He never shuts up. Ever. He is like an echo in my head, an irritating rustling that is sometimes just a background buzz and sometimes like Chinese torture. I have christened him Charlie Bird because he can deliver an on-the-spot report on everything that is happening anywhere in the school. All delivered in a scene-of-the-crime breaking-news voice. Usually in the middle of the crucial moment in Improper Fractions.

Now he is rarely present at any of these incidents but he has a pyramid of mini-reporters that he calls on for the low-down. And he is consistently wrong but adamant that he's right.

And when I'm in the middle of irregular verbs and he is explaining the intricacies of trading Pokemon to his neighbour I would gladly trade him for any creature under the sun.

His favourite way of causing total uproar in class is by convincing everyone within earshot that I said they were not to finish the geography questions. As if! Hence, I find a happily idle group relaxing when I look up from correcting the homework. Why? Well, Wayne told them what to do. Good man, Wayne.

But in spite of the fact that he's orally challenged I can see a certain spark in him (when I'm not stressed out completely by his constant networking). He has a certain tenacity that should stand him in good stead in later life. When I reach for the door handle to get out for 10 seconds to calm myself before I call him something that Dr Woods would never forgive, he is unruffled and firm in his resolve that he was only solving someone else's problems with a retractable pen that wouldn't retract.

And when he has dictated to everyone within an ass's roar of him one more time, sarcasm inevitably breaks out on my part. "I'm not retiring for a while yet, you know. But as soon as I am, you can have the job officially and get paid for it, Wayne." He grins at me: "Ah, no way. Listening to kids all day, sir, that'd wreck my head."