The Learning Curve (4 page)

Miss James finished her list of today’s items and looked at everyone. ‘Right. One hour to make friends with our new, nervous little bubbies and then we shall all assemble together . . . for assembly.’ This was met with good-natured laughter. ‘Good luck, Team!’

Nicky rummaged around her briefcase for her hair-band and glasses case. She pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and put on her snappy, black-framed glasses. She had started wearing her hair up for assembly as a simple way to control it whenever it was most wayward, but it had soon become a habit. She liked feeling tidy and formal. Even on the first morning of a new year, when every teacher had a vital one hour to meet and greet their new children before the first assembly, she assumed the ponytail-and-glasses position. It gave the children the correct impression of her. These were children who had only ever seen her in assembly, sometimes on lunch or break duty, but never in the classroom. They thought she was strict and poker-faced
all the time. This way when she was fun and kind they got a nice surprise. In fact, the truth was that during the first term she found it an effort not to call each one ‘sweetheart’ and ‘my love’, sometimes even ‘darling’, which seemed to trip off her tongue as soon as she looked at a child. But if a teacher did that too early, children could smell weakness and even the nicest child could not help abusing that. No, children had to smell authority when they saw a teacher. And then, slowly, during the term, the teacher should allow them small sniffs of someone who was on their side, as if they’d just caught the whiff of freshly cut grass on a summer breeze. Nicky knew what she was doing and it started with scraping her hair up in a ponytail and putting on her glasses.

Year 6’s classroom was at the end of the top corridor of the school. The view was right over the playground. Nicky, or Miss Hobbs, now stood at the door, holding it open for her new class to file in past her. Thirty nervy ten- and eleven-year-olds did so, overcome by the newness of everything.

‘Sit anywhere for now,’ she said. ‘We’ll sort out the seating later. We have much more important things to do first.’

She watched as each child exhibited more about themselves than if she’d installed a two-way mirror in their bedrooms. Every class had its own complex hierarchy, and watching children seat themselves was the easiest way to discover it. Thirty children ran to the five desks of six seats, racing to sit next to their best friends and far away from their enemies. She watched kids overpower weaker classmates with brute force, personality, or just plain cruelty; she watched girls hold hands, secure each other seats and hug themselves with glee as they watched the rest of the class race round them. She saw a crush in a boy’s hopeful upturned
eyes as he watched an Amazonian ten-year-old girl, and a play at hatred between a sparring boy and girl who had found themselves sitting back-to-back on different tables in the middle of the room. She waited until everyone had sat down before speaking quietly enough for them to have to be silent to hear her properly. And then she gave them all a beatific smile and said the magic words.

‘Hello! I’m Miss Hobbs and I want to know all about you.’

This always generated an excited murmur. They all had blank pieces of paper ready and waiting for them on their tables and she asked them to write Ten Amazing Things About Myself, to be read out to everyone. She observed them as they did this, some squirming with excitement, others slowly sucking their pencils as they pondered, and again, picked up more about them than if she’d interrogated them for hours. Finally, they’d finished and, one by one, they stood up and read out their Ten Amazing Things. Before she knew it, the hour was up, it was time for assembly and her kids adored her. It worked every time. She hadn’t been soft and she hadn’t shouted; she’d just shown genuine interest in them. By the time the new Year 6 went to assembly, they would have defended their new teacher almost to the death.

Year 5 had not been quite so lucky. Mr Pattison was a tough teacher with his eye on top management, and he sometimes had a tendency to treat his class like lower management rather than children. His habit was to spend his first hour explaining what was required of his new team in their new job. Silence was big on the agenda, synchronised standing whenever he entered the classroom came in a close second (‘who knew what synchronised meant?’), hard work of course was third, and good timekeeping was
fourth. Tenth was no fussing and the ones in-between were lost for evermore in a fog of boredom. Basically, he expected a lot, and by the time assembly came, his kids were in no doubt of this. Ned’s kids, at the tender age of seven or eight, knew in just one hour that they were made of tougher stuff than he. He blushed, stammered and laughed inappropriately from nerves at the situation he was in. If it wasn’t for the fact that most of them were also blushing, stammering and laughing inappropriately from nerves at the situation they were in, he’d be doomed. But Martha, new girl herself, was having the toughest first hour of all the teachers. Her kids were the only ones who had spent the last year in the bosom of their families, and whose worst nightmare was that school, unlike wizards and monsters, did actually exist. They were even more horrified by their new reality than she was. As soon as one stopped crying, another one started. There were two accidents, one case of vomiting, and little Josephine O’Marney got her feet caught in her chair and thought she was stuck there for ever. She cried till she had an accident and vomited simultaneously. It was a baptism of fire but, by assembly, Martha felt confident in her new job. In the staffroom she was the new girl. In the classroom, she was the Bionic Woman.

An hour later, as the entire school made its way to assembly, Nicky felt a sharp jab on her shoulder. At first she thought it was Rob. But it was Miss James, prodding her with a blunt pencil. ‘Pop in and see me after school, would you, Nicola dear?’ she whispered. ‘Four o’clock sharp.’

Miss James walked abruptly away, and Nicky glanced back. Rob was watching her, while keeping a practised eye on his silent kids, and he raised his eyebrows questioningly at
her. She entered the main hall and saw a sea of eager little faces stretching back to the gym apparatus against the far wall. She crossed her arms at the sudden drop in temperature and felt a little squiggle of excitement, like a gold star being drawn in her belly.

Oscar sat cross-legged and watched Miss Hobbs, his new teacher, walk round the assembly hall and towards the back, arms crossed, heels click-clicking, stern eyes observing everyone from behind her glasses. He sat up, so his back no longer leant against the climbing apparatus. She sat down on the chair at the end of his row, picked up her hymn book, crossed one leg over the other, and scrutinised her new Year 6.

He liked his new position of sitting at the back of the school. He was sitting next to his best friend Matthew. Matthew was funny and nice. Daisy was in the row in front and he poked her in the back, managing to whisk his hand away before she hit him. Matthew snorted. Miss Hobbs looked at them, just too late. He saw her look over the top of her glasses to focus on them.

‘Year 6,’ she said, her voice harder than it had been in class, ‘less talk, please.’ It was weird being called Year 6.

Daisy didn’t mind Oscar poking her in the back. She was having too much fun with her best friend Sophie. They were watching Miss James, sitting at the front of the room facing everyone. She’d got her glasses chain caught in her necklace. Daisy and Sophie giggled but stopped when Miss Hobbs looked up from her book. They had always been far more scared of Miss Hobbs than Miss James, although they liked her much more after spending the morning with her.

The piano music stopped and Miss James walked up to
the central podium at the front of the hall, glasses in her hand, necklace firmly attached, causing her to bend her neck to one side. She reached the podium, looked at her pupils as if they were all fluffy kittens and gave a big smile.

‘Hello, everyone,’ she said in a warm voice. ‘I’m having a little problem with my glasses! What a start to the new year!’

Everyone laughed. Oscar looked over to Miss Hobbs, who blinked to acknowledge the joke.

‘Hymn number 32,’ announced Miss James.

There was a rustle as 210 children stood up, and the first few firm chords from the piano were followed by a lusty, if not entirely tuneful, rendition of ‘In My Heart’.

Daisy’s shoes were new. She stared at them intently all the way through the hymn and when everyone sat down, she wondered if God would punish her for loving the angle of her shiny new buckle more than singing a song about Him. Probably, she thought. She would probably die young as punishment. Mummy and Daddy would cry at her funeral and fall in love again. Oscar would regret ever poking her in the back. The boy from the bus stop would come to the funeral and stand at the back because he didn’t even know her name. She rubbed her nose, looked up, and saw Miss James beaming and nodding at everyone. Everyone stood up. Assembly was over. That was a shame, thought Daisy. She liked assemblies.

As Daisy walked-not-ran up the stairs to their new classroom, Oscar overtook her and gave her pigtails a friendly tug.

‘I’m not coming to yours tonight,’ he said. ‘Dad’s picking me up from school.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘More chocolate for me.’

She walked past him, satisfied that his expression had altered ever so slightly.

After a pause she heard him shout after her, ‘You’re not having chocolate.’

She pretended not to hear.

As soon as they were in the classroom, Year 6 spotted a subtle difference in their new teacher. She seemed a little firmer, a tad stricter, a bit more like a teacher than this morning.

Nicky glanced up at them quickly and then, as if pulling out a gun in a Western, flipped open the register. Without any warning, she instructed them to stand up and read out their own names
in the correct order
. There was an almost audible gasp. No clues. No help. All on their own. Nicky knew this sounded much more difficult than it was. Children always knew who came right before them in the register and this trick had never failed her yet. More importantly, it helped her remember their names immediately and always made her new class feel just a bit wrong-footed and self-conscious enough to take her seriously. Worked every time.

When they had finished, she allowed them a small smile.

‘You see,’ she said, almost seductively, ‘you are Year 6 now, so you can do your own register.’

As she took off her glasses (they were only for mild short sight and she hardly needed them), she knew they were eyeing each other across their new desks. Without looking up, she called out the name of one of the boys sitting on the back table, and held out thirty pieces of paper in his direction.

‘Will you hand these out, one for everyone, please?’

She looked up as he approached her through the desks and gave him a soft, slight smile. ‘You didn’t think you were going to get away with hiding at the back, did you?’ she said teasingly.

He smiled sheepishly at her. As he held the paper, she refused to let go and waited for him to look up at her.

‘Pardon?’ she asked, gently.

‘No.’

She raised her eyebrows, any hint of a smile on her lips gone.

‘No, Miss Hobbs,’ he said.

She gave him a genuine smile and let go of the pieces of paper.

‘Thank you, Marcus.’

She kept her class busy right up until the bell went for lunch, and only gave them some light relief after it, when she allowed them into the library to choose the books they would read (in silence) every morning before register.

At precisely 3.15, five minutes before the final bell, she turned off the whiteboard, sat on the edge of her desk facing her class, and asked them how they were feeling after their first day as Year 6. One boy said he was excited. She asked what about. He told her he was excited because he was now the tallest boy in the whole school. She laughed with the class and suggested putting up a height chart, so they could all see if they grew this year. One girl said she had been a bit nervous this morning. She asked her what she had been nervous of and the girl had said, a bit quietly, of her. She laughed again and told her she would let them in on the best-kept secret in the school.

‘Only Year 6 ever know that if they are good,’ she reduced her voice to a whisper, ‘I’m a complete softie.’ The class laughed. She put her finger over her lips. ‘So now it’s
your
secret.’ She made her eyes big. ‘No telling Year 5.’

A wave of excitement swept round the room.

‘You promise?’ she asked.

‘We promise,’ they chorused, laughing.

‘We promise,
what
?’ she asked, cupping her ear with her hand.

‘We promise, Miss Hobbs.’

‘Excellent!’ she cried. ‘You’re fast learners. I think we’re all going to get on very well.’

The bell went, loud and rasping, and the class waited for her reaction. She smiled. ‘Have a lovely evening, all of you. You’ve done well today.’

And they filed out.

She picked up her case and sat for a moment before standing up. Her head was aching, her throat was tired and her cheekbones and eyebrows throbbed from the effort of keeping her face keen and interested all day. She pulled her hair-band off and felt coils of hair spring out in all directions. She didn’t care, the relief at her temples was so great. She turned at a noise in her doorway.

‘Good day at the office, dear?’ asked Rob, head cocked.

‘Knackering,’ she said, wondering whether to tell him about Miss James’s request.

‘It’s all right for some,’ he said, ambling into her room as she packed up her things. ‘Some of us have still got work to do before we go home.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Miss James wants to see me now,’ he said.

‘Oh! Interesting!’ exclaimed Nicky.

‘Mm. Well, I don’t know what it’s about yet.’

‘No, what’s interesting is that she’s asked me to see her too.’

Nicky noticed that his face showed blank surprise before polite interest.

‘Ah,’ he said simply. ‘The plot thickens.’