Mrs Grouch sat Joseph and Ms Proper down at her desk and gave them their timetables for the new school year which was due to start in earnest the following day. Today they were in for training purposes and with them being new teachers they had extra information to digest and take on board. Mrs Grouch liked to run a tight ship that was high on organisation, schedules, speadsheets, planning and foresight. Everything had to be in its place. Every aspect of teaching, planning, and implementation had to be in its box and be clearly visible and presented in an attractive manner. She wanted her staff to be clear upon how things were done.

And so was the scene all over the school; The Head, The Deputies, The Head’s of Department, The Head’s of Year, were getting their staff ready for the morning influx. Joseph and Ms Proper sat with their files, organisers and diaries at the ready:

“Now the yellow file is your key stage three file and the red one is for key stage four,” said Mrs Grouch, “inside your files you will find your personal information, your timetable, the sanctions pyramid, departmental and staff meetings, your long, middle, and short term planning and the National Curriculum. Now you need to ensure all preparation is completed and kept up to date,” she instructed.

Mrs Grouch was in a fairly good mood because nobody had had time to make a mistake or fall behind in their work-load and duties. Mrs Grouch did have a sense of humour but unfortunately it was only allowed to surface if everything was ship-shape. If things fell out of place, if there was opacity, an anomaly or a question mark where there should be transparency, consistency and a full stop, she would become as unforgiving as Our Maker had been when He had given out her looks:

“Now you need to make sure that you cover each aspect of the National Curriculum and show where you have done it in your planning,” she continued.
Mrs Grouch was well past her best; she looked every year of her fifty-eight and perhaps a few more besides. She had little time for the twee and care-free for she had had to work hard in her life and she expected the same from everyone else in at least equal measure, and if that could add a wrinkle or a furrowed brow to the well turned-out, what could be better?