Things I Never Knew About Teaching...

... when I was still at school.

- Teachers know everything that goes on in the school, even if they don't show it. They do notice when best friends fall out, and when pupils date each other. Carefully Coiffed, a 16-year-old boy in one of my classes, used to be - let's be frank here - a little shit until he recently started going out with the most intelligent girl in his class. Now his hand shoots up at every question, just to impress her, and every teacher in the staffroom is rooting for that particular relationship to last, at least until the summer holidays. And they're both still convinced we don't know.

- Teachers can spot masticating teenagers a mile off. Do they seriously think we don't know the old trick of putting chewing gum under your tongue when you answer a question? Come on. It was only six years ago that I was still at school. The same goes for surreptitious texting in the classroom, no matter how subtle they think they're being.

- Teachers never seem to tire of discussing pupils in the staffroom; it's the favourite topic of conversation. All the gossip, and dissection of their fashion senses too. Honestly, they'd be mortified if they heard what their maths teacher had to say about their new skirt.

- Teachers also appear to sense no shame or irony in announcing that a pupil they have taught for the past five years knows absolutely nothing about their respective subjects.

- It feels really quite weird for a 22-year-old unmarried female to be called 'Madame' by her 19-year-old pupils. And yes, some of them do call me that, despite the fact that I introduced myself as Zoe. I imagine it's equally weird for a fifty-something woman with three kids and thirty years of marriage under her belt to be called 'Miss' in the UK.