OK I know the smart Linda would simply say “Linda, you have nothing to say so why not say nothing” but the stubborn Linda says “why should I break my new continuous run of almost a year because I am exhausted from working flat-out on an assignment that’s both pointless and badly designed”. So, you get the late night cop out dog shot and I remain bitter and angry because I’m working myself into the ground for a project that no matter how hard I try I cannot succeed at.

You see I have to provide a portfolio of my work in what’s known as non-core subjects. The assumption is that after four weeks of working in a school I’m going to have dozens of lessons in non-core subjects that I’ve taught and post lesson evaluated. I’m supposed to skip through the masses of material I’ve got and select the best bits to submit as a body of work. The truth is I’ve taught one single non-core lesson so the body of work that I can submit with any integrity is er, well, miniscule. I’m having to make up stuff (obviously not passing it off as lessons taught) that I’m going to have to say that if I’d had more than four weeks experience, I might have taught this to these children. It’s deeply unsatisfying and, in my view, about as pointless an exercise as it’s possible to do.

I’ve been working on it for days. Today my shift has been from dawn until now and I’m sick to the back teeth of the fiction… roll on the day after tomorrow when I will have to submit it and therefore won’t have to pretend any more. OK Linda - jump, you sucker (I reply, wearily) "How high oh mighty one, how high"...