Talking to kids I can manage. Talking to other teachers I can pretty much cope with. But talking to parents is a whole new ball game. On the final day of term I had to phone a pupil's mum after she'd been trying to get hold of me earlier in the week.

I find it easy to forget that I'm supposed to be an adult now, when talking to someone's parents I feel as though I'm a little kid myself. So I was expecting to struggle to make my voice heard, with the parent in question taking her child's side without pause for considering whether, maybe, he might be in the wrong. It was a nice surprise then that the mother respected my professional opinion. Poor deluded woman.