there's only one of me!'
'Sorry, you're so loud I sometimes forget.'

'Sir, please don't take those pencil crayons off me [for some bizarre reason she had seven pink pencils on her desk]. I'll cry!'
'Really?! Cool, I've never made a pupil cry before!'

After the half term holiday I now face only two more weeks of being a student teacher, or to be politically correct: a trainee teacher. In spite of the best part of a year's experience under my 'Next' belt I was still surprised at being back in school and was dumbfounded by the plethora of children running about the playground during Monday breaktime - where did they come from?

I may be feeling more confident and assured in the classroom but my inexperience still shows sometimes. In my year 8 lesson one pupil put up his hand to make a point in a discussion about probability, in this instance the probability of pigs flying. The class is chatty so I hush them to let the boy get his say: 'I want everyone to show Bart respect and let him make his point'. He then comes out with:

'It's not impossible because a pig might have sex with a pigeon and their baby could be a flying pig!' I think my wisdom in allowing him to speak at all could be called into question. This then set the tone for the rest of the lesson.

As part of a discussion about things that are certain I swear another pupil said soemthing along the lines of 'it is certain that sir is a paedaphile' but I couldn't hear him fully and was hardly about to ask him to repeat it any louder.

One day teenagers will learn to be sensible during classroom discussions, but then again, pigs might fly.