Prickly nasties

".......so the bad fairy came along and took away all the warm fuzzies and swapped them with prickly nasties."

Another day, another assembly, another story with a moral that appears to bear absolutely no relation to the reality of life at school, or anywhere else for that matter.

So far this term we've been treated to:

- the man whose garden withered until he let all the neighbourhood children play in it; moral, let them in or the little b****** will vandalise it anyway

- the giraffe who only achieved true happiness by giving away all her possessions; moral - giraffes, wise up.

- the cheerful woman who refused to let untold misery grind her down and always had a smile and a quip for everyone; moral, doesn't even bear thinking about but definitely involves martyrdom, brave smiles and a national epidemic of passive aggressive behaviour, which I think is probably attributable to global warming and almost certainly spread by a new strain of horribly complacent mosquitos which fly about with their tiny heads tilted on one side in an attitude of irritating compassion and understanding. At least it makes dengue fever sound positively delightful by comparison.

The story concludes (there's something about prickly nasties being replaced by a good fairy who gives everybody warm fuzzies and is promptly arrested on suspicion of child abuse) I play the hymn with the music upside down, but nobody notices, including me, and then it's time for a staff meeting.

If the children are allowed to barbecue a sausage to commemorate Australia Day (why sausages? Why Australia Day?) will there be a vegetarian alternative?

One of the teaching assistants is going on a firefighting course. Somebody points out that as she is not in until midday, fires can only be allowed after lunch. Also that the fire brigade advocates getting the hell out of the building and leaving the fire fighting to them. "It's just for little fires," she says, looking wistfully at the smaller electrical appliances and clearly willing them to burst into carefully controlled flames.

At the 'Any other business' stage, I ask if there are any themes that the teachers would like reflected in the music lessons. There is a long pause.

"Pirates, Countries and Light," says a Year 1 teacher. "All about me," says the Reception team, "and we're doing food in the second half of the term. They could sing 'Sizzling Sausages'".

"Animals," says Sasha. There's a pause while I wonder whether to ask if this is a magisterial comment on the rest of us or a theme, then decide against it and just write it down.

Later, at home, I practise a new song. It is called: "Thank you Lord for this new day." Deborah is rolling around the carpet and screaming because I won't stop playing the piano so she can watch television and Francis is gloomily studying more documents from the insurance company that appear to read, "You're a loser. Accept it and take this derisory cheque, or else."

I look at the performance note at the beginning of the hymn.

"With quiet joy," it says.