Chapter 4 #2
‘… leaking roof.’
Fisting his hand in front of his mouth, Bertie cleared his throat again. ‘I cannot and will not go into details, and I urge you not to speculate. We will continue to teach to the best of our abilities and to see that every child who enters this building is not affected by this disruption.’
‘Are you stepping up as head?’ Annie asked.
‘No, I will not be. I shall remain deputy headteacher here at Woodland Primary, but we shall have a new headteacher.’ Bertie’s cheeks pinked slightly.
‘When from? Surely, you’ll be acting head until the position is filled?’ Adam frowned.
‘The position has already been filled. The trust has found a replacement who will fill the position immediately.’ Bertie nodded.
‘Immediately? As in tomorrow?’ Annie frowned. ‘Do we know them? Have they even visited the school before?’
‘Yes, there hasn’t been any interviews taking place. I’ve not even seen an advert for the job. Is that even legal to just fill a position without advertising?’ Lydia picked up her mug, tutting before she took a sip of her drink.
‘If they’ve not even stepped foot inside the school before, what could they possibly bring to the job that you couldn’t, Bertie?’ Helen, who had always secretly – or not so secretly – admired Bertie, curtly shook her head, clearly upset that the trust had overlooked him for the promotion.
Shifting on his feet, Bertie glanced towards the conference room door. ‘Rest assured the trust have supplied us with someone more than qualified.’
‘Hmph.’ Helen crossed her arms, a look of disdain etched on her face.
After giving Helen a tight-lipped smile, Bertie strode across to the door of the conference room and disappeared outside.
Frowning, Gemma glanced around the room as people began to whisper, their voices rising with each minute Bertie was gone.
‘So, come on, Gemma, who do you think it’ll be?’ Annie nudged her arm. ‘There were five of them who have been interrogating pupils and staff alike today, so out of the five, which one would you guess?’
Turning, Gemma shrugged, trying her best not to smile.
Imagine if it were that cute guy from the group of visitors who had been wandering around.
She’d only been subjected to two of the suits watching her teach numeracy and one had been him, although he had kept his distance, watching from the side-lines rather than walking around the tables and talking to the children like the man he’d been with, but he had definitely caught her eye.
‘I’ve no idea. I just hope they were happy with my assembly. ’
‘Aw, they would have been. You always manage to keep all the kids engaged.’
Gemma nodded. They’d certainly been engaged. They’d been standing and stomping in time to the music. ‘They were. And all the kids looked as though they were enjoying themselves.’
‘There you go then. You’ll have blown them away.’ Annie grinned before whistling towards Adam and trying to get his attention. ‘Oi! Adam. Which one of the suits do you think will be taking on the headteacher role here?’
‘Does it matter? They most probably won’t have had any experience of working in an actual school.
Most of them are from business roles, aren’t they?
’ Adam crossed his arms, his thick eyebrows knitted together as he dove into his usual rant about how the academy trust was run.
‘Thinking because they can understand spreadsheets or some policy worked at a school in Timbuktu, it’ll work everywhere regardless of size, cohort or… ’
The door to the conference room swung open again, and Bertie reappeared, one of the men who had visited joining him a moment later. ‘I’d like to introduce you to Mr Higgs.’
Stepping forward, Mr Higgs straightened his navy tie, which almost perfectly matched the navy suit he was wearing. ‘Thank you, Mr Simmons. Jonathan, please. Good afternoon, everyone.’
The quiet reply of ‘Good afternoon, Mr Higgs’ rumbled around the room, a habit not many teachers could successfully drop on a whim.
Gemma could also feel the faint heat of a blush creeping across her skin as she felt the nudge of Annie’s elbow to her side. Yep, she’d clocked it too, their new headteacher was indeed the man she’d thought of as cute. Great. She’d never hear the end of it when Tania found out in the morning.
‘As you are aware, myself and a few of my colleagues from the academy trust have spent the day here to get a feel of the school, the community and how things are run.’ He pulled a notebook from the crook of his arm and began flicking through it.
Having found the desired page, he looked back towards the group in front of him, ready to speak again just as Bertie spoke up.
‘I’m sure you found we run a tight ship around here.’ Bertie crossed his arms confidently.
Turning towards him, Jonathan raised his eyebrows. ‘I was going to say we found things lacking.’
‘Lacking?’ Bertie coughed, clearly surprised by Jonathan’s answer.
Nodding curtly, Jonathan turned back to the teachers in front of him. ‘Certainly, the way Woodland Primary conducts its business offers many positives, but a few issues require addressing.’
‘Woodland Primary School. It’s not a business. Our children’s welfare, education and happiness are paramount in every decision we make.’ Bertie mumbled as he slunk into a chair.
‘And so they should be, but my role here is to improve on what is already being achieved.’ Jonathan shifted position, slightly widening his stance. ‘Much of what you do here is good, but some things do need improvement, and it’s those aspects I’ll be focusing on.’
Annie muttered under her breath, ‘And what does he know about teaching? I bet he’s never taught a lesson in his life.’
Gemma scrunched up her nose. She was beginning to form the exact same impression.
Surely coming in here, onto their patch, as an outsider, Jonathan shouldn’t be criticising them?
Not straight away. One day of mooching around the school, hovering over teachers and pupils alike as they worked and flicking through hundreds of books could not truly reflect how the school operated.
‘…and that brings me onto what I witnessed in the school hall this morning.’ Jonathan looked around the group, his eyes resting on Gemma.
Clasping her hands in her lap, Gemma felt the flutter in her chest still.
Yes, he’d watched the assembly she’d taken; he must have seen how on task and captivated the kids had been.
At least that was something she could be proud of.
She chewed the inside of her cheek to stop herself from grinning.
Yep, she’d take all the praise she could.
‘I have no idea what was going on in there, but the noise, the utter chaos of the children…’
As he continued, Gemma gripped her hands together, lacing her fingers tightly around one another. She felt as though the world had stopped spinning, the blood running from her face. She’d been so sure he’d have seen that all the children had been focused, on task, and had been enjoying themselves.
‘… the ratio of three members of staff to the entire child population of the school…’
No, she couldn’t just sit there and accept his judgment.
How dare he? What gave him the right to even pass judgment?
Yes, he might be their new head, but he clearly wasn’t experienced in the world of teaching.
Business, maybe, but not actually interacting with and teaching children.
Flaring her nostrils, she fixed her eyes on him, suddenly aware that everyone else in the room was staring right at her.
‘The children were all engaged and enjoying themselves. Each and every one of them was singing and joining in with the actions of the song. I simply can’t understand how you couldn’t see that. ’
‘With all due respect, Mrs…’
‘Gemma Murray. Miss.’ She replied curtly, forcing herself not to tell him what she thought of him.
‘Miss Murray, the children may have been having the time of their lives and enjoying themselves, they may have been engaged and joining in, but the fact remains that when the timetable indicates that today’s assembly time should have been spent on learning about community ties, and you were having a singsong with the children in your care, that is not following the carefully prepared timetable.
It was merely hyping the children up and more than likely affecting their concentration during subsequent lessons.
And, as I have said, the staff to pupil ratio had clearly not been thought through. ’
Opening her mouth to answer, Gemma closed it again as Annie spoke for her. ‘Gemma volunteered to step up because Diane Norton was scheduled to take the assembly, and she was… she’s not here.’
Without missing a beat, Jonathan continued, his eyes still fixed on Gemma’s. ‘Clearly not an ideal situation, but for future reference, perhaps refer to the assembly plans rather than going off track.’
Crossing her arms, Gemma sighed. It was clearly going to be a barrel of laughs working with Mr Rule Stickler here.
Everyone else had just been relieved that she’d offered to take the children for assembly time, even Diane Norton would have been grateful.
In fact, she’d often approached her moments before assembly was due to start and beg her to take her guitar along to the hall so she could squeeze a meeting in with a parent or sort out a staffing issue.
As the meeting came to a close and Jonathan Higgs finally retreated to his new office, Gemma checked her watch.
Drat. It was six o’clock already, which meant poor little Alfie had been by himself for far too long since the dog walker had visited.
Pushing her chair back quickly, she stood up, gathering her notebook and pen in her arms.
Standing up next to her, Annie laid her hand on Gemma’s forearm. ‘Don’t take any notice. He’s only just walked through the door, he’ll soon be calling upon you to take assemblies at the drop of a hat once he realises what life is really like in a school.’
‘Well, I might not be so willing to step in for him after the way he’s just berated me in front of everyone.’ Gemma turned to the door, Annie a step behind her.
‘Honestly, don’t take it to heart. He had a bad word to say about almost everyone.’
‘I know. I just…’ Gemma shrugged. Why did it bother her so much what he thought of her?
Yes, he was now her headteacher, her boss, but she knew she was good at her job.
All her previous lesson observations stated that, and he’d soon see it too, but…
She shook her head. Probably because she’d been so certain she’d made a good first impression.
‘Gemma, Annie, a few of us are heading to the pub to dissect what’s going on here. Are you both coming along?’ Adam lowered his voice as they walked past the headteacher’s office.
‘I can’t, sorry. I’m dog-sitting for a few weeks, and the poor thing has already been on his own far longer than I’d intended him to be.
’ Gemma grimaced. She dreaded to think what state her floors would be in already, and as good as the chance to decompress and make sense of everything which had happened today whilst nursing a rather large glass of wine sounded, she loved her cream fluffy rug a little more than the effects of wine.