So, it’s well known that people who work or study in schools or other educational institutions get a lot of coughs and colds. In universities it’s known as Freshers’ Flu, and everyone gets it shortly after Freshers’ Fair.  Essentially a large group of people from diverse areas all meet and exchange bugs, and everyone gets ill.  In schools its the same. All the children have the whole summer to travel the country, go on holiday, and visit family, picking up all the cough and cold bugs they can, which then get pooled back in the school.

And PGCE students? We’re an interface between the two communities. We spend all week picking up the bugs from the children, then on Monday mornings, 250 of us meet back in one air-conditioned lecture hall to share learning about learning, to share best practice, and to co-mingle the bugs from all the secondary-age children in three counties into one big pool of infection.

Seriously, stay away from us. We’re diseased.

Cough. Cough. Sniff.