Mrs. O'Farrell, the gray-haired problem pupil constantly annoyed the instructors by telling the rest of the class how things could be repaired with odds and ends.
Part of the new scheme involved pupils talking together with a teacher as a group about issues like bullying, and including the problem pupil as part of the solution rather than repeatedly excluding them.
Quite what this will entail is not yet clear: an ability, probably, to apply skills to problems pupils may encounter in their working lives.
To some, this indicated that the assignment plan was hiding rather than solving problems: pupils were still failing, but they were just dispersed.Most pupils attended schools near their homes, but some travelled across the county.
There is an age-old problem of pupils falling back over the holidays because we've got a school year designed for children in the 1900s.
Research from Harvard Medical School has highlighted the cognitive, social and emotional problems that pupils suffer if they do not eat breakfast.
Ministers have also drawn attention to games developed by the Oxford mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy, which are being used in growing numbers of schools to explain complex problems to pupils.
Economic pressures, parental separation and the impact of social media are all cited by headteachers as factors behind the rise in behavioural and emotional problems among pupils.
The South African initiative, which is run by Finnish phone manufacturer Nokia, sets inventive maths problems that pupils can access via all types of mobile phone.
