I decide to start my next lesson with Year Nine, Class C with a quick dictation exercise to focus on spellings and speed writing. Once everyone has settled down and found a pen (I long for the day that the whole class will arrive with a well-stocked pencil case, but I fear that I might as well long for the moon), I grab a textbook filled with short writing extracts and start to read.
‘In the summer of 1015, a Viking fleet set sail for England. The invasion force was led by a man who came from a long line of Scandinavian rulers and his name was King Cnut.’
‘You’re reading too fast, miss,’ complains Wayne. ‘I can’t write that quickly.’
‘You can’t write at all!’ quips Brody, gaining a snigger from the rest of the class.
‘That’s enough.’ I glare at anyone who dares to make eye contact with me. ‘I will repeat the second sentence one more time. “The invasion force was led by a man who came from a long line of Scandinavian rulers and his name was King Cnut.”’
‘How do you spell that, miss?’ asks Elise. At the same time, I see Vincent trying to reach across the gap between the desks and jab Wayne with a pair of compasses.
‘Vincent!’ I stride across the floor. ‘Hand that to me immediately. And the King’s name is spelt C – U – N—’
My brain finally catches up with my mouth, leaving the final letter hanging on my lips.
‘I mean, it’s spelt C – N—’
But it is far, far too late. Of course it is. This class of thirteen and fourteen year-olds who never listen to a damn word that I say are all listening the one single time that I spectacularly mess up.
‘Oh my god!’ screeches Elise. ‘Miss! You did not just say that!’
‘Miss made me write a rude word in my book!’ yells Brody.
‘The worst word,’ adds Wayne, with relish. ‘I’ve written it too!’
‘And me!’ shouts Vincent and then the room is filled with the sound of kids proclaiming that they have written the foulest of foul words in their English books.
And that I made them do it.
There is only one way to handle this situation.
‘Okay, calm down.’ I cross my arms and let my gaze roam across the class. ‘Everyone settle down. There’s no need for all this fuss. I’m sure that nobody was daft enough to write the wrong word, just because I mixed up my letters.’
‘I was daft enough!’ screeches Vincent. ‘Look!’
He holds up his book and even from here I can see the word, firmly printed on his page. It appears to be the only word that Vincent has actually spelt correctly.
‘So was I,’ Brody tells me. I frown as another book is held up and then another and another until almost the entire class is brandishing their English books in the air and I am confronted with a sea of expletives.
I remember the story of King Cnut proving that he couldn’t turn back the tide and feel his pain.
Slowly, I walk alongside the desks, staring at each book. The writing is mostly illegible, a scrawled mess of ink and blotches and crossings out. The Danish king’s misspelt name stands out in stark contrast. In Wayne’s book, it appears to be the only word that he has actually written today, which is an improvement on yesterday’s effort. Not that I can reward him for writing the word in capital letters across his entire page.
Miriam will annihilate me if she catches wind of this incident. In fact, she’ll probably get my teaching certificate revoked and I’ll never work again.
I say nothing, but my brain is working overtime as I head back down the other side of the classroom. By the time I reach my desk I am ready to conduct some damage limitation.
‘Who wants to watch a film for the rest of the lesson?’ I ask. ‘I’ve got The Lion King on DVD.’
Twenty-five hands shoot into the air. The twenty-sixth remains firmly planted on the desk in front of her.
‘We’re supposed to be studying Shakespeare,’ she states. ‘Some of us do actually want to get an education, you know.’
There’s always bloody one. I resist the urge to ask Elise exactly who she thinks she is, coming in here with her fancy-pants talk of aspiration and self-improvement, and smile sweetly at her.
‘And an education you will absolutely be getting,’ I tell her, swiping the disc from my drawer and ramming it into the computer. ‘It’s a well-known fact that The Lion King has a similar plot to Hamlet. A king murdered by his own brother. A young prince who is exiled and who receives a visit from his father from beyond the grave.’
I press play and start walking around the room, gathering up all the books.
‘Did you bring popcorn, miss?’ enquires Brody, putting his feet up on the desk. ‘Because popcorn might help me to forget that terrible word you made us write.’
‘There will be no popcorn,’ I snarl. ‘And if you carry on like that then I might well be asking you to write a summary of all the similarities between the relationship of Hamlet with his brother, Claudius and of Mufasa with his brother, Scar.’
Brody shudders. ‘I think we’ll cope without the popcorn.’
I nod approvingly and then spend the next fifty minutes going through each of the books, liberally applying corrector fluid to the word and writing it correctly over the top. When I get to Wayne’s book I realise that I’m running low on supply so I rip out the offending page, glancing up to make sure that I’m not being watched. Fortunately for me, Year Nine, Class C are entranced by the film, most of them singing along to ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ with a surprising lack of self-consciousness. I do feel a slight pang of guilt when I spot Elise with her head down, feverishly making notes on a scrap of paper, but then I remember the disparaging look she has in her eyes whenever I speak to her and I get over it.
By the time the bell rings, order has been restored. The class gets to their feet and Vincent sticks his foot out, tripping Wayne up as he walks down the aisle. Wayne starts shrieking at him, telling anyone who will listen that he’s going to punch Vincent in the face at lunchtime and then Brody wades in to break it up (or cause more trouble) and I end up threatening a week’s worth of detentions if they don’t all leave my sight this instant.
They tumble out of the room, bags hanging from shoulders and voices raised in the excitement of a potential fight. And I know that I should probably keep Wayne and Vincent behind and warn them of the consequences of any further altercations but I’m just so pleased that the earlier incident appears to have been forgotten and they’re both as bad as each other, really. Besides, I’ve seen these boys in action and honestly, it’s like watching kittens playing rough-house. If it was one of the girls threatening to get physical then I’d be worried, but Vincent and Wayne aren’t capable of walking the walk.
Plus there’s always the hope that they’ll either knock some sense into each other or get excluded.
*
It is the first proper sunny day of the year. From down below, the sound of approximately eight hundred and ninety-six teenagers enjoying the freedom of lunchtime wafts in through the open windows. Here in the staffroom, the entirety of the teaching staff is huddled on chairs and perched on tables while Miriam lectures us on the upcoming lesson observations.
‘They’re nothing to worry about!’ she trills, shuffling through a file of papers. ‘Don’t think of it as being judged – we’re observing you purely in the capacity of offering professional support.’
‘Last time they did observations they started poor old Kurt on incompetence proceedings,’ Peter mutters to me.
We both look across the room at where Kurt Jenkins, one of the Maths teachers, is staring in confusion at a box of teabags as if he’s unsure about what to do with them.
‘To be fair, he is a teeny little bit incompetent,’ I whisper back. ‘I can’t remember the last time that anyone in his class actually passed Maths. Lovely man though. Very avid cyclist, apparently.’
Kurt shakes his head at the box and puts it down, reaching instead for the coffee.
‘So we’ll be seeing each of you over the next month,’ continues Miriam. ‘Apologies if you end up having to wait for a few weeks, but we’ve decided that in the spirit of true professional development, it would be beneficial to sit in on a whole lesson and there’s a lot of you to get through.’
She looks at the Head, who is slumped in a corner of the room playing Candy Crush on his phone. He used to be fairly dynamic before Miriam was appointed as his deputy. I think she’s worn him down with her relentless enthusiasm. It won’t surprise any of us if he’s gone by the end of the year.
There’s a pause while her words sink in.
And then there is uproar.
‘You’re observing us for an entire hour?’ howls Danny. ‘That’s totally unfair!’
Adele stands up and starts pacing around the crowded room. ‘I can’t keep Year Nine together for six minutes, never mind sixty,’ she says. ‘You can’t watch me teaching them – you just can’t.’
I am going to lose my job. Miriam has probably orchestrated this entire situation just so that she can get rid of me. Everyone else is just collateral damage – it’s me that she’s after.
Cassie grins at me from across the table. ‘I’d have thought you would have had them under control by now, Adele?’ she calls out. ‘What happened to calming the savage beast through the medium of interpretive dance and mindfulness techniques?’
‘Year Nine would make a savage beast look like a pussy cat,’ snaps back Adele. ‘I’m considering banning the entire year group from the Drama department – you should see what they did to my props cupboard last week.’
Isobel stands up and I look at her in surprise. Since she started here in September she’s barely spoken when the whole staff is gathered together. She taps on the table to get everyone’s attention.
‘Just so you all know, I am the new union representative now that Kurt is – well, ermm, you know.’ She falters and looks anxiously at Kurt, who has finally managed to make his drink and is leaning against the fridge looking relaxed.
‘Now that Kurt is pursuing pastures new,’ he calls, helping her out.
There’s a smattering of applause and Kurt smiles at us all. ‘From September, I will be the new manager at Pizza Parade,’ he says. ‘I’m ready to move on now really, but I don’t want to let the kids down, so I’ll be here until the end of term.’
There are murmurs of ‘good of you,’ and ‘so dedicated’. I join in while making a mental note to talk to Nick about whether we can afford that Maths tutor for Scarlet, just for a few weeks until the exams are done.
‘Anyway.’ Isobel clears her throat. ‘I’m the union rep and so if any of you feel that this observation violates your teacher rights in any way, you know where I am.’
She sits down and there is silence. Beside me, Peter’s shoulders shake and I can tell that he’s struggling not to lose it. The very idea of anyone giving the slightest consideration to our rights is cause for amusement.
‘That’s very sweet of you, Isobel.’ Miriam does not sound like she thinks there is anything remotely sweet about Isobel’s announcement. ‘However, I think everyone will agree that observations and appraisals are a positive and beneficial part of the school year, yes?’
She looks around the room. Nobody speaks. Miriam is undeterred.
‘In fact, only the other day I was reading about a school who schedule weekly peer-to-peer observations.’ She turns to the Head. ‘I was going to talk to you about it, actually. It’s a really innovative process, using peer coaching to identify areas of strength and weakness. For example, Danny from Physics would watch Peter from English and give him feedback about his teaching strategies and methods, providing him with a list of areas for improvement. And then Peter would return the favour the following week. What do you think?’
Nobody gets to find out what the Head thinks about this terrible plan, because before any of us can even blink, Peter is out of his seat.
‘There’s no need for any silly union talk,’ he tells Isobel, who sinks back into her chair looking embarrassed. ‘We’re teachers. Having our rights violated is part of the job! Not even Amnesty International is interested in us!’
His empty laugh echoes around the room.
‘So you’re coming in to watch us for an hour, you say?’ He bares his teeth at Miriam in an approximation of a smile. ‘Where do we sign up?’
*
The meeting ends, finally, and people start to drift out of the room.
‘Tell me that Brandon Hopkins threw a desk at my head and put me in a coma,’ groans Peter, his head slumped into his hands. ‘Please tell me that I’m currently lying in Intensive Care, hooked up to a life support machine, and I’m having the weirdest and worst dream ever imaginable?’
‘Sorry.’ I pat his hand. ‘It is a sad fact of reality that you just supported Miriam in a staff meeting and volunteered to go first in the lesson observations.’
‘It was worth it though.’ Peter shudders. ‘The very thought of that twerpish boy giving me feedback on my lessons when he’s been in teaching for all of two minutes is enough to make me consider early retirement.’
‘I still think it’s a violation of the educational code of conduct,’ complains Isobel. ‘They can’t just demand to come into our classrooms and stay for as long as they like. It’s distracting and off-putting.’
‘They can,’ I tell her. ‘They can do whatever they want. Didn’t you read your contract?’
Isobel flushes and shakes her head. ‘They said on my teaching course that we’d only ever be watched for twenty minutes at a time. I can cope for twenty minutes, but an hour? I’ve never had a lesson that’s good for the whole time.’
‘None of us have,’ says Peter, reassuringly. ‘It isn’t possible.’
‘He’s right,’ adds Danny, coming across to our side of the room. ‘They’ve done studies on it and the evidence was totally conclusive. Nobody can be expected to teach a lesson to a room full of teenagers and not have at least three disasters. That’s the average rate, by the way. One disaster every twenty minutes.’
I think about the English lesson that I’ve just taught to Year Nine, Class C.
‘I’d say that’s quite a conservative estimate, to be honest,’ I tell Danny. ‘Are you sure the research didn’t say that the average was twenty disasters every three minutes?’
There’s a pause while we all consider the implications of being observed for an entire hour. Over by the fridge, Kurt unwraps a bar of chocolate and takes a loud bite.
‘There may well be vacancies going at Pizza Parade,’ he says. ‘But I won’t have room for you all. I can only employ the most skilled.’ He scrunches up the wrapper. ‘And it’s minimum wage, obviously.’
The bell rings and I pick up my bag. On the outside I hope I am still managing to fake the look of a calm, professional teacher, but inside, my stomach is churning and my brain is whirring. I have got to do something about this situation. If Miriam observes me teaching a whole lesson then I’ll probably be fired instantly. And I can’t afford to work for Kurt at Pizza Parade – not that I could even be assured of a position by the sound of it. I’m not exactly an expert at making dough.
The time has come to stick my courage to whatever place it is that you’re supposed to stick it to. I will stick it to anyone who doubts me. I will stick it to The Man. I will write my book and somehow figure out how to get it published.
And then I will start practising my dough-kneading techniques.