I can face standing in front of thirty children, but put so much as one parent in front of me and I go weak at the knees. On Thursday the parents of a year ten pupil of mine, who had been causing me some problems, came into school for a discussion with the head of maths, one of the heads of Key Stage Four and myself.

The boy in question is bright and generally a good student but for whatever reason we don't see eye to eye very often. His mum's suggestion was that whilst there were other factors I was giving him a very negative attitude towards the lessons. She'd even suggested to her son some strategies for making life easier. How about 'put up and shut up'? When it was pointed out that he isn't always perfect in other lessons she opined that maybe he was carrying the negativity from maths into other lessons. I could see her point and in fairness she suggested the blame was fifty-fifty (I'd go for eighty-twenty myself - how is it fifty-fifty if he's chewing twice in the space of ten minutes) but I think its harsh that I should be blamed for a year ten listening to an MP3 player in a science when I'm a few hundred metres away teaching my year eights. What next? Suddenly I could find myself blamed for the pupil breaking a cup at home or maybe the time he left his room a mess when he was eight years old.

The plus-side of the meeting was that I got to hear my head of department defending me and showing a great deal of faith in me, even though things haven't been going all that well. Let's hope I can repay that faith.