With the sun on the permanent ‘on’ switch and England through to the World Cup quarter-final, you’d have thought there was only reason to cheer this week.

But it emerged that at least one primary headteacher felt forced to act after his pupils were picking up the wrong kind of skills from international football. 

Richard Potter banned football at breaks and lunchtime for the week because youngsters were emulating the unsporting behaviour of World Cup stars, citing 14 football-related “minor problems” he’s had to deal with.

One individual who was less than sporting about the teacher profession was the not so shy nor retiring Piers Morgan, host of ITV1’s ‘Good Morning Britain’, who said he didn’t trust teachers who banned school skirts “as far as I can throw them”. (Some may feel the same about ungracious TV anchors.)

Closures were also on the cards this week, as almost a third of nursery schools said their future is on a knife edge due to funding. 

Meanwhile, Tes revealed that more threats are looming over the future of small rural schools. Those who could put a nail in their coffin include the Church of England, which is lobbying to change the law to make it easier to close them if children’s education is best served elsewhere.

On the question of size, Baroness Warnock spelled out why small is sometimes better for some children. She told MPs that she felt that “size and impersonality” of large secondaries can sometimes fuel problems of children with special educational needs and disabilities” and could even be the source of them. 

And schools, it emerged, can be unsupportive in other ways, a national survey revealed, showing that one in five LGBT teachers said they had been outed at school and a third had experienced a negative reaction to their sexual orientation or gender identity at school. 

One teacher told of her regret at initially denying to pupils she was gay, when she should have instead shown her pride in who she was.

And Pride is what many will be expressing this Saturday as the London LGBT+ event takes place, where no doubt many teachers will be amongst the throng.

For others, there’s always the quarter-final. Failing that, there’s always topping-up the tan while the good weather lasts.