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“You ready for today, Pen?”
Penny wrinkled her nose and took a sip of tea from her travel mug. “I s’pose. Kind of worried I’ll fall on my arse in front of both the new student and all the kids. They’ll never respect me again!”
“Stop catastrophising, babe,” said Nick, who had clearly been reading the staff wellbeing emails. “It’ll be fine. Your kids love you! It’s sickening honestly, I need my kids to live in fear or we’d never get anything done.”
She snorted. Nick’s Year Sixes loved her to death; she just refused to acknowledge it outside her classroom. Once Penny had caught her teary eyed over a Christmas card and been sworn to absolute secrecy.
“I’ve only emailed the guy once,” she said, worry already creeping back in. “He’s coming in from Year Five, what if he hates it? What if I put him off teaching for life?”
“Then he’d be a crap teacher anyway, Pen, honestly. Go meet the bloke and stop bothering me, I’ve got worksheets to print out.”
“Twinkl whore,” said Penny, over her shoulder, and left the staff room as Nick snorted coffee out of her nose.
She tapped her fingertips together as she walked down the far corridor to her classroom. The office had sent the new student — Jon — straight to her class to be, probably, interrogated by Sue. Sue had been a teaching assistant at Ealmstone for thirty years and could smell blood at fifty paces. Penny walked faster.
The classroom door greeted her with its usual twinkle from the fairy lights she’d strung around the frame. Decorating all the doors for each topic was a school tradition, if you could call something the SLT came up with following a decent Ofsted inspection tradition, and it was one Penny quite enjoyed, really. She was very proud of the cut-out of Six Dinner Sid she’d made.
She knocked once before she went in, out of politeness more than anything, and shouldered the door open. Sue nodded in greeting and said, “Morning, Pen. Have you met Jon, yet?”
“Morning, Sue,” said Penny, as cheerfully as she could manage. “I haven’t, actually, but I’m sure I’ll be happy to, wherever he’s got to.”
Sue laughed. “I sent him off to get the whiteboards from Year One. Seemed very happy to have something to do, bless him. I don’t think he quite knows what to make of Reception.”
“It’s a big jump,” Penny said. She chewed at her thumbnail for a moment, then winced at the taste of her anti-biting polish. “He did seem nice in his email. I was worried I’d come in and you’d have already eaten him up.”
“I’m not the big bad wolf, Pen,” said Sue, mock-annoyed. “I’d have to cook him first.”
“Um,” came a voice from the doorway. “Should I start checking for human-sized ovens?”
Penny turned and smiled reflexively. Jon — because it had to be Jon, with the green visitor lanyard and a teetering stack of whiteboards — was standing with shoulders slightly bowed, wearing a neatly ironed shirt and trousers and a cardigan with more slouch than Nick’s entire class of Year Sixes put together.
“Don’t worry,” she said, stepping over to take some of the stack. “We’d never get funding for that. You’ll have to wait for Guy Fawkes.”
Jon looked as if he wasn’t sure that was a joke. But then, Penny supposed, anyone with a burn scar that size on his hand probably wasn’t the biggest bonfire fan. She winced, apologetically.
He shook himself, though, and waved the remaining whiteboards at her. “Where should I put these?” He asked, glancing around the classroom. “Sue said they were for phonics this morning?”
“Yeah,” said Penny. “Stick ‘em at the front under the board, the kids are pretty well trained by now, they’ll know where to find them.” She watched as he stacked them neatly and then wandered over to the book corner, which Penny was rather proud of.
“This is lovely,” he said, almost in wonder, brushing his scarred hand through the shoal of glittering fish hanging from the ceiling. “Did the class make these?”
“It’s the first project I always have them do,” said Penny, crossing the room to stand next to him and feel smugly proud, as she often did. “They love getting to mess with the glitter on the first day, I like seeing them flex their creative muscles. It’s a win-win.”
“Hm,” said Jon. He blinked, hard, and turned towards her. “Is there anything you need me to do today? I’m not, um, used to the younger children. I suppose I’m a bit worried they’ll run screaming at the sight of me.”
Penny gave him an assessing look. He squinted back at her, apparently unconsciously. He had lovely eyes, actually, a nice warm hazel colour. “I think you’ll be alright,” she said, trying not to laugh at the thought. He was wearing a cardigan, for fuck’s sake. “Be careful when you’re sitting down, though. Kaya will climb into your lap, and she’s got the sharpest knees I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll… keep that in mind,” said Jon, clearly disbelieving.
“And as for today, we’ll play it by ear a little bit if that’s alright by you? Start off by observing phonics, that’s always a bugger to get used to after Key Stage Two, then when we get into continuous provision just circulate a bit, get to know the kids.” Her desk was a mess, as usual, but she managed to dig out a class list in a decently short time and hand it over. “You’ll need that for your folder, right?”
Jon nodded. “Thank you,” he said, then glanced around again, eyes glinting oddly under the fluorescent lighting. “Are there any children I should know about in advance? Besides Kaya’s, um, sharp knees?”
Penny barely restrained another wince. Sue, who was in the cupboard looking for the powder paints and should not have been able to hear, laughed out loud.
Eyebrows raised, Jon said, “I assume that’s a yes.”
“Well,” said Penny, taking a deep breath. “It’s mostly a few of the boys. Justin has global delay, so if he needs anything you should get Sue over, she’s got the SALT training so she’s best at understanding what he’s asking for. Leo is lovely, but he’s waiting on an autism assessment and until he gets it we don’t have funding for a 1:1; if you could work with him during maths later, that’d be wonderful. And, uh, George is just a handful. He likes to scream, and that’s about it. I’ll get you a copy of his IEP, that’ll let you know more about how to respond.”
“Alright,” said Jon. He sounded thoughtful.
Penny glanced at the clock. “Oh, bollocks,” she said. “I’d better go let them in.” She waved a hand at the back of the classroom, by the active maths display and the big box of Mobilo. “Go station yourself and get ready for a lot of questions.”
“Oh, I’m good at questions,” said Jon, smiling in the way someone did at an inside joke. Penny shook her head and rushed out the door. No time for wondering.
No matter how early she made it into work, it never felt like long enough before she had to go undo the gate and welcome the horde.
First in that morning was Olivia, cardigan round one elbow and already trailing on the floor as she rushed past. “Morning Olivia,” Penny shouted. “Make sure you put your bag away this morning, or I’ll jump all over it!”
Olivia just laughed. Unlike most of the other children, she could see right through the bookbag threat.
The next wave of children came quickly, a sudden tide of Jonah-Tilly-Abdi-Judy passing through so fast Penny felt almost dizzy.
George came in near the tail end of the class, still clinging to his dad’s leg and looking mutinous. His messy, mousey hair was both messier and mousier than usual.
“Morning, George,” said Penny, seriously. “How’re you today?”
He growled and pressed his face more firmly into his dad’s trousers. His dad, who was a sort of comrade-in-arms after three terms of morning hand-offs, carefully didn’t react.
“Time to come in, alright, George? Dad can’t come past the gate, you know the rules.”
George growled again. This was not going to be one of his good days.
Dad mouthed, Mrs Prescott? at Penny, and Penny nodded. Sue was the only one in the class with positive handling training. Penny was on the list, but school wouldn’t have the funding to send her for another few terms.
“I’m going to get Mrs Prescott, George,” she said. “She’s going to come and help you come in, and then you can have your morning time with her, okay?”
He growled, but at a slightly higher pitch.
The back door of the classroom, held open by the recycling bin in flagrant disregard for the fire safety regulations, welcomed Penny back in.
“Mrs Prescott?” She called. “George needs a little help this morning.”
Sue popped her head up from the book corner. “Oh, be right out,” she said, cheerfully. “I’ve just been enjoying the show.” She jerked her head towards the opposite side of the classroom, the corner Penny couldn’t see from the back door.
She waited for Sue to pass until she went to investigate. Quiet voices carried their way to her as she rounded the corner to find Jon sat cross-legged on the floor, with Justin on one side and Abdi on the other.
Jon looked up as Penny approached. “Oh, hello Mrs Li,” he said, in the serious tone Penny was beginning to suspect might be his actual, natural voice. “Justin and Abdi were just telling me all about Forest School.”
“Oh,” said Penny. “Well, you’ve got a minute to wrap up before we all have to find our carpet spaces.” She looked meaningfully at Abdi, who just grinned back at her, completely guileless. “I’ll leave you to it.”
She drew back a little and started setting out the phonics cards on each table, keeping one ear on their conversation.
“You were telling me all about the trees,” said Jon, looking back at Justin. Justin nodded emphatically, chubby hands waving excitedly above his knees.
“Pine,” he chirped, then dissolved into a string of sounds, clearly enthused. Penny smiled at the sound. It was so lovely hearing him vocalise — he’d made a lot of progress since September.
Jon nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, they do smell very nice, don’t they. What do you think, Abdi?”
“I went to Jonah’s house in the holidays and he had one and I stepped on the needle thing and had to have a plaster on my foot,” said Abdi, all in one breath.
“Oh,” said Jon. “I’m sure you were very, um, brave?”
Abdi nodded proudly. Justin reached across Jon’s lap to pat Abdi’s shoe.
Penny really needed to update Justin’s tapestry page with a note about good friendship skills.
After another minute or so, she grabbed her tambourine from the top of the art cupboard and shook it vigorously. “Twinkly fingers, everyone!” She said brightly. A quick glance showed Justin wiggling his fingers in Jon’s face until he joined in.
Jon looked slightly baffled by the whole experience, but he did start wiggling his fingers.
“Carpet spaces everyone!”
It always took a little while for that instruction to be followed, but it always worked eventually. Penny smiled as she twirled her chair around a few times, very willing to get dizzy if it got everyone’s eyes on her.
“So,” she said, slapping her hands on her knees. “Some of you might have noticed something new in the classroom this morning. Does anyone think they can guess what I mean?”
A lot of hands shot into the air. Penny tapped a finger against her chin and hummed.
“Kaya?” She asked, mostly because it might stop her from trying to eat the carpet fuzz.
Kaya pointed directly at Jon. “There’s a new lady,” she said knowledgeably.
“Not quite,” said Jon.
“You’ve got girl hair,” Kaya replied immediately.
Jon said, “Now is not the time for gender essentialism,” and then looked rather as if he wanted to punch himself in the face.
Penny sighed. “Kaya, remember that you can’t know everything just by looking.”
Kaya huffed and crossed her arms.
“You were a little bit right though,” Penny continued. “This is Mr Sims! He’ll be in our class all of this term and next term, so I hope you’ll all be really welcoming and let him know just how lovely Juniper Class can be.”
The class nodded seriously. It was, in Penny’s opinion, lethally cute.
“Would you like to introduce yourself, Mr Sims?” She asked. “It might save you from all these little monsters bothering you all day.”
A chorus of boos erupted. Penny shook the tambourine again and laughed softly. “Sorry, sorry everyone. You know Mrs Li can be a bit silly sometimes. But I do want you all to listen carefully to Mr Sims, okay? Who can tell me how we can show that we’re listening? Lilia?”
Lilia sat up straight with her hands in her lap. “You need to look at who’s speaking,” she said. “And not talk, ‘cause that’s rude.”
“Exactly,” said Penny. “That’s a ray of sunshine answer, Lilia, go move up your peg.”
Lilia grinned, showing off the gap from her lost tooth, and skipped over to the behaviour chart.
Jon pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the Forest School display, legs crossed at the ankle. Penny motioned at him to begin.
“Good morning everyone,” he began, and then jumped when the class automatically replied with Good morning Mr Sims!. Honestly Penny was quite proud; she’d been drilling them on that every class assembly for months. “My name is Mr Sims, and I’m here to learn all about being a teacher. Er, I haven’t been in a Reception class since I was little, so I hope you’ll all be nice to me while I’m learning the ropes.” He paused. Penny made a keep going motion and gave him a thumbs up. “I… have two cats? And I like reading, and my favourite animal is cows. I think that’s about it, really.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Sims,” said Penny. She turned back to the class. “And now, it’s time for our Register Song. Do you think we’ll be able to teach Mr Sims well enough this morning that he can join in tomorrow?”
The whole class seemed very positive about the idea. Jon did not.
Explore time was always tricky, Penny had learned. It was all fine and good when you had a decent number of adults, no accidents, no injuries, and the proper resources for all the activities the class could possibly dream of, but by about October it was vanishingly rare to have more than two of those at once.
As it was, Jon had been with them for a week and they’d managed to avoid major injury until Friday after break, when Abdi collided with George beside the milk tray and George managed to fall at just the right angle to slice his forehead open on a hard plastic edge.
He’d been having an incredible morning before that; he’d focused beautifully in his 1:1 phonics with Sue, and he’d shared his dinosaur toys in Circle Time without getting anxious about getting them back. He’d even answered a few questions about them in full sentences.
But now he was, understandably, inconsolable, and the blood dripping down his face certainly didn’t help the image.
Jon appeared with the accident book a few seconds after George went down, the kind of magical prescience Penny was starting to expect from him. He was very good at making tea just as you were starting to feel thirsty, and going to collect things from the printer before you could even mention having sent them. It would be a bit unnerving if he weren’t being such a life-saver.
“Think we might need to clear the area,” he said, smiling ruefully. Penny nodded. She really wasn’t a fan of blood; it made her feel woozy enough when one of the kids showed her a newly lost tooth. “I’ll get this sorted. I’ve got first aid training.”
That was delivered with a kind of irony Penny wasn’t equipped to understand, so she focused on getting the rest of the class onto the carpet and putting on an Alphablocks compilation as a distraction. It wasn’t quite dire enough for Numberjacks, but she could feel her willpower crumbling already as the kids started whispering about god knew what beneath the sound of the anthropomorphic digraphs singing about a terrible industrial accident.
George wasn’t screaming, she realised suddenly. That was why she could hear the singing and the whispering. She locked her keyboard and went to check in with Jon.
Jon, as it turned out, was totally fine. He had George patched up with a Pudsey-style bandage adorned with a very poorly drawn Batman symbol and was listening intently as George explained the mechanics of Roblox.
“I see,” he said, as George’s rambling sentence came to an end. “So you can play all sorts of games with it?”
George nodded emphatically. “‘S the coolest game ever.”
“It does sound very… cool,” said Jon, as if he’d never said cool in that context before in his life. “I’ll have to give it a try.”
He looked over his shoulder and gave Penny a quick nod, as if to say ‘We’re okay over here.”
Penny nodded back, as if to say ‘Make sure you fill out the accident book!’.
And then she went to fill out a bump note, and bob her head along with another song about phonemes.
She probably shouldn’t have worried so much. Jon was turning out just fine.