Finding the right riposte to a cheeky – or worse – student is never easy, so it helps if you can call on divine inspiration, even if it’s lost on the audience.

The holy grail...

Before this best last word I had another best last word. We had worked with Leah for three years. We had done everything in our power to keep her in school and not permanently exclude.

I am a very patient man who will exhaust every opportunity to give young people another chance – the first line in our person specification for every post is “the ability to forgive and move on”... but this was the last straw.

I asked her very politely to put out her cigarette; she impolitely refused. I asked her again, indicating that she was making the wrong choices; she suggested I extend my family.

I reminded her of her failing plan and the consequences of that; she deliberately blew smoke in my face.

I turned to her with great sadness and quietly suggested that she enjoyed her final act at my school, as this would be her last day. My governors upheld the decision; my conscience was clear.

The best last word? Five years ago. A long-term absence in the English department needed covering and I was just the man to do it.

How could I refuse? I constantly stress to colleagues that we teach children first and foremost and what else do I do with my time? I would be ideal to teach set 5 (key group for A*-C threshold target) just three months before their English language GCSE exam.

I knew all of their faces and all of their names (consequent of hours and hours of trawling through data and SIMS photographs) but I couldn’t match them all together. So I set them off on a task and made a seating plan.

Matthew was a bright, challenging young man, constantly just under the radar but on the periphery of too many of the less positive things that go on. In times gone past he would have worked his way down to set 7 but our setting policy would not allow that; in today’s world he would have been awash with Pupil Premium.

He was an expert button-presser with a brilliant ability to bring adults down to his level and beat them with experience.

I went around the class taking names. When I got to him we both knew that I didn’t need to be told his name but he told me anyway. His name was Jesus.

Some of the class ignored him, others laughed a little. I looked at him knowingly and considered my response. It would not be a tirade; it would not be a lecture on blasphemy; it would not be a red card detention or even a withering look.

I replied in a way that only I would understand. In the full and certain knowledge that my response would sail over the heads of everyone in the class (and most of my younger colleagues, to be fair) and, still with a slight sense of guilt to this day, I looked him straight in the eye and said simply: “You’re not the Messiah, you’re just a very naughty boy.”

He looked at me quizzically, shrugged his shoulders and returned to his task.

• The author is a headteacher in the north west of England.

Want the last word?

Last Word always welcomes contributions from members. If you’d like to share your humorous observations of school life, email Permjit Mann at leader@ascl.org.uk ASCL offers a modest honorarium.

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