During my year nine class a boy tried to tell a joke: 'How do you make a Jew scream? Put him in an oven.' I dread to think where he got that from. Besides even if you are anti-Semitic it doesn't really work, if you put most people in an oven I imagine they'd scream. It's a bit like saying 'How do you kill a Scandanavian? Shoot him in the head.' It's kind of stating the obvious.

I challenged him on it and asked if he actually understood the 'joke'. He didn't so my SATs revision lesson suddenly became a discussion about the Holocaust. I explained about the Nazi's wanting an Aryan race, about the gas chambers and about concentration camps. They had good questions too, like: 'how did Hitler know who was a Jew?' which had me a little puzzled as my own knowledge ran a little short.

I wish I could get them that interested in discussing triangles. At the end the boy said to me: 'but what have ovens got to do with it?'

My year tens take vileness to a whole new level. Two girls were talking to each other - make that shouting actually - about what someone's cum tastes like. I don't mean just generally discussing the palatableness of semen, they were actually discussing a particular person's. I'll admit that I'm fairly small 'c' conservative when it comes to sex but it was absolutely disgusting. I'd be grossed out enough to hear an adult talking about such a thing but coming from a fourteen year old made me feel rather ill.

Sometimes you can forget quite how young year tens are, and they clearly do too, but when I compare them to my year nines it's shocking. Most of the year nine girls I teach are sweet and polite and seem happy with being girls rather than women. The difference is unbelievable.

The maths block at school has had better days. It has a funny smell that's nothing to do with the maths teachers and looks a bit tatty round the edges. Paint is peeling and windows are so easily smashed that once someone managed to break one in my room with a conker.

A few months ago someone came in to look under the floors to see why we had such an awful smell. It turned out that a pipe from the sink in the office wasn't connected so all this water was just pouring into the ground under the floor. This was fixed (though there's still a smell, we think it's mice) but in doing so some sort of seal was broken.

This means there's now a dangerously high level of Radon in our office. The area the school is in is quite bad for it anyway. Contrary to what we first thought, symptons of being exposed to Radon do not include tiredness, headaches and dislike of year eights. However prolonged exposure causes lung cancer so we're now being limited to an hour a day there. It's more of a nuisance than anything else.

I'm not sure what planet some of my pupils are from. A year eight girl came into my lesson asking where anyone would use work on shapes from. I suggested that it might be useful in jobs such as carpentry She looked confused and said her Uncle was a carpenter and he never used maths.

My exact response was 'Well my brother's a carpenter too and he uses lots of maths, like measuring and calculating lengths and areas. So there!' (Which is true though I'm disappointed in myself for using the words 'so there' to a kid)

She looked confused and asked what a carpenter was. I explained that in simplistic terms it was woodwork.

'That's not carpentry sir! My Uncle just lays floors' God only knows what his real job is. A floor layer? I'm sure many carpenters do lay floors from time to time but not exclusively as their occupation. I think I must have missed the bit in the bible where Jesus layed the 5000 laminate floors. Besides, how does he know how much flooring he needs if never calculates the area it's going to cover? He can't even pick a number out a hat because he doesn't use any maths at all apparently. I put this to her and she said that you could just measure it with a tape measure. Oh, dear Lord...

I don't mind kids not knowing their tables or struggling to solve equations but sometimes they say things that are painfully thick. What have I been teaching her if she thinks that he carpenter Uncle just lays flooring using a tape measure? I despair.

Recently I wrote of being under-threat of redundancy. As things stand it looks as though this has been resolved. The Head's words being that the school is 'where it needs to be' in terms of the number of staff. Though tell that to the Head of Geography who is now short on someone to instruct the colouring in. There's a governors' meeting tomorrow but things should be okay. For now.

Related to the world of jobs and career moves, my good friend from the English department has got a new job at another school. So it's no more giving her lifts and listening to her mad singing and no more daft coversations about beads (don't ask). It's sad because I'll miss her but it looks like a good move for her because she'll have better opportunity at her next school to work in SEN which is where she'd like her career to go.

Some pupils have found me on facebook. One of my year eights came up and asked if I was on it. I tried unsuccesfully to deny it. When i asked how he knew he said that Gertrude had told him, when i asked how she knew, he said her brother had told her. I sensed this was going to go on forever and didn't pry and further. I've just checked my privacy settings to make sure no one goes noseying around. Especially as I've got a good number of staff on my friends list. It could be a cyber-disaster.

And finally, it appears that the world of drivers has gone mad. I was driving behind a tanker that was being driven by Michael Schumacher (incidentally one of my colleagues has actually met him, the real Schumi, not the guy driving the truck I mean). He was belting round corners and slamming on the brakes so harshly that his rear tyres were locking up and leaving great big marks on the road. There were also lots of motorcyclists on the roads, in that they were riding their bikes not that they'd come off in a huge fireball. Yet. There were several items of roadkill, pheasants naturally but I actually saw a cat by the side of the road. After all this someone had the audacity to wave at me to slow down as they came the opposite way. If he'd seen some of the driving I'd seen earlier...

My pencil's not sharp, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, my pencil's not sharp, dear si-ir, not sharp.

Well sharpen it dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, well sharpen it dear Liza, dear Liza, sharpen it.

With what shall I sharpen it, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, with what shall I sharpen it, dear si-ir, with what?

A sharpener dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, a sharpener, dear Liza, dear Liza, a sharpener.

Where are the sharpeners, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, where are the sharpeners, dear si-ir, wh-ere?

On my desk dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, on my desk, dear Liza, dear Liza, my desk.

The sharpener's not sharp, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, the sharpener's not sharp, dear si-ir, not sharp.

Blame helix, dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, blame helix, dear Liza, dear Liza, blame helix.

How shall I blame them, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, how shall I blame them, dear si-ir, ho-ow?

Write a letter, dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, write a letter, dear Liza, dear Liza, a letter.

With what shall i write it, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, with what shall i write it, dear si-ir, with what?

Your pencil, dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza, your pencil, dear Liza, dear Liza, your pencil.

But my pencil's not sharp, dear si-ir, dear si-ir, my pencil's not sharp, dear si-ir, not sharp.

'Sir, your shoelaces are undone'

I look the girl in the eye and say 'no they're not'. Her response is to shout out 'April Fools'. Except that she didn't fool me and let's be honest, telling someone their shoelaces are undone isn't going to make them feel that foolish anyway. I very maturely and tactfully pointed out that she was the fool seeing as it hadn't worked. Which was a lot of politer than when one of my year elevens tried a similar trick. I just called him an idiot.

Rather more spectacularly a year eight turned up to my lesson with ketchup all over his face and pretended to be bleeding. I sent him to wash it off and got him to make up the wasted time at break, during which time I gave him a stern what-if-I'd-really-thought-you-were-bleeding speach and explained how cruel that sort of joke could be.

April Fools' Day is really stupid.