Chapter Text
Wednesday July 25, 10:07
From: [email protected]
To: [All Staff]
Subject: Happy Summer! IMPORTANT UPDATES
Dear all,
First and foremost, congratulations on the successful completion of another year of teaching. I understand that it was a tumultuous one, with the beginning of the academisation process and the uncertainty and disruption that follow such a great change in a school’s circumstances. However, I am pleased to report that Erebus is already reaping the benefits of joining a multi-academy trust and we should all be looking forward to the new academic year with great anticipation.
Before you all enjoy your hard-earned summer holiday, here are a few dates for your diaries:
Throughout the holidays our athletic facilities will be undergoing major renovations. We will be gaining a state-of-the-art athletics track and an upgraded sports hall with specialised equipment. This will allow us, from September, to offer a compulsory Physical Education GCSE for all Erebus students, under the gifted leadership of our new Head of PE, @Graham Gore!
There will also be general building maintenance taking place - deep-cleaning, repainting, etc. - so please ensure that your classrooms have been fully cleared and emptied of all equipment, resources and personal items. I understand that some staff may have been told last week that they could remain in particular classrooms with displays and table layouts of their choice. Unfortunately it is not possible to accommodate these choices while onboarding several new staff members. Many thanks for your understanding, and again, please ensure that your classrooms have been EMPTIED before next Monday (30th July) to allow the renovations to take place.
Last but not least, our INSET days to prepare for the new academic year will take place on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of September. These days will be full of opportunities not only to prepare ourselves for an outstanding first year as a newly-minted academy, but to get to know our wonderful new colleagues, particularly our new Joint Head of School, @Francis Crozier, who brings with him a wealth of experience in supporting schools to improve their OFSTED ratings. I’m sure he and @James Fitzjames will make an excellent Head team! I am rather jealous that I will not be there myself, but to my great misfortune I am required at Head Office during that week. No doubt I will find some time to visit Erebus once the school year is well and truly underway.
I hope you all manage to get some sunshine over the next five weeks!
With thanks,
John Franklin
Executive Head - Erebus Academy
An Admiralty Academy School - “Embrace Education, Reach New Elevation”
Everyone had expected Francis Crozier to jump at the chance to be Head of School.
It only made sense, given his career trajectory so far. He had been the Head of Geography at a ‘Good’ secondary school when a surprise failed inspection led to it becoming part of the Admiralty Academy Trust, a local group notorious for sniffing out schools with weak leadership and staging takeovers. But while other teachers jumped ship, Francis had remained, determined that no rapacious Academy Trust would make him leave a job he loved. As it turned out, that was exactly what the Trust wanted. Francis wasn’t shy about telling anyone who would listen that he acted according to his own professional judgement, not the whims of the Trust, but that didn’t stop him from finding a great deal of success within its midst. By the time he had supported a third failing school to become ‘Outstanding’, Francis Crozier had gained a shining reputation.
And yet Francis wasn’t sure he wanted to be known as the man who could turn around a ‘failing’ school. That wasn’t to say that Erebus Academy didn’t need help. That much was clear from the physical condition of the building, not to mention the undisguised awe with which most of the staff looked at him when he announced he’d be walking around the classrooms during their preparation time that day so he could get to know them as colleagues. He got the sense that their previous head had not been on quite such friendly terms with the people who actually made the school run on a daily basis.
That was the one thing Francis would never understand. In his mind, a school succeeded when all the staff, including those with important titles, were equally willing to get their hands dirty. The best years of his working life had been at when he worked shoulder to shoulder with Thomas Blanky, a formidably competent Geography teacher who eschewed official leadership positions as ‘dull’, and James Clark Ross, who was even more dedicated, energetic and beloved as a headteacher than he’d been as a ‘regular’ teacher. In Francis’ opinion, there was no place in a school for heads and deputy heads who had no contact with the students.
But to his dismay, he had learnt that morning that not only was the Executive Head of Erebus Academy rarely ever present in the school building, but that there was an entire position known as Head of Data - namely, someone whose sole purpose was to look at the theoreticals of school life and give other people so-called ‘informed’ advice on how to teach. Worse, that person was his fellow Head of School, James Fitzjames.
There was an email from the man waiting in his inbox when Francis first arrived at Erebus that morning. Fitzjames had requested that they “block off a significant chunk of time for planning and strategy” that day, but Francis hadn’t been shy in firing back that he needed to dedicate their first INSET day to meeting the staff, and that he would find Fitzjames at two o’clock if they really needed to meet. The reply had been affirmative, if a little sparse.
Francis couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer, though, lest it become painfully clear he was snubbing Fitzjames, who was, by all accounts, Franklin’s pet. And if he was anything like Franklin, Francis was sure he’d never hear the end of it.
So here he was, having made his pilgrimage through the building - the Old Building, as most people called it, since it had been mostly superseded by a newer one, and only housed a few classrooms and the reception area - to the door of James Fitzjames’ office. It wasn’t difficult. Despite the hideous state of much of the school, Fitzjames had acquired a shiny little plaque with his name on it to stick to his door, the presence of which Francis barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at as he raised his fist to knock.
“Come in!”
Fitzjames’ office was like the inside of an IKEA catalogue. He had the same scuffed old desk and filing cabinets as everyone else, but with a few tastefully-placed plants and posters of motivational quotes that marked him out as someone who took the appearance of his office very seriously indeed. Francis couldn’t help noticing, with a touch of resentment, that the office itself was significantly larger than his own, with enough space for a meeting table squarely in the middle of the room. The air was thick with the smell of fresh paint, the damp smell that permeated most of the Old Building, and aftershave.
When Fitzjames spun around on his swivel chair and rose to his feet, Francis’ first thought was: of course a Head of Data looks like that. He was wearing a full suit, dark blue and made up in some kind of shiny, satiny fabric. His shoes were shiny too, brown leather and carefully polished. And then there was his hair, chin-length and just curled enough that Francis had to wonder whether it was natural, or whether the man had taken time out of his morning to style his hair before coming to work at one of the worst secondary schools in the borough.
“Ah, Francis, good to see you.” Fitzjames gestured magnanimously to his meeting table.
“Good to see you too.” Francis had to bite the words out carefully to stop himself from asking Fitzjames just who he thought he was impressing with his carefully coiffed hair and freshly-ironed suit. He glanced reproachfully at the table Fitzjames had gestured to, then pulled out a chair for himself and sank into it with a sigh he hoped could be disguised as one of relief at getting off his feet, rather than the utter exasperation he felt.
“I've been introducing myself to some of the staff,” he said. “You'll forgive my lateness, I'm sure.” It wasn't a request.
“Of course,” said Fitzjames, taking the seat opposite him and setting a large ring binder on the table between them. “I hope you got a real sense of the camaraderie we have here at Erebus. The results of the Ofsted inspection last year were…” His businesslike smile wavered momentarily, “... disappointing. I don’t want you to think it was due to lack of care or dedication on behalf of the staff. You know how these things go.”
“Unfortunately I do, yes.” Francis leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers against the tabletop. “I'll be frank with you, James,” he said, “From my walk around today, I'm rather baffled as to the state of things here. We have all this new funding from the Admiralty Trust, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere useful, from the looks of it. We have a brand new sports hall being built, and a new running track, but we still have the art department working out of a prefab.”
The dingy little building Francis had visited earlier that morning had apparently been a temporary measure, but in Francis’s opinion, nearly a decade did not constitute anything near ‘temporary’. John Irving, the Head of Art, had apparently taken up the cause of getting ‘real walls’ in the building with all the vigour and martyrdom of Joan of Arc. Anyone who assumed that all art teachers were scatterbrained and chaotic had never met Irving, Francis thought. The drawers of art supplies had been labelled with some kind of label printing machine, boasting such delights as ‘paints’, ‘brushes’, ‘palettes’, ‘reference books’ ‘scrap paper’ and ‘good quality paper (use ONLY with Mr Irving’s permission)’.
“Not to mention the shocking condition of some of the classrooms,” Francis went on. He fixed Fitzjames with a deeply pensive look. “What is it you teach, if you don't mind me asking?”
“Drama,” said Fitzjames, lifting his chin proudly. “I was the Head of Drama, in fact, before becoming Deputy Head.”
Was.
“Now of course as Head of School - joint head, that is - I'm not classroom-based anymore. Thank goodness,” he added, with a little titter. “The store cupboard that used to pass for a drama studio was absolutely freezing. It didn't exactly encourage pupils to put their all into their performances, as you can imagine. Now -”
He flipped open his ring binder.
“I hear what you're saying about the state of the building, but how our funds are spent are out of my control. We need to focus on what we can control this year.”
Francis had never been good at hiding his displeasure. It was something he was regularly told he needed to work on - not appropriate in a professional environment, apparently - but he made no effort now to mask how greatly unimpressed he was by James Fitzjames. That simple word, was, had told Francis everything he needed to know about this man.
Frankly, Francis was tempted to ask directly what it was Fitzjames actually did, and why the school was wasting money on the salary of a Head of Data to begin with. Surely they could just as easily do away with Fitzjames and give poor desperate Irving real walls?
“And what, pray tell, are the things we can control?” Francis asked.
“Our attitudes in meetings,” Fitzjames retorted, one eyebrow arched. Before Francis could demand what exactly he meant by that, he continued swiftly, “Our school culture, our ethos. These are the things that really make a school run like a well-oiled machine. Individual members of staff may be excellent, but if they refuse to collaborate, they won’t have half the impact they think they do.”
He wasn’t subtle, Francis thought. Still, he made no effort to smooth the look of disapproval from his brow. Why should he, for this pompous, shiny-suited pencil-pusher who apparently hadn’t stepped foot in a classroom in years? What did James Fitzjames know of collaborating, and making a school run well? He wanted to ask Fitzjames when the last time he spoke to a child was, and watch the man fumble for an answer that didn’t make him appear totally useless.
“The team you have here seem to be trying to best with what they have,” he said instead, with all the diplomacy he could muster. “I met with the NQT this morning. He was naively enthusiastic about the year ahead.”
As they all were, in Francis’s experience, before the realities of the job crushed the spirit out of them. Harry Goodsir, the newly qualified biology teacher, had been a somewhat jarring sight to behold, dressed in a garish, fossil-patterned jumper that had to have been bought from the Natural History Museum or some such place. Despite his obvious youth he sported an impressive amount of facial hair, probably in an attempt to make himself appear older and more experienced - not that it would do him any good in the face of thirty teenagers. And yes, he had been so very excited to welcome his new class.
Francis couldn’t help feeling a touch of pity for him. Until this point, Goodsir wouldn’t have had full responsibility for a class for so much as a single term, let alone an entire year. His placement schools were likely slickly-run academies with well-provisioned planning folders for trainees, or perhaps nice comprehensive schools in leafy, affluent areas. He couldn’t have known what he was getting in for, applying to a newly-academised Requires Improvement school. That, Francis had thought darkly, or he was such an awful teacher that this was the only job offer he had managed to get.
“That’s wonderful,” said Fitzjames, with a satisfied tilt of his head. “That’s exactly the sort of energy we need at Erebus this year. Mind you, we’re fortunate he’s the only newly-qualified teacher we have this year - they do take a lot of work, with all the mentoring and monitoring. Thank heavens for Dr Stanley. Have you met him? He’s been at Erebus for something like fifteen years now, a real stalwart.”
He cleared his throat, glancing down at a page in his folder that looked ominously like a timetable with lots of the boxes scribbled out and annotated.
“Speaking of staffing, we do have a rather pressing matter to iron out before Thursday. Walter Fairholme, our Head of History, has suddenly handed in his notice.”
Francis felt his jaw drop in a way that had to be comical.
“Why didn’t you bloody well lead with that?” he demanded, sitting bolt upright in his chair. “Christ! Handed in his notice on what grounds?” Francis wouldn’t have been surprised if the man had simply had enough of this damp, chilly building.
“He’s decided he wants to travel the world to find himself,” said Fitzjames with a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t blame him, but he could have told us back in May and given us time to hire a permanent replacement.” He rubbed his forehead briefly. “He had almost a full timetable, including GCSE classes, and the supply costs alone…”
“Does Franklin know about this?” Francis asked, immediately. “If so, I hope he’s willing to assist us with supply teachers.” He shook his head, scoffing. “I expect it’s easy for him to manage, sitting comfortably in his office five miles away. God forbid the man ever have to put in the same hard graft as the rest of us.”
Most of us, Francis thought, a little bitterly. He didn’t expect Fitzjames had any more experience with ‘hard graft’ than his beloved Franklin.
“His job is completely different to ours,” said Fitzjames, his tone chastising in a way that put Francis’ teeth on edge. “You can't compare the two. He has to manage things I'm sure neither of us could dream of.” He didn't elaborate any further, of course. “And yes, he knows about Fairholme. I've been instructed to pay for day to day supply staff only, even if it is a little more expensive, since it's more than likely Fairholme will return before the end of the year.”
Francis let out a barking laugh - he couldn’t help it.
“So Franklin expects us to make do with day to day supply staff on some misguided belief that Fairholme will, what, miss the job so deeply he hops on a flight from Thailand to come and teach Year 10 History?” He almost laughed again at the sheer absurdity of it. “I’ll cover some of Fairholme’s classes,” he decided. “Since I am, after all, still a teacher.”
“I don't think that's wise,” said Fitzjames, frowning. “The teaching alone would take a big chunk out of your timetable, let alone the planning and marking! And you won't be accessible in emergencies. It’s important that SLT are always ready to intervene in case of behaviour issues. Which we do have a fair few of,” he admitted. “We’ll need to be hot on behaviour guidance for staff this year.”
“I will find a way,” Francis said, firmly, “to be available where needed. But unless Franklin is willing to take on more permanent staff, or at the very least descend from on heights to offer a solution to the matter with Fairholme, someone will need to pick up the slack. I’ll hear no more of it.” He leaned back in his seat in a silent challenge. “Now, are we done here?”
“Of course not,” said Fitzjames, almost snappish. “We have to go through the School Improvement Plan.”
As he spoke there came a quiet buzz and ding from his breast pocket. Fitzjames fished his phone out, unlocked it with a few swipes of his finger, and scowled at the screen. Francis couldn’t contain the little huff that left him at that. Of course Fitzjames was practically glued to his device - it wasn’t as if he had much else to do.
“The School Improvement Plan,” he said, almost to himself. “Not as important as checking your phone, I see.”
“It's an email from Thomas Jopson,” said Fitzjames, eyes not moving from the screen. “You’ve been CC'd in. Apparently we're taking on a new pupil from Thursday.”
When Fitzjames looked up, his expression had turned grave.
“She's a managed move.”
Managed move. It was a gentle way of describing the process of moving a disruptive child to a new school to see if the change in environment would fix their behaviour. It was usually a last resort before expulsion, and always hard work. Generally one would hope to be given more than a day’s warning about such a move. Francis sighed, rubbing his temple.
“Fine,” he said, with a rough shrug. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of those, over the years. We’ll manage. How much trouble can one girl really be?”