Hospitals and fabrications

School = germ incubator.

And not just any old germs, either, really scaring sounding ones like scarlet fever and impetigo.

The class looks ill.

(And so do the teachers. And student teachers).

The bursar's job = Doctor. At lunch time, she matter-of-factly rattles off a rapid progress report to teachers, detailing colour of the sickest children, (green or white), temperatures and dosages of calpol administered.

I have a lot to learn about dealing with sick children.
I taught them dance in P.E. this morning. (It had been a noisy morning, and my voice was little more than an ineffective croak by this time, but we were nearly at the end of the lesson, and the morning had been mega fun). It was time to stretch, and we put Will Young on, with the kids singing their hearts out whilst we plucked imaginary apples from high branches and other stretchy-things (n.b. giving instructions over Will Young and a class of singing infants didn't help make the voice any less croaky). A child started tugging at my joggers,
"Miss, Miss, I feel sick."
Miss stops, mid-apple pick, and sees a luminous green face staring up at her. (Class look confused; they are left with one hand stretched up in the air, looking at each other)
"Right, Stephanie, go to the office and tell Mrs Bursar."
Instantly a t-shirt pulling and shoving fight ensues among the three girls closest to me about who is going to take Stephanie to the office, while Stephanie informs me she is actually going to be sick, so I send her straight to the toilet, alone.
Before I get chance to go back to the apples, a second girl presents herself in front of me.
"Miss, I feel sick too!" She also looks a bit pale (but not glowing green).
I am stumped - my sense of fairness insists that I trust this child, so I start to tell her to go to the office, but before I finish my sentence, 7 more girls have presented themselves in front of me:
"Miss, I feel sick!" they chorus.

ARGH!!

The class are outraged;
"Miss, they're not really sick, they just want to go home!"
"Miss, they're pretending!"

I'm putting a sneak-o-scope on my Christmas list; and in the meantime, "learning how to smell liar-liar-pants-on-fire" is my next target for my personal development thingy.