I've met all my classes for the year. The last of these was my top set year eight, who whilst all being very clever seem a little arrogant and there's so many of them that there's barely room to swing a cat, which might prove to be a good thing as it will deter them from doing exactly that.

Seeing as I've been at the school a year they already know who I am, which is good and bad. Good because they know that I'm here for real and I'm not going to disappear anywhere and that i'm a genuine bona-fide 'proper' teacher, but bad because they already know a lot about me. I'd put them in a seating plan and one girl said that she'd being looking forward to being taught by me because she thought I'd be nice and would let them sit where they wanted.

Nice? Who told her I was nice? I intend to be as mean as possible to my pupils this year. My year sevens have done more work this week than my previous year seven class managed all year and long may it stay that way. I'm making the kids say 'yes sir' when they answer their name in the register. No one's breathing in my classroom without my say-so this year.

Yesterday one of my year nines wanted to buy a maths set so I went to the office next door to get one. The pupils got a little noisy but fell quiet when I walked back in. That's never happened before. I was almost tempted to walk and come back in again just to enjoy the feeling. Great fun.