It's not a huge surprise in a school to find that some children as less easy to get on with than others. When you first come across them you give them the benefit of the doubt: perhaps they have a tough home life, perhaps they've just lost a close relative, perhaps their dealer is pressuring them for the money they owe for that crack they snorted at the weekend. After a while you become hardened and realise the sad truth, they're just little buggers.

And so it seems with my 'good' year ten class, who in theory should be getting A's and A*'s in their GCSEs. Constant arguing back, more requests for moving seats than someone sat next to a screaming baby on a plane, refusal to believe anything I say and just not shutting the hell up when I tell them to.

The extent of this today was me putting half of them in detention then walking out of the room (and tempted to just lock them in) for someone else to deal with because I couldn't stand to spend another minute anywhere near them. I was discussing them with a colleague who described one of the girls as being 'evil' and that if I'm telling her off one-to-one I should make sure there is also a female member of staff in the room. Oo-er, I presume this wasn't meant as extra moral support. Not that it'd ever just be her in detention, the others in the class could never manage to behave well enough for that.

As the famous quote goes: 'Don't let the bastards grind you down'.