Looks can be deceiving!

This is my haven - our lovely, peaceful staff workroom.

I usually sit at the computer on the left and while it's called the 'workroom', actually it's just the place where we eat lunch, catch up on who's going where on holiday, laugh about the funny (and not-so-funny!) things the students have done, and despair at the even more ridiculous things our own kids have done!

Thank goodness no-one was in there today or they'd have been dealing with a lot more than they bargained for from me! The day started with my losing my car keys (I eventually found them in the wheelie bin, having apparently dropped them when I was putting out the recycling before leaving for work). When I got to work, I found that the woman I share my classes with was off sick so I was covering her lessons (which would have been fine, but some of the students were expecting to get their tests back and I didn't have them so they all moaned about that). I then lost my lab key (pretty much a 'hanging offence' but I found it in a sink), the reports I wrote three weeks ago disappeared (so had to do them again, thankfully I had all the info I needed to hand), I didn't have everything I needed for a practical with a very challenging class (not very easy keeping them engaged while simply describing it!), and I seem to be getting a fluey-thing.

The very worst thing, though, was that I was covering a lesson in a third-floor classroom just after morning break and went there early to log in when, to cut a long story short, I caught a student dangling a heavy metal pole out of the window, seemingly about to drop it on anyone unfortunate enough to be passing below.

I got the pole off her and then all hell broke loose. She locked the door of the classroom when I went to get help, leaving several bewildered students inside and us staff outside. She eventually opened the door and everyone, including me, had to write a statement about what had happened. I then had to go and speak to the headteacher and thought I was in trouble, as I had had a bit of a 'wiggy-fit' at the time, as the student could have seriously hurt someone - or worse - and I was extremely embarrassed but I was told I'd done all the right things... and said student is now excluded (and not for the first time).

What do people who don't work in a school do for excitement? :-D