My breaktime duty this year is a hike round the perimeter of the school trying to root out any smokers. Today was a particularly busy day. I'm guessing a lot of kids had a stressful first two periods because they were there puffing away. There were plenty of sixth formers at it, which is allowed as long as they don't let any younger pupils see them. The policy here is to just make sure they move along a bit and don't clutter up the school entrance. Presumably one of the smokers there was a former pupil because he said: 'I never listened to you when I was here so why would I listen to you now?'. Which is odd seeing as I'd never met the guy before. Seeing as he's an ex-pupil I have no qualms about calling him a knob.

I then caught one girl who was busy talking on her phone at the same time. When I asked her name she looked at me as though I was being incredibly rude interupting her fag break/gossip and was very put out with being annoyed by a teacher when she was off school grounds. She then walked off. Sod it if I'm going to bother chasing after her. Later I went to the pastoral hub of the school to get her picked up for a lunchtime detention. Fortunately the computer system is very swish so it was easy to identify her. The magic of modern technology.

I then caught a group of boys hiding behind the sports hall. I really enjoyed the cliche of it all but was so frazzled by it all that I was tempted to join them. I never got chance as they ran off, presumably to collapse in a wheazing heap a few moments later. Pity for them that I knew their names so could get them picked up for detention.

Whilst I would never condone smoking I do think stamping it out like this is a bit counter-productive. Previously I've stopped some of my year nines sneaking out for a cigarette when I've had to teach them next lesson. The trouble is that they miss out on their nicotine hit so are even worse behaved than normal. I almost think it'd be worth having a stash of nictotine gum in my classroom to sort them out.