The funniest present ever: a seemingly insulting mug.

Although I have another few days left, the children broke up today. Amongst the presents I received, there was one rather unusual one.

In an unguarded moment, I once let slip a childhood story to a girl in my class. It was soon shared around the class. Too late for me - the cat was out of the bag.

One summer from my youth, the film BMX bandits came out. It starred a very young and frizzy haired Nicole Kidman. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's about some Australian kids who defeat some adult wrong-doers using not much more than their courage, wile and BMXs. In hindsight, it was a truly rubbish film. Absolute tut. But at the time, it captured the zeitgeist. There is one iconic scene where the main characters, whilst running away from some baddies, go down a water chute at a swimming pool WITH their BMX's. Truly the stuff of childhood dreams.

My lesson in risk evaluation from a nine-year old boy.

I teach primary school. This year, I have been lucky enough to have a maths set containing a few gifted and interested eight and nine year old mathematicians.

Every week, we do a timed times table activity. This involves filling in 121 answers to different times tables questions as quickly as possible. The idea is to build speed and accuracy. The children are hungry to better their scores, starving to beat each other and absolutely ravenous when it comes to the idea of beating me.

For the last few years, my score has remained static at around 2 minutes and 20 seconds. I don't think I can get much faster because, being a bit heavy handed, I can't write any faster.

A while ago, a boy asked if I would accept an open offer to give him a treat if he could beat me. I weighed up the odds and accepted, also saying that I would buy the whole class a treat if any one in the class could beat me. They all tried but he's the only one that has come close - even then,  I've always had a good 10 seconds on him.

Are we teaching our children to write wrongly?

I remember reading an article a while back about what makes a fiction author popular with readers.

This link is not the exact article I read but is similar. Check it out here.

Kids! You've got to admire their capacity for conniving.

Enter one rather upset mum to my classroom today. She wanted to know why her daughter, who I will call Shannon, had been separated from her friends for next year. According to mum, Shannon had been desperately upset all evening at been torn from her friends.

I thought it was odd because I knew I'd put Shannon and her bestest friend in the same class for next year. In fact my year group colleagues and I had spent quite a while ensuring every child would have at least one chum in their new class.