It’s a Thursday night which is my night off from school work, as I have Brownies 5-6.30pm (Girlguiding, not just a long session of eating brownies), usually followed by a night of Netflix. I thought I would mix things up a bit this week however and write a blog tonight instead.

The week began with the head of the department coming into the office and saying “Don’t freak out, but…” which naturally freaked me out. I was honestly expecting him to tell me about a parent complaint or something, however instead he told me that one of the year 7s had told her form tutor that morning that “There’s a rumour going around that Miss (me) does pole dancing. Also moon walking.” Sigh. This is something which came about from my year 7 class, last lesson on Friday, the same class who always seem to give me eventful lessons to blog about.

It started when someone told me in the lesson “Miss, there’s a rumour going around that you do pole dancing.” Obviously shocked by this statement, I asked her who she had heard it from and she gave me two names. I immediately spoke to both the girls outside, where one of them explained (while giggling) “Ok so I was sitting at your desk (where she was looking at something on my computer screen, with my permission) and then someone walked past and the calendar on your desk blew up like woo, the wind blew it up, you know, science… and then I saw something about pole dancing and moon walking and I just mentioned it to my table. That’s it.” After explaining to them both how serious this was and they shouldn’t say things like that and spread rumours that aren’t true, I let them both back in. Cut to 5 minutes later and one of the same girls announced to a silent class “We all know Miss does pole dancing!”, which of course earned her a detention.

Anyway, I was pretty annoyed at the class and the students involved but thought that was the end of it. Until that one girl from the class decided it was worth telling her form tutor on Monday morning, also adding “She got so annoyed with us so it must be true.” Luckily the rumour was quickly quelled and the students reprimanded. I really should have actually explained to the class that the calendar on my desk was actually a calendar made up of bad exam answers, with deliberately funny and stupid things people have written in exams. I somehow forgot to mention that at the time.

In other news, I was given a little homemade birthday cake on Monday morning from one (usually naughty) year 7, and another tried to give me a Gran Canaria magnet for a birthday present, which I politely declined, not wanting to take her holiday souvenirs as much as she insisted it was for me.

I also got to give out some of my new, scented stickers this week which were a birthday present from my Mum. Whenever I have given out stickers so far this year, I was always excitedly asked “Are these scented?!” which I had to reply “No, but look- they are special science stickers with the school’s name on!”. Now I can let them pick from an amazing array of scents!

Only writing this now have I just realised that those scented stickers would have come in handy earlier. I was doing practical with year 8 first lesson involving a reaction between sodium thiosulfate and hydrogen peroxide. Unfortunately, one of the products of this reaction is sulfur dioxide, a really horrible smelling gas. Although the majority of students were sensible enough to just get on with it, two girls were being very dramatic and were stood in the corridor for a while, refusing to come back into the classroom because it “smells of trumps!”. Unfortunately, my classroom has no windows so I really didn’t know how to get them back into the classroom for the rest of the practical.

In a bid to try and get them to come back inside, I went and fetched my antibacterial hand gel and explained if they put this on their hands, they could then smell something nice on their hands if the smell got too much. Unfortunately, after one girl had squeezed a copious amount of gel into her hands then rubbed it in, she began to scream out and fall dramatically to the floor as the gel got into a cut she had on one of her fingers. I thought I was dramatic, but she put on a spectacular show of acting like she was actually dying. If I had only remembered my scented stickers at the time, I could have saved that whole drama.

Anyway, I am aware this has been another long post, so I will end it here. Plus, it’s after 9pm, so it really is getting late for a week night.