At half six this on my way to school it started snowing. A couple of years ago I made my way into school just as enough snow to keep all the penguins in the world happy fell on the ground, the school was anounced closed by half eight and I had to drive back home through a blizzard. Today my hope that I wouldn't face a similar scenario was realised and we managed to stay open, which was definitely a good call. Though at eight o'clock with snow still falling I wouldn't have wanted to be the Deputy Head making the decision. Okay, so I wouldn't ordinarily want to be the Deputy Head anyway as I have no interest in becoming a middle-aged woman, but it's a figure of speach.

Teaching in snow is a bit like driving, it's dangerous, tiring and your wheels spin alot. My year elevens seemed completely uninterested in factorising quadratic expressions for some bizarre reason. Most were sat with coats on protesting that it was snowing so they should be allowed to keep them on. It's a hard and fast rule so unless there is some extraordinary circumstance like a heating failure they take them off. I'd have had some sympathy but I was just wearing a shirt whereas my pupils had a school polo-shirt and jumper on so weren't exactly in a position to tell me it was cold. It took much coercion and my pointing out that it wasn't actually snowing inside to get 95% of them sat in the correct uniform, but one girl still refused. She then sort of took it off but still wore it like a cape and said: 'For fucks sake, you happy now?'

I wasn't really so had her removed. I've had numerous run-ins with her before and even her friends are getting tired of her, in the words of one them: 'why's she acting like such a knob?'

The Assistant Head came in towards the end to instruct me to alter my duty slightly from my nice cosy position in the corridor to outside stopping snowball fights (we allocate an area on the astro-turf for them to go nuts but don't allow it elsewhere). I guess I achieved that aim as the moment I stepped outside I was peppered by shots from year tens. Let's face it, it had to be done - I was like an apple to William Tell - so I didn't go overboard on the nagging front. At least they weren't whitewashing each other.

Later my year tens came in looking rather drenched. One girl in particular looked as though she had been trying to make a snowman from the inside out. She asked if I had a mirror so she could check how she looked. Seeing as her eyeliner was half-way to Australia I obliged, which was kind of ironic as the mirror I gave her had been confiscated from someone using it in a lesson.

Last lesson of the day I was actually being observed, it wasn't the best occasion or time for an observation but it was with some year sevens so I easily got a 'good', which was, er, good I suppose. A lot of them kept asking to go to the toilet, not because they needed it but probably because they wanted to check on the snow.

I left school just a few minutes after the bell had gone as I didn't fancy driving on the roads as it got colder. I'm currently sat in the cold as my heating isn't due to come on until my normal home-time. My year elevens would hate it.