It's strange how big a difference there is between year 10s and year 9s. During my year 10 lesson I heard two boys discussing one of their girlfriends. As in one boy was telling the other about his girlfriend, not that they were discussing some kind of bizarre adolescent version of swinging.

There was a little confusion as to who they were talking about with the one being told initially describing one of my year nines and then calling her 'fit'.

Now it's a bizarre thing but it was like two worlds colliding. I know that there's only one year difference between years 9 and 10, I am a maths teacher after all, but I always think of my year 10s as being much older than my year 9s. I certainly relate to them in a different way. I probably treat my year 9s like kids whereas I tend to see my year 10s as young adults. Yet in some cases there might only be a month or so difference in age.

Anyway, it was a bit of a shock to hear such a comment and I felt a strange sense of something akin to paternal disapproval. Though seeing as I've never felt anything like that before it may just have been hunger. In all fairness I'm not sure who boys in year ten are supposed to go out with. The girls in their year seem to be all going out with 18 year olds, the girls in year 11 go out with people my age, and sixth formers probably go out with pensioners. It's a state of affairs that certainly bugged me when I was fourteen.

As a slight aside from the story I saw a year 11 and a year 8 cuddling in the corridor the other day. Now that's definitely wrong and was extremely disturbing.

But thankfully some kids seem happy to be with someone their own age. The same year nine girl as previously mentioned was telling me later in the day about her friend sat next to her going out with a boy I'd taught last year. And, get this, they'd even kissed at lunchtime. Seeing as they're both lovely kids I made a slightly patronising 'aw bless' kind of noise. Which was promptly copied by the rest of the class and the girl going very red.

It's hard to imagine such a scenario with my year 10s.