I'm an NQT and I have a problem. I can't get my year sevens to behave. I thought it was just me being rubbish - which may still be the case but now I don't think it's all my fault. Today at a year seven team meeting form tutors discussed kids who were getting in trouble alot. Pleasingly, in a way, several of my class were mentioned, including one boy who snuck out of a detention by crawling under a table. He can't concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time, actually that's complimenting him - he can't concentrate at all. In all fairness his brother, who's in my year ten class is the same so maybe it's a not-been-fed-breakfast related issue.

At least now I can start bitching about how hopeless my class are without having the nagging thought that it's all my fault and I deserve hanging for not getting a bunch of little eleven year olds to sit down for two minutes.

My pupils came rushing to the back of the room. 'I can't down there! It stinks! Somebody's farted!' Oh dear. If I wanted to operate toxic outbreak procedures every time someone breaks wind I'd have become a primary teacher. And this was in my year ten lesson - a higher ability group, no less. Actually the though of unleashing lethal toxins in my classroom, and then locking the door as I run out, sometimes seems quite appealing.

It was one of those afternoons.

On Thursday we have a PSHE (Personal, Social and... Heffalumps? Education) day, where the kids learn about things under the broad umbrella of PSHE. Thursday's is about fair trade and exploitation of workers - how is it best achieved? How do you stop the UN from getting on your case?

The rest of my department has been teaching for years, so are cynical about anything that is remotely modern or can be classed as a new-fangled-initiative. Therefore when it comes to PSHE they're a little cynical.

The trouble is it's starting to rub off on me. At the start of the year I was full of wide-eyed innocent NQT-ness but this afternoon I was complaining about how silly some of the activities for PSHE day are, or about how there isn't enough information about the topics covered. One of the lessons involves the pupils making paper bags for a whole hour; for no other purpose than to see how many they can make. The idea is to show them how rubbish working in a sweat shop is, but kids see school as exploitation anyway so it's just another lesson to them. Who'd blame them if they decide to rise up and start revolting? Which is probably not a huge step for them to take because most of them actually are revolting.

The thing is, I actually like PSHE days. All the lessons and materials are prepared for you (and the PSHE type people really do a good job of it too), you just turn up and teach. It probably saves me about five or six hours worth of planning and preparation from a normal day. Even though we're still in school it's effectively a day off. And I'm not even bothered if the kids actually learn anything - and let's face it they never care themselves - so if everything goes to pot (which incidentally is the topic for year ten) nobody really minds.

Wouldn't it be nice if school was like that all the time?