Tuesday. The Family Education Service is working with a group of parents in the staff room. I wheel a baby into my office so that mum can take part.

Adam returns to class from his regular visit to the toilets and reports that he has seen me kidnapping a baby and asks the teacher to ring the police. Fortunately she believes I’m innocent. Shane has forgotten his reading book.

Wednesday. Observing a lesson, I have difficulty hiding my smile when Joshua tells his teacher that “volcanoes are full of lager.” Shane has forgotten his reading book, and the school football kit he wore when playing for the team last week. I remind him that if he doesn’t return the kit neither he nor the team can play tomorrow.

Thursday. Years 3 and 4 are going on a school trip. The teacher spots that Joshua’s packed lunch contains a can of lager. She puts it on my desk and gives him a bottle of water. I get funny looks from visitors before I realise it is there. I hide it in my drawer. Shane has forgotten his reading book, but remembered his kit. It is only as the team get changed that we realise the kit is still covered in mud from last week.

Friday. A teacher discovers that two Year 6 boys had been trying to access undesirable web sites on the internet. Fortunately they were unsuccessful.

We’re not sure if this was due to our security measures or the fact that the boys had searched for “pawn”. They look bewildered when I say they were rather young to be selling things to pawnbrokers. Their bewilderment transforms into relief at my naivety, but somehow I don’t think they will try it again.

Shane rushes up to me and announces he has remembered his reading book. I tell him how delighted I am, trying with difficulty to maintain my smile as he retrieves the book from his trousers.

Anne Hall is head of a primary school in the North-west. She writes under a pseudonym