Do you believe?

After ten weeks of no work at all, I am suddenly flavour of the month. The agencies are vying for my services. I have had several days work at the most chaotic Wolverhampton school. Nobody seems to know what anybody else is doing, what room they are meant to be in, who is teaching what class or which students are turning up. Cover work set for me to teach turns up about half the time.

It is the most ethnically diverse school I have worked in for a while. There are Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Chinese, you name it. It's the only place I've been where I have overheard one student ask another in all seriousness "Do you believe in Vishnu?"

By contrast the other school I've been working at, is much better organised. That is the only place I've ever worked (not counting public schools) where there is a whole set of A-A* students. I don't think I've seen so many together at once!