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.