Harvest festival and half term holidays.
“So, for whom are we gathering our harvest gifts together?” Natalie asked Ben Cross, five years old and looking like an angel with white blond hair and big blue eyes, he looked thoughtful for a moment and then replied in a crystal-clear voice,
“The baby Jesus, Miss?” The whole class exploded with laughter, Ben crumpled into tears.
“No, no, not the baby Jesus. Ben, don’t cry now. Everyone stop laughing, please. It’s not nice to make fun of someone else and Benjamin had a good point. In a way it’s partly to do with baby Jesus, he grew up and taught us how to be nice to others. Can anyone else tell me who we are going to give our harvest gifts to?” Several hands went up, Natalie chose Eloise,
“The church, Miss!” she said, turning to Ben and giving him a very knowing look,
“Not the church, Eloise. We do have a harvest festival at church, too, and some of us take gifts there, but I mean the collection we are having at school for our harvest festival assembly. We talked about this only yesterday.” Natalie felt her patience wearing thin, she could usually rely on Eloise, what was happening to the class, had their brains suddenly been switched off? She looked around the sea of hands, now waving a little uncertainly, she took a gamble and picked one of the boys that always had his hand up but never seemed to have an answer ready,
“Nick, can you remember who we are collecting our gifts for?” He surely couldn’t go any further wrong than the other two,
“Yes, Miss,” he answered proudly, “it’s for the grannies and the gramps that have been put away. They can’t get out and get food, so we’re going to give them some. I’ve brought beans!” he finished happily. Natalie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,
“Yes, Nick that’s right. It is for the old folk, who live at Gretchen House, but they’ve not ‘been put away’, they live there so they can be looked after instead of living on their own. They do have food, but we are taking them our gifts to share with them at harvest as a thank you to God for all the food he sends to us.”
The very loud ringing of the fire bell interrupted the lesson, all the children jumped and looked anxiously at their teacher,
“Okay everyone, don’t worry, it’s the fire bell, you all know what to do. Line up at the door, sensibly and quietly, no running or pushing. Right? Now we are going to walk down to the main playground, follow me.” Suzi Eames came briskly in,
“I’ve checked the cloakrooms and the toilets Miss Fox; I’ll bring up the end of your line.” Natalie was pleased to see the older woman, she could see a couple of the children were beginning to get panicky and it would help to know someone was behind them.
“Thank you Mrs. Eames. Come along then everyone, remember, quickly but sensibly.” They all filed out, Suzi closing the door behind them and they crossed the playground to join the rest of the school lining up.
The older children were getting quite noisy as they stood in their lines and registers were being checked with difficulty. At last it seemed that everyone had been accounted for and they were all about to file back into school when a year six pupil suddenly shouted,
“Look, there’s smoke coming out of the school!” Everyone turned to look in the direction that he was pointing, sure enough a wispy trail could be seen coming from a door at the back of the kitchens. Helen looked at Janice,
“I don’t believe this, we seem to have a real fire! Does anyone happen to have their mobile phone with them?” Having all evacuated the school she didn’t want to ignore protocol and return to the office if it could be avoided, unfortunately all the staff shook their heads.
“I’ll go,” Janice said quickly, and turned to go back into the building,
“Excuse me, Mrs. North, I’ve got my phone with me!” a voice called out, stopping Janice and causing quite a stir as another member of year six came forward, carrying a mobile phone. Helen frowned, “It’s alright Mrs. North, I don’t usually have it with me, but it’s gym club tonight and my mum wasn’t sure who could pick me up, so I borrowed her phone to call later and check. I haven’t had it switched on, I promise.” Helen thanked the girl and quickly made the emergency call to the fire brigade, having to explain that, yes they were having a drill today, but now they seemed to have a fire.
Within minutes sirens could be heard and two fire tenders pulled into the car park, Helen and Janice showing them to the door where the fire seemed to be. It transpired to be a problem with the heating system and was swiftly brought under control, no major damage being caused. The children all broke into a cheer and started to clap as the firemen packed away their equipment, Helen laughed; relieved everything was sorted out,
“I’m sorry if we’ve panicked, but having got everyone out I wasn’t sure if we should go and investigate ourselves.” The Chief Fire Officer shook his head,
“No, way. You did the right thing to call us, if you had opened those doors you don’t know what you might have found, or made worse. You did the best thing; leave it to us, that’s what we’re here for. Well done to your children as well, they have behaved really well and, obviously, they know how to do a good fire drill too!” He turned and waved to the assembled school, who waved back to him as he got into the fire engine and he and his crew pulled out of the car park.
“Okay, everyone,” Helen announced, “back to your classrooms, I think we have about half and hour before lunch break. Well done and thank you all for the excellent evacuation and behaviour in, what could have been, a tricky situation.”
***
After the excitement of the morning everything seemed to be settling down after lunch. Quite a few parents had phoned in, worried having seen the fire engines at the school, although Janice couldn’t figure out why they thought that she would still be in her office if the school were burning. Still, that was obviously what was expected from a school secretary and she had been able to call back most of those who had left messages on her answer phone and placate others as they called in ‘just to check everything was okay’ as they were passing.
At last Janice was able to phone the heating engineers to arrange an urgent visit and the insurance company for a claim form. Helen was dealing with contacting County and advising them of the whole episode. Hopefully Sian, her part-time assistant, would soon be here and they could get down to some of the work that was piling up all around her.
“Excuse me, Janice,” she turned to find a pale Suzi Eames standing with an even paler child, Ben Cross from Natalie’s class, holding a blood stained handkerchief around his hand, which Suzi was attempting to hold aloft whilst supporting Ben, too, “can I have some help here?” Janice rushed over to her and together they took the child through to the medical room.
“What has happened?” Janice asked as she took Ben’s hand from Suzi, who looked decidedly ill herself,
“Sorry,” Suzi said, “not good with blood.” With that she collapsed beside them. Janice groaned,
“Mrs. North!” she called, holding onto Ben and hoping he wouldn’t join Suzi on the floor. The blood seemed to be seeping through the makeshift dressing and she didn’t dare ease the pressure until she had time to deal with it, “Mrs. North, Helen!” she called louder, she heard Helen reply from within her office, “medical room now please!” Helen came running from her room, saw Suzi on the floor and took in the situation, immediately, although Suzi already coming round.
“Sorry,” Janice said, “it all happened at once.”
“Not at all,” Helen replied, “I’m sorry I wasn’t quicker. What has young Benjamin been up to?”
“We’re just about to find that out, aren’t we Ben, what have you been doing then?” The small boy had been so interested in watching Mrs. Eames ‘fall asleep’ on the floor that he had quite forgotten himself, now he looked back at his hand and started to cry as he saw the blood.
“I cut it!” He wailed, “on scissors.” Janice calmed him down again and managed to take a quick look at the damage. Somehow he had cut the skin between his thumb and his finger, quite deep and still bleeding profusely. She formed a pad with the handkerchief and re-applied the pressure, sitting Ben down as she did so.
By this time Helen had Suzi up and sitting, facing away from Ben, she managed to fill Helen in on the details and was still apologising for fainting,
“Don’t be silly, it’s not something you can help, just as well you managed to get both you and Ben here though. Now just rest quietly whilst I assist Janice.” Together the two first aiders managed to apply a sterile dressing to Ben’s hand and Helen went off to phone his mother whilst Janice cleared up and washed her hands.
“There, do you both feel a bit better?” she asked her patients, Suzi still looked pale and a little embarrassed,
“I’m not very good with blood, but I’ve never actually passed out before, it was just the sight of it pouring like that and not stopping I think!” Janice brushed away her apology,
“No, need to worry, the first on the scene always gets the worst of it. I think he’ll need a couple of stitches, but you did a great job containing everything and getting him here. Is everything alright in the classroom?” Suzi nodded and then turned to Ben, who was looking at her with large, worried eyes,
“Are you going to have another sleep, Mrs. Eames?” he asked her,
“No, Ben, I think I’ve had enough now. How are you feeling? I expect your hand hurts a bit doesn’t it?” He nodded,
“Yes, I don’t think I want to try cutting my hand up again,” he told her, “next time I’ll just let Miss Fox do it.” The two women looked at each other, bemused, then Suzi started to laugh,
“Ah! I see now, the class were drawing around their hands and then cutting them out. I think we’ll have to watch Ben, he might be taking things too literally.”
***
“Viv,” Joe called from his classroom, Viv was washing up the last of the paint palettes from the afternoon’s art session, Joe walked through to find her, “why are you doing that? The children are meant to take care of the preparation and also clear up after themselves.” Viv smiled at him as she dried her hands,
“Oh that’s alright, they usually do,” she told him, “we just ran out of time today and I told them I’d finish off. Did you want me for something?”
“Yes, I’ve had an idea, do you think we could take the class down to the conservation area and through to the woods beyond?” he asked, Viv looked thoughtful for a moment,
“I don’t see why not,” she replied, “we can visit the school conservation area any time we just need to let Helen or Janice know when we will be out and maybe clear with them that we will be off school premises for a while, what were you thinking of doing?” Joe opened the book he was holding and showed her the autumnal scenes he had been looking at. They were beautiful, and the scenes depicted were certainly to be found in the nearby woods this autumn, the colours were absolutely splendid,
“I want to take them out to give them inspiration for our next art session and also, I thought, it might give them motivation for the poetry we are going to write for this terms literacy plan. Looking at books like this can work well, but there’s nothing like the real thing is there?” Viv agreed with him and together they planned a time that Viv would be with him for support,
“We could ask for a couple of parent helpers too,” she suggested, “if we have the whole class out in the woods it might prove a little riotous.” Joe nodded,
“I have a few parents I think might be ideal, I’ll just go down to the office now and phone, see if they can fit us in.”
The following week, after a bright, cold morning in the woods Viv and Joe returned to the staff room, chilly but glowing with achievement,
“A morning well spent I think, Viv,” Joe said, Viv agreed with him as she began sorting out mugs for themselves and the two parent helpers, “I hope the results are just as good in the painting and literacy work!”
“What’s this?” Natalie enquired; Joe turned to her his face still glowing with the cold and the pleasure of their morning’s expedition,
“We took the class down to the conservation area and on into the local woods,” he told her, “I wanted them to see the beautiful autumn we are having and appreciate it with the minds of artists and poets.” Natalie raised her eyebrows,
“Mmm,” Viv agreed, sipping her steaming mug of coffee, “he was very good. We had poems read out to us and then I thought he was about to start composing his own when he started talking about the range of colours all around us!” Joe eyed her suspiciously, but she was only half joking with him, “Honestly Joe,” Viv went on, “it was a great lesson, I think the children enjoyed it as much as we did, and our two parents are most impressed with you.” Joe looked bashful, but very pleased as he took his coffee and sat down beside Natalie. Immediately he jumped up again and opened the door for Viv as she took the tray of coffee,
“Can you manage?” he asked, she told him that she was fine and went on her way.
“Well done, Mr. Hemsley,” Natalie congratulated him, “I don’t know if I would be as brave to take my lot to the woods, but we might try a walk through the conservation area. Going out is always an adventure to year one and their efforts are always more stimulated by the fresh air.” They carried on discussing the morning’s excursion and Natalie put some ideas to Joe that she had been working on trying with her class.
“Go for it Natalie,” he told her, “as long as you can say you have covered your curriculum subjects and got the work done I think a little diversion is good for the children, hopefully Helen will agree with us too.”
The bell went for the end of break and Natalie, reluctantly, left Joe as they both returned to the classrooms, at opposite ends of the school. He was one person she would love to spend more time with, she thought to herself, oh well, plenty of time she murmured and went with a smile playing about her lips.
***
At last, after two weeks of practise and a lot of hard work in all the classrooms the Harvest Festival Assembly was about to go ahead. The children were filing into the main hall, carrying various harvest gifts, baskets of fruit, an assortment of groceries in tins and packets, little bunches of flowers. All these were carefully placed on tables to the side of the hall, before each class took their places. Then came the children taking part in the assembly with their paintings and readings at the ready, a few were dressed as a selection of vegetable and one, walking with difficulty and giggling, as a sheaf of corn. Most of the children were sat quietly, listening to the music prepared for this morning, a few were shuffling and fidgeting about, occasionally reprimanded by a teacher or other member of staff, but as the group leading the assembly filed in and took their places at the front a hush fell and the music was silenced also.
“Good morning, Mrs. North, good morning everyone,” the children chorused, with the school replying altogether, “we are here today to thank God for giving us our food and harvest and to tell you a story about a farmer.” The assembly continued with the various members of the group reading short pieces and the “vegetables” coming forward to represent them. As the story concluded all the vegetables came together and, linking arms, began to turn in a circle, the narrators all read the last piece as one,
“And so the harvest soup was made and all the villagers could share a meal together. Now we will say our prayer.” Bottoms fidgeted and shuffled, small voices murmured and whispered as eyes were shut and hands pressed together. The girl dressed as the sheaf of corn stood at the centre of the stage and read her harvest prayer in a beautifully clear voice finishing with a loud ‘Amen’ from the whole group and echoed from the assembled children.
Helen stood up and moved towards the front of the hall, a broad smile on her face,
“Thank you children, that was beautiful. Don’t you think so?” she asked, turning to everyone, “Let’s give them a round of applause.” A burst of sound then erupted from every corner of the room, as the children gave vent to their barely contained energy, Helen brought it to a halt quite quickly, knowing things could easily get out of hand at this stage. “Okay, you can see what a wonderful display of gifts we have to take to the people of Gretchen House, thank you all for your kindness. Year six will be helping us transport some of the things later today, the rest will be loaded into my car and I will deliver them later. Now, I’m sure you are all itching to be outside so let’s get the doors open, quickly and quietly fetch your coats and you may make your way out to enjoy the sunshine. Would all teachers supervise their classes? Thank you." She turned back to the group of children behind her, reiterating her congratulations and admiring their outfits, finally they also left to change and go out to play and Helen went through to the staff room for coffee.
In the staff room most people had helped themselves to coffee and were grabbing five minutes to speak with a colleague on some matter or arrange planning meetings or just to relax and unwind before returning to their classes.
“So, how is the house hunting going, Joe?” Tina Armstrong asked, Julia Adams looked across sharply,
“I didn’t know you were looking for a house” she interrupted before Joe had the chance to reply, he smiled briefly at Julia, who looked quite put out, and then he turned towards Tina,
“Quite well, actually I think I’ve found what I’m looking for. It’s a three bed roomed house just along Pyecombe Road, you may know the one Julia,” he continued, including the older woman now, “I believe it isn’t far from you and your husband.” Julia looked a little mollified; she frowned as she tried to recall which properties were on the market along their road,
“Ah, I know the one!” Her eyebrows rose as she remembered the pretty house at the opposite end of Pyecombe Road to her own, “Surely that’s a little big for you. On your own, I mean.” Joe nodded in agreement,
“I’ll probably take a lodger for a while, but I want to make it my home and an investment at the same time.”
“That’s a good idea,” Tina said, rejoining the conversation now Julia had been allowed her say, “You think you’d like to settle in the area then, Joe, you’re happy with us?” Joe laughed,
“As happy as I think I can be at the moment. I’m enjoying my job certainly and I like Tanglewood village, having worked in a couple of town schools it’s nice to be out in the fresh air and countryside, a lot of the children I used to work with wouldn’t know a cow if they saw one. I thought only city kids were like that!” Tina laughed with him,
“Don’t be too sure, most cities seem to be building ‘City Farms’ these days, and it’s the townies that often don’t get out into the ‘real’ world as everything is literally on their doorstep, along with the milk!”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s so at all,” Julia butted in again, “I think children nowadays know where the milk comes from, it’s just that they don’t need to be involved in all the manure and smells to appreciate it. In my day we didn’t need to keep dashing about in designer Wellingtons just to prove we were in the ‘real world’ as you put it, Tina!” Joe could feel both women tensing as an argument teetered on the edge of what should have been a harmless conversation, luckily the bell went for end of break so Julia took her chance to hold onto the last word and whisked out of the room.
“Oooh! That woman,” Tina hissed through gritted teeth, Joe patted her shoulder soothingly,
“Don’t let her get to you, we can’t all enjoy the country I suppose and she just has to feel she’s top dog – but don’t let her know I used that analogy!” Tina’s face cracked and Joe felt her relax under his hand,
“You are wicked, Joe Hemsley! I don’t know about top dog though, more like old dogs not wanting to accept any new tricks.” She noticed that Joe’s hand was still resting on her shoulder, not that she minded at all, but, just as she thought this, he took it away. “Keep me posted on your house, won’t you? I’ll have a look next time I’m driving past; you might want to reconsider the neighbours though!” They smiled,
“I’ll let you know,” he agreed, “perhaps you’d like to come and see it if it all goes through. We could have a little ‘house-warming’.” They left together, returning to their waiting children on the playground, Tina still remembering the feel of Joe’s hand warming her shoulder and imagining the house warming…but without any other guests attending.
The door opened and Janice popped her head in,
“Ah, there you are, Helen. There’s a call for you, sounds official.”
“Okay, I was just on my way back. Can you put it through to my office, please?” Janice went ahead and back into her own office to put the call through, giving Helen a moment to get herself sorted, she heard the door close and pressed the button for Helen’s extension, longing to know what the call was about.
“Hello, Helen North speaking. Sorry to keep you waiting,” The voice at the other end was well spoken and quite pleasant,
“Good morning, Mrs. North. No problem, it’s Nick Berkshire, registered inspector for the Office for Standards in Education, I thought I would give you a quick call as we have a proposed date for your inspection. I will, of course, be putting everything in writing to you, but I thought this might give us a chance to go over anything that you may be wishing to ask at this stage and arrange a date when I can come and have a chat with you.” The OFSTED inspection, Helen took a deep breath, she knew from past experience what it would entail, but this was her first as head teacher and she wanted to get it right from the beginning.
“Oh, that’s kind of you. I think there are only the routine things I need to go over at the moment. Parking spaces needed, how many in your team, would you like lunch each day? Our kitchens are very good, I can recommend the school lunches, although perhaps I shouldn’t be saying that, it might sound like bribery!” She laughed, and heard, with relief that Nick Berkshire was also laughing, she realised that everything she had mentioned could be dealt with much later in the proceedings.
“Lunch would be lovely,” he agreed, “It makes a change to go to schools where hot lunches are still provided. Don’t worry, we are all immune to bribery, although you may be surprised to hear a few people have tried it.”
“I should imagine it would take more than a free lunch,” Helen said. “Quite,” he agreed, “now down to business. My team will consist of 6 inspectors of varying qualifications, all that will be in the documentation we are sending out tonight, I should think we would need parking for maybe three cars, we try to double up where possible. The dates we are looking at are 20th November through to Christmas, that is the ‘Inspection Window’ within which we will plan for your actual inspection.” Helen made notes on her jotter, underlining the important dates; she wracked her brain to think of anything else she might want to ask,
“That will be fine,” she said, “I can’t think of anything else at present but I will certainly read through everything you send me. When would you like to come for our first meeting? Would you like to meet the staff that day as well? I can arrange for our staff meeting that evening.”
“Well, looking at my diary I can make next Wednesday, otherwise it will be another two weeks, so if that fits in with you I would like to have a meeting with the staff as well,” Nick replied, Helen agreed the Wednesday and wrote the appointment in her diary. “Please feel free to call me if you have any queries before then,” he continued, “if I’m not available my secretary, Robert, will either be able to help you or will take a message and I will call you back as soon as I can.”
“That’s very kind,” Helen said, “I hope I won’t have to trouble you, I’m sure you are a very busy man.”
“No trouble,” Nick went on, “we like to make the inspection as stress free as we can and that’s what I am here for. I look forward to meeting you Mrs. North, I’m sure we’ll get along fine.” With that they finished their conversation and Helen put the phone down only to pick it up again to inform Janice of her latest news.
***
“I don’t expect many of the non-teaching staff will be able to stay for the staff meeting with Nick Berkshire next week,” Helen said later, as she came through to the main office with some more correspondence, “so do you think you could arrange a meeting during the day? Say perhaps Thursday, when we’ve met Mr. Berkshire and have more to report so to speak?” Janice agreed, she had been thinking much the same herself, but hadn’t organised anything as yet,
“Good idea,” she said making a note on her pad to put memos out later, “and whilst we’re on the subject can I suggest we make a definite proposal as to what we call our classroom assistants? Some people like classroom assistants, some prefer teaching assistants, but not many people like to be known as ‘welfare’ any more.” Helen looked surprised,
“I didn’t know that we had a problem with calling them anything. They are part of the staff and they do their job, why do we have to give them a name?” Janice sighed; sometimes Helen could completely miss the point when dealing with people,
“We don’t have a problem, I’m ordering the staffing badges that you suggested we all wear during OFSTED and wanted a title to put on them. Shall I discuss it with the staff at the meeting next week?” Helen still looked puzzled, she shrugged,
“Yes, I suppose that would be a good idea. In fact I could try and come along too and hear what people have to say on the matter.” Janice turned back to her desk and closed her eyes in despair, this was just what she didn’t need and she could feel trouble brewing already. Luckily Helen had decided the matter was closed and taken herself off again, surely she wasn’t really so insensitive Janice asked herself as she began typing yet another memo to inform the relevant staff of the forthcoming meeting.
***
