Waiting for somebody

Round 25: Winter 2022

Principal Tatiana Lachance is 39, Pamela Gray is 37, Joanna Gottlieb is 27 and student teacher Finn Romilly is 21.
Students: Julia Gray and Hope Collins are both 11, Audrey Lachance and Charlie and Jack Benton are all 10, Camilla and Lila Sitko, Sophie Gottlieb and Connor Novak are all 9, Josh Royce-Nihill and Elspeth Romilly are both 8, Edward Lachance, Lucy Gray and Chris Draper are all 7, Oliver and Sebastian Gentry are both 6, Anthony and Veronica Moretti are both 5 and Adelaide Sitko and Noah Gottlieb are both 4.

Tatiana and her children Audrey and Edward have arrived at Sullivan Primary, ready for another productive day at school!

Or not. Tatiana is in her first trimester and the morning sickness is not being kind to her, nor is it very conducive to teaching.

It's for this reason that having Finn as her student teacher this term has worked out so well.

It's a lot easier to do a bathroom run when there's someone else on hand to supervise the students.

Finn is very approachable, meaning Tatiana's K-2 kids take to him right away.

Finn's also just serious enough that when he asks the children to work, they know he means business.

Tatiana is impressed with Finn so far. The children like him, he's building up a rapport with students and staff and once he graduates at the end of this year, he'll make a great teacher.

The more teachers the better! Tatiana never had to deal so much with the older kids before she was principal but now she's finding she sees a lot more of all the children day to day. Lately, she's been watching out for Jack Benton.

It was over a year ago now but he's still having a tough time coping with the death of his grandmother.

There's no school counsellor at SPS, so that is one of the many roles Tatiana has to fill as principal. Jack really isn't interested in discussing his grandmother though. He'd rather go and join the rest of his class in the gym. Tatiana doesn't want to force it, so she lets him go and heads back to check on Finn and her K-2s.

Up in the gym, Audrey has a secret about her little brother Edward to share with Charlie and Jack.

Whatever it is, she and Charlie find it very funny. Maybe Jack is still bummed about his grandma or maybe his sense of humour is just more sophisticated.

He really came up to play basketball, not waste time chatting.

Camilla and Sophie are also shooting some hoops. They don't quite have the technique down but they're only 9. They've got plenty of time to perfect it.

Surprise, surprise, Lila has chosen the most aggressive activity for gym class today. Hitting punching bags is better than hitting other children, so this is probably a good choice for her.

Hope thought the punching bags in the gym looked fun but she can't muster up quite the same enthusiasm for them as Lila behind her. She's too afraid it's going to swing forward and hit her in the face.

She feels much safer with Joanna holding the bag still for her.

Lila decides she's done with physical activity for the day and when she turns around, she finds herself face to face with Julia Gray. Julia is attempting to be nice and befriend Lila. Lila reacts with her typical attitude.

Julia is persistent though and the two girls are soon chatting happily.

Downstairs in the pre-school room, Adelaide is copping a little attitude of her own with her teacher. Pamela is used to stroppy pre-schoolers though - nothing Adelaide could do or say would faze her.

Adelaide is joined in her pre-school class by just one other child - her cousin Noah. They already know each other pretty well, so there won't be any conflicts. Hopefully.

They tend to keep to themselves anyway. Adelaide would really rather be up in the gym with her big sisters but seeing pre-schoolers don't use the gym, she'll have to content herself with the crayons instead.

Noah wouldn't know a basketball if it hit him in the face but at four years old, he's already very adept with computers. He'd love to have one of his own - the ones at home always seem to be in use when he wants to play a game - so free reign of the computer at school is thrilling for him.

It's lunch time and once again, Elspeth is causing trouble. It doesn't even matter to her that Edward is the principal's son, or that she's standing right there.

Edward can give as good as he gets though and Elspeth is quite taken aback! She steers clear of him for the rest of lunch.

Jack has cheered up a little and is busy making friends with Sebastian Gentry. Jack is still very popular at school - it'll be interesting to see if he stays that way when he moves to high school and becomes a little fish in a big pond.

All of the kids are outside. All of the kids, that is, except for Sophie, who's practising piano instead. Cuisine is really more her thing but she knows how happy it makes her grandmother when she plays piano, so she tries to keep up with her music lessons as well.

Finn has work of his own to keep up with. He's less than six months away from graduation and the university is still piling work onto him.

At least he knows he'll have a job to go to next year. Tatiana has been so impressed with Finn that she's decided to offer him a full-time position at SPS. Joanna wants to start teaching high school instead, so Finn will be taking over her 3-6 class. With the two children he'll have to support come this summer, a guaranteed job is a dream come true!

Notes:

• Title is from Waiting For Somebody by Paul Westerberg.
• Yay, I was hoping the student teacher thing would work. I wasn't sure if the school stuff would allow me to assign a YA as a teacher but it does. Perfect! All future teachers in Sullivan will have to do teacher training, like Finn.
• I just realised Finn would be travelling quite a ways to do his student teaching - the uni is about an hour from Sullivan. But seeing our uni actually sent students out even further than that, I'm not letting that bother me too much.
• In the second picture of Julia and Lila talking, Sophie is very excited that she lost all of her chub - another victim of Adam's cooking! No one can resist!
• I've been feeling like Joanna is more suited to the high school, so I'm moving her over and letting Finn replace her at SPS.