Terra Glowach, an Edexcel examiner, was marking an English essay. It was the 40th time that day she had marked the same question: "What is your response to the view that in the society of Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare presents women as possessions of the men?" Once again, Glowach compared the latest answer with the marking scheme. She read over the student's answer, and in her mind Glowach was thinking, "Band 3" ? meaning a grade roughly between 21 and 30 (out of 50). Unthinkingly, she typed in 34 ? instead of 24, as she had intended.

The back-to-school shop can be a fraught affair. While we are thinking about school, you can be sure that your children are thinking only of cool.

I was happy to practise my newly acquired Tefl (teaching English as a foreign language) skills on an influx of Poles, but I was only employed as a teaching assistant. I was having difficulty reconciling the need for basic language with the perceived aim that the group should be able to integrate fully by the end of their three-week stint with us. Some of them would be taking GCSEs within the year, all would be joining regular classes, and it was important that they should be put in sets commensurate with their ability. All somewhat daunting.

One does not expect much work after the summer, as teachers return to work relaxed and fit, so I was surprised to be contacted on the second day of the autumn term. A Catholic school faced with falling rolls and the prospect of closure had been praying for a miracle. God had obliged with an influx of Poles, but the school was less grateful than it should have been.

The Government's 10-year youth strategy gives some important clues as to the future direction in which the new Gordon Brown government intends to take us. We are no longer hearing about marching drunken teenagers to cash-points to pay on-the-spot fines. And ASBOs, we are informed by Ed Balls, the new Children, Schools and Families Secretary, are a sign of failure. The "respect" agenda has also changed from one that insists on teenagers showing respect for authority to society having respect for today's youth.

Hilary's advice

It's a Saturday afternoon, and seven teenagers take the stage of the Stratford Circus in east London. They're handed a trophy, and the crowd goes wild, stamping and chanting, "Lam-mas! Lam-mas!"

Hilary's advice

I am shaken after my brush with an assault charge. One of the main instructions from the agency is to never touch a child. I don't believe in physical punishment; it appears that I hadn't been paying proper attention.

Forget history and geography. The hot new subject in schools is entrepreneurship. Today's pupils are being given lessons in how to take risks, manage money, solve problems, seize opportunities and market ideas. Along the way they are learning teamwork, leadership, time management and IT skills. And they are consolidating their basic education ? in the real world, children quickly come to realise, you have to be good at writing, reading and calculating to get anywhere.

Last week's report on history teaching by Ofsted, the education standards watchdog, gives a worrying insight into the way the subject is taught in schools. It has often been forgotten that history, like modern foreign languages, suffered a slump in take-up once it stopped being a compulsory part of the national curriculum after the age of 14. But that is not the main point of the report. Even before children reach 14, it appears, they get few lessons on chronological history ? of either the UK or the world.

Sometime in the early Eighties, heading home from school, I was a quivering wreck. My geography teacher had called me "erratic" in my report.

Tom Bagley seems a cheerful enough lad. Like most children on the cusp of puberty, he's prone to the odd mood, and anxieties about homework or peer pressure. But, if he submitted to analysis, it's unlikely that he'd be diagnosed as anything other than a profoundly normal 12-year-old.

Hilary's advice

This year young people were given the chance to imagine how modern technology could make the world a better place in the award organised by The Independent, Bosch and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The winners, whose essays are printed on this page, had suggestions to solve global warming by, in one case, placing a small turbine in the plughole of every bath in the UK and, in the other, by making more energy-efficient cars.

Today's figures on the number of teenagers from state schools and disadvantaged homes going to university are good news. The percentages are up. Moreover, the university drop-out rate has improved. These are good signs, particularly given the introduction of top-up fees. But we should not be complacent. The proportion of students from poorer homes going to Russell Group universities has barely moved. That's an issue that exercises Sir Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. It suggests that initiatives to improve access have failed to raise the aspirations of many schools and families.

The Prime Minister and his education ministers would do well to study this week's report from the liberal CentreForum think-tank, Tackling Educational Inequality. It says it would be "wasteful" to spend the £17bn needed to carry out Gordon Brown's pledge to raise state sector education spending to the level of that in the private sector. Instead, the pamphlet argues, it would be better to concentrate that money on youngsters from the most deprived backgrounds. The effect would be the same ? raising standards in the state sector.

In attempting to put the grammar school row to rest, David Cameron is advocating an increase in setting and streaming in comprehensive schools. But what are setting and streaming? Parents may be confused by the terminology, not least because Mr Cameron seems so too.

Ken Boston is today launching the biggest shake-up of the secondary school curriculum for years. The chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is announcing a new slimmed-down national curriculum for 11- to 16-year-olds that puts more emphasis on teaching topics than traditional timetabled subjects.

After his thoughtful speech explaining the reasons for new Conservative thinking on grammar schools, it is sad to see David Willetts moved sideways from his post as shadow Education Secretary. Willetts was right to seek to change the party's position on selection ? and David Cameron should have stuck by him.