My 3rd form from hell

"A boy with a bad history of home violence had a knife at school. I was teaching maths, and he was cutting great big chunks out of the pencil case of the boy next to him. The boy was angry and asked me to help.

"So I said, 'D, I want that knife, now.' And he put the knife at my face and said, 'You take the knife and I'll cut your face,' or something like that.

"He was very menacing, and a lot taller and bigger than me, and very aggressive in the way he spoke. It wasn't the first time he'd been tricky with me, but never with a knife before.

"I went to help another student with the mess, and I thought, right, I'll go back to him and get it off him when he's off guard.

"But he was cutting into the pencil case again, so I went back to him and he threatened me again. He was angrier this time, and it was over a longer period of time. He also threatened if I took the knife off him, he would do something to my car.

"I knew I wasn't going to win and I was very afraid he was actually going to do it because I didn't trust him at all ...

"I went home that night and I had chest pains, and I suppose I had lost my confidence, and I just didn't want to face the class again.

"I went the next morning to the doctor's surgery and I sat in the surgery and I just cried and cried. When the doctor eventually saw me, he said I had all the classic symptom of stress and he suggested I didn't go back to that class.

"Day after day of being victimised, bullied by these kids. It was just so horrible."

* A Waikato teacher on the third-form class from hell. She eventually left that school and is now happy in a "delightful" rural school. The last she heard, her 14-year-old tormentor had left school and was unemployed.