I was looking forward to a nice relaxing end to the week. I am blessed with a free period last thing on a Friday afternoon, which it doesn’t take a genius to figure out isn’t the best time to be teaching. However it’s something of a poisoned chalice as I found out today.

I looked in my pigeon-hole in the morning and saw the familiar yellow of a cover slip. The colour drained out of my face as I read it. Year 11. Bottom Set. Friday. Period 5. I must have seriously pissed off the person in charge of sorting out the cover.

Things were about to get worse too. The instructions were to take the class down to a specific computer room but when we arrived there in the afternoon there was already a class in there. I then had to dash to the office to try and find another one - as in check to see if one was free, not look through the draws in the office for a room - or face a lesson with a class of manic teenagers with no work to give them and no hope of living until 320pm.

I was in luck and found somewhere for them. I then played my ace: if they behaved sensibly for the first half of the lesson they could use the internet towards the end. I wasn't about to kick up a fuss over gum or phones either. I had two targets: no one dieing and no one being sent to the isolation facility. When one of the assistant heads walked by they seemed to understand my plight.

One girl was a bit of a pain and made silly comments to me but was shot down by another pupil whon told her: 'stop being a prick, he's not done owt wrong.' I left aside the strange notion of the slight role reversal here with my behaviour being checked up on by the kids and got on with the lesson.

I even remembered to inform the appropriate people that the class were now in a different room so if anyone needed picking up for after school detention (two of them in fact) they would know where to find us. How good am I?

Everything ran smoothly until ten minutes from the end when some of the boys got restless. If I could just keep them busy it'd be okay. I found an easy solution: just talk to them.

The clock ticked down, the two boys were picked up for their detention, no one died, I didn't need to call out for help.

Somehow I survived.