Dee ambled past my classroom — I caught sight of her as she passed the open door.

“Dee”, I said. “Why aren’t you in a lesson?”

“My teacher and I thought I ought to do some research outside of the classroom.”

“In other words you’ve been thrown out.”

“Well, technically yes”, she said.

Before I had a chance to ask what the word “technically” meant in this context, she looked in at my classroom. “Who are they?” she asked.

“Year 7.”

“What are they doing?”

“Working on a spreadsheet challenge I set them.”

“Ooh”, she exclaimed. “I know all about spreadsheets. Let me help out.”

“What, so you can disrupt my lesson too?”

“No, no, please. I can do it.”

“OK”, I said, “but don’t do the work for them because they won’t learn anything if you do.”

I feared I was going against my better judgement, but my intuition told me to give her the benefit of the doubt. As it happens, she was brilliant. I discovered that Dee was really good with younger kids, and also those with special educational needs.

My misgivings, it turned out, had been misplaced.