The Learning Curve by Melissa Nathan Page A

Rob gave a little ahem.
    ‘Now, now, everyone,’ he said. ‘I don’t think Nicky got promoted because she’s carefree and single,’ he said with a gently rebuking smile. ‘I think we all know that it’s because of the qualities she brings to her job.’
    ‘Yes,’ rushed Gwen. ‘Of course. We all know that.’
    ‘Good.’ Rob smiled.
    Nicky stared from Gwen to Rob and back again before saying softly, ‘And while we’re on the subject, I think we all also know that Rob wasn’t promoted because he’s carefree and single either.’
    ‘Well of course not,’ said Gwen. ‘We all know that.’
    Nicky picked up her bag and walked out of the staffroom.
    At break-time, she caught five minutes with Ally.
    ‘You were a bit sharp back there with Rob,’ said Ally. ‘He was only trying to defend your position.’
    ‘Why does he need to defend me?’ replied Nicky. ‘We’re equals. Why does my promotion need justifying and his doesn’t?’
    Ally shook her head at her friend. ‘Have you looked at his arse recently?’
    Nicky moaned and hung her head on her hands. ‘You told me not to,’ she wailed.
    ‘I didn’t say anything about
looking
,’ said Ally. ‘I just said don’t stop concentrating on your job at the same time.’
    Nicky’s main responsibility of summarising every single teacher’s method of assessment for a future school template proceeded to swamp her ‘management time’ and spilt into her ‘planning and preparation time’ as, over the next seven weeks, she had to sit in on everyone’s class. Most marking was now nearly all done by the children themselves – she had long since learnt that the best way for kids to feel a sense of ownership over their work was to let them swap books with their neighbour and mark each other’s work. This had released precious weekend time which, up until now, she had spent on the Internet preparing wonderful classes, or back at school finishing displays so that the children could see their handiwork almost as soon as they’d finished it. She had never resented any free time being spent on her children. The way she saw it, the more you put into work the more the children got out of it. She only had five hours a day with them. She didn’t want to waste a moment.
    But now, suddenly, she didn’t have any moments to waste. Her work list – every day started with a list of jobs to achieve – was now too long for her to even contemplate.
    She knew she had pulled the short straw, seeing as Rob’s remit had seen him interview some of the kids in their lunch hour and then give a talk to Miss James and herself, with the help of an overhead projector. It had been an impassioned forty minutes – almost as impassioned as his original speech had been in Miss James’s office. Miss James loved every word of it. He’d been given two custard creams and a Bourbon.
    It was after that meeting that Miss James had told them that they were now, of course, in charge of Parents’ Evening.
    Yet again, Rob and she were to divide the responsibilities, which seemed fairly easy. The two main areas of responsibility were to oversee either timetables or book-marking. For Parents’ Evening – in fact two evenings – each teacher was responsible for their own timetable (so that each parent knew exactly when to turn up and how long they would have with their teacher) and they also had to ensure that every single piece of marking was up to date (so that parents could look through their child’s work, should they so desire). Rob chose timetables before Nicky had a chance to put the key in the ignition of her brain, and by the time she’d looked at the gear-stick, she realised she was overseeing teachers’ book-marking. It turned out that whereas teachers were only too glad to have someone chivvy them along – with the added thrill of some advice and top flirting – with their bit of timetabling, they did not care to be reminded to do anything as sensitive as their marking.