My version of lesson one starts: This is a bo, not a bo staff. Bo is the japanese word for long staff. You do not say car car or key key so you do not say bo staff.
I was watching a show on the local cable channel where at a dinner they had former olympic athletes with ties to the area come and speak. They told some interesting stories about the experiences they had. And not necessarily the stories about what took place on the field.
School would actually be one of the worst places to practice. If you school is like many of the ones other that post here go to practicing at school will invite trouble makers to try and start up with you. You might look at doing some complementary training during that time - things like pushups, pullups, and getting some running in. But I would definately not recommend practicing at school.
There are at least 14 different versions of Bassai Dai that I have seen as just one example of a kata that is done many different ways. Many times a master taught a traditonal kata differently to his senior students making the best use of that students strenths in the way it was taught. Many times differences were explained but over time much of that got lost. And then the more the differences were passed on the more diffences were created. As much as we like to think we practice an ancient art that was passed down to us in a pure form there has been a lot of tinkering done over the years.
That particular set of beginning katas were put together by a group of karate masters and each style has its own name for them. They go my ten no, chi no, taikokyu, fyukyu, gekisai and all are essentially the same katas.