A delegation of parents arrived today asking to see a Mr Berlusconi .  I pointed out that we did not have such a person but they would not take no for an answer.  I tried calling this term’s head – the rarely seen Mr Putin - but he was out for the day at a meeting of the Rhododendron Committee or some such group, and the other managers including Ms Bland were all in a meeting of the Forensic Disability Group.

So I got Derek, the Site Manager and he took over – sitting them all down in the reception area.  Derek always copes.

Then Bodger sent across an email asking us to look in Miss Sallyband’s room on the CCTV – and there she was with her year 10 class and what she seemed to be doing was (if I understood the lesson correctly) recreating a dodo from a scrap of DNA she had taken from the stuffed dodo in the natural history museum, with her year 10 class.

Eventually tiring of the programme I picked up the report on absentees for last week.  I had to run it twice to make sure it was correct.- we seemed to… well “losing” is the only word I can use… we seem to be losing pupils and students.  And not just one or two, but lots of them. 

It is not that they are taking days off here and then, as usual.  They are taking days off… and then never coming back.

I showed the rest of the team.  We began to wonder where on earth they were going.

And even more extraordinarily – Ms Bland and her management committee seems not to be doing anything about it.

We looked at each other.

And looked again.

What is going on?  Are the pupils at home?  Or on the streets?   (We thought not because the police would have been on to us). 

We made notes to get onto the parents tomorrow.

As we left  there were problems at the school gate.  What seemed to be a missile launcher on a huge articulated lorry was parked  opposite the car park exit.  I just hoped Bodger was not playing with electronic gizmos at the moment I drove past the thing.

It was not until I got home that I started to wonder if Derek was still entertaining the parents – I certainly hadn’t seen them  leave.