I had an awful lesson with my year sevens today. I had to send two of them out because they wouldn't shut up and put a further three in detention. And I thought the littluns were supposed to be easy to manage.

One boy put his hand up and asked: 'why is maths so boring?' Gee, thanks. On the other hand it's nice that he said that rather than: 'why are you so boring?' Which I was sorely tempted to say to the class after they kept chatting/shouting out again and again.

Then there's the girl who smirks everytime I tell her off - though she was like that with her mum at parents' evening so I don't think I'm getting special treatment.

Further characters are: the boy who laughs at absolutely everything - including answering to his name in the register, the girl who asks to go to the toilet every lesson because she can't go at breaktime because there are too many people about - I never realised girls could get stage fright, we also have the girl who shouts out about anything/everything in the middle of explanations - it's like a politer version of Tourette's, then there's the girl who drew a picture of a 'poo' on the envelope of the Christmas card she sent me, and the boy who has such an aversion to looking at the board to the extent that I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't actually the sun, and to top it off there's the boy who likes saying 'cheese' every five seconds.

Needless to say I usually feel quite frazzled by the end of the lessons.