Christmas is coming and the kids are getting stupid. Our school Christmas dinner took place today and as expected the pupils treated it like a non-uniform day, a sports day, a Friday and a snow day all rolled into one.

In the morning whilst working on a sheet where all they had to do was to put a sum into a calculator, then turn it upside down to make a word a pupil asked: 'Is this your idea of fun sir?' To be honest, no, its my idea of something you can get on with without giving me too much hassle. Clearly my idea was wrong.

Fortunately one of the other teachers offered use of their room for my year eight lesson as they had a TV set up with a video of the Simpsons - I wasn't exactly going to turn down that offer as the class is annoying enough at the best of times.

The dinner itself was a slightly messy affair. Firstly I had to babysit some pain-in-the-neck year seven form - I've never had to use the words 'get off the table so many times in such a short space of time'. Then it involved my shared form having to wait for over an hour in the form room before being able to go down to the dinner hall for their sitting. During this time they practiced their performance and dance for a talent show in the afternoon - the next time I hear 'jingle bell rock' I'll probably curl up in a ball covering my ears and whimpering. The dinner itself was quite a nice occasion, it was good to have the whole form together for a meal.

My patience was wearing thin by the end of the day - one pupil had seen that another class were in the computer room playing games and complained that 'its not fair, why do they get to play games when we're in here doing this [making shapes from nets]?'. My response was a rather curt: 'I can't be bothered with this, just shut up!'

I hate Christmas, or at least I do until Friday.