FORGOT TO MENTION...

... that when James and Tom were here this afternoon they regaled us with tales of their misdemeanors (and there were many!) from their days at school!
Oh I am so glad I didn't teach those two!! Although, having said that, I did teach James for a little while, but that was when he was only seven and hadn't even considered some of the pranks we were told about this afternoon. Had we known at the time we would have been horrified!
However, when all said and done, the fact that they got away with such mischief shows a distinct lack of awareness by those who WERE indeed supposed to be teaching them! The fact that four of them could take it in turns during a lesson, to get out of the building and do laps of the site without being caught indicates a certain lack of vigilance, I would say.
Clearly, I'm not going to repeat ALL the jolly japes that were brought to our attention today, but I will tell you my favourite. This was carried out by Tom BEFORE he met James and when he was about eight years old. It was during a geography lesson and Tom had 'borrowed' the entire supply of magnets which he had hidden under his table, so that when it came to compass skills no one could quite understand why 'north' was pointing at him and not where it should be! I also liked the fact that he had managed to miss a year's worth of assemblies because he had told the school he was Buddhist! Unfortunately this meant that he couldn't eat pork for the duration which he'd found a bit of a hardship apparently.
And then there was the Big Doughnut Scam which involved the pair of them and which we DID know about at the time, but I won't say too much about that in case anyone remembers being stung and decides to press extortion charges!!!