Waterloo Road/Recap

Some of the crazy things that have gone on in Rochdale recently.

• A teacher kills herself.
• Another get murdered by a guy with a knife.
• A creationist and a porn baron trying to take over the school together.
• Two 16 year old Sixth-Formers getting married (that is legally possible, by the way, but you need to have parental permission).
  • An attempt by Tom to I Object on this matter is stopped by the fact that the absent father has given signed permission, the mother was the murdered teacher and he has precisely zero legal relationship with Chloe.
• A Ripped from the Headlines plot involving parents selling burgers outside the school gates when the school canteen went healthy. It turned out burgers weren't all they were selling.
• A plot involving a girl with Asperger's Syndrome. The fact that nobody in the cast can pronounce the name of the condition serves to highlight either the fact that the staff aren't up handling her or the fact that someone Did Not Do the Research. Two of the pupils decided to use her lack of social awareness for a practical joke during...
• The skeleton of a baby being found during an archaeological dig at the school. That one turned out to be former drug addict Maxine's, being still born.
• The female Sixth Former (Chlo) cheating on her husband with Brett Aspinall, son of said porn baron and boyfriend of Mika, Chlo's sister.
• Chlo running away to Manchester (a distance of 10 miles), getting caught shoplifting and almost being pimped out by her flatmate.
• The whole Park Side Story musical thing that's on-going.
• Jack Rimmer cheating on his girlfriend with Steph Haydock, the French teacher.
• Grantly Budgen developing a gambling addiction.
• Jack Rimmer's resignation over funding issues.
• The new headteacher being blackmailed by a guy off Holby City because she used to be a freelance horizontal dancer (a lady of the night, a woman of loose morals, whatever other euphemism you like to use)
• Mika turning into a Strawwoman Environmentalist, complete with Swampy-style tree-climbing.
• The entirety of 3.20:
  • Evil Holby Dude (the contractor), after losing his business, sends copies of the newspaper story showing the head as a horizontal worker to all the teachers. 2.4 Deputy Head finds the letters and chucks them in the bin.
  • Pupil disposing of cigarette finds letters.
  • Although we'd heard of it a couple of episodes earlier, a mass exam cheating case is revealed. Sit-down argument amongst regulars.
  • Evil Holby Dude walks into spelling bee with other school present and reveals all (about Rachel that is.
  • EHD chucks cigarette into bin, unintentionally. Starts rubbish fire.
  • Rubbish fire ignites gas cylinder, causing big explosion and fire.
  • Idiot chains fire door, resulting in several kids being trapped for several minutes with no-one hearing them, Davina suffering from bad smoke inhalation. All get out, bar Davina, who is dragged out and heads off in ambulance.
  • Ms. Mason (the head) doing a check inside the school for anyone left inside, finds EHD lying on the ground, goes to drag him out and then has part of the rubble fall on her.
  • Davina and Ms. Mason now in an unclear physical state. Roll credits.

Season 4

• Davina has now recovered, EHD is presumably deceased and Rachel is now suffering from mental and physical scarring.
• In Season 4, we've now had the family from hell (the Kellys), with a psychopathic Year 11 passing off a live, loaded gun to his Year 7 brother, so as to not get caught.
• Chloe and Donte get back together, rent a flat and take out a lot of credit. DVD and hair business appears to be about to go bad.
• We also have had Rachel Mason employing her sister as the new Head of Adult Education, without first informing people that they are related.
• The female footballing squad is closed down and replaced with a cheerleading squad. No-one complains.
• Grantly Budgen acquires a dodgy toupee, gets Mistaken for Cheating with the French teacher by his wife, who throws him out, then takes him back after his highly inept performance at a speed dating event proves that he couldn't have had an affair if he'd tried.
  • The toupee is destroyed when Chloe's attempts at cleaning it go wrong.
• Earl, member of the family from hell, apparently leaves dead birds on next door neighbour Tom's doorstep. So, Tom gets a falconer in for the day to try and reform him. Earl takes a shine to one of the avians and nicks the bird. He's found on a field, using said fowl for hunting. Claims the cat was responsible for the pigeons.
  • The Kellys don't have a cat.
• His brother (Marley) gets elected Head Boy, despite his drunk mother interrupting his speech. Then reveals the family don't have a cat. The family is now on a warning from the council (this being a Council Estate) that if they cause one more disturbance they'll be evicted. So Earl puts a bin through Tom's front windscreen.
• In an attempt to reform said mother, she is given a job in the canteen and does pretty well.
  • She's since taken over the catering, with one of the other dinner ladies. They're still doing pretty well.
• The school runs a drug awareness day and the Head Boy and Girl, among others, take drug tests. The Head Girl's father (a police officer and school governor), thinking that the two, who are dating, are not suitable, falsifies the results so his daughter's positive is shown as his. He does this by swapping labels, BTW. Marley is removed from the position, but the whole thing is revealed, so the Head Girl (Flick) is removed and her father is asked to resign as a school governor.
• The police take the family from hell's kids into care because the aforementioned governor lies about them to social services.
• The estranged, abusive father of TFOH turns up and tries to get back into their lives, by living in their house while the mother lives in a bedsit. Sam, the daughter, who is living with Mr. Wilding, doesn't want to live with him. So, the father kidnaps her and trashes Wilding's flat.
• Donte, realising his financial predicament, organises an underground boxing match involving Bolton Smilie, wayward kid who is now into boxing, violating dozens of Amateur Boxing Association rules and probably a few laws. He charters a coach, which a certain villain should have done before hand.
• The father takes his daughter to the fight at a disused tyre factory, which is stopped by Headteacher's Decision (she orders it to stop). The father and Mr. Wilding have a confrontation and the former is disarmed by Wilding's use of something he saw on TV.
• The mother shops the father to the police.
• Steph and Dave the security guard have a brief fling.
• A teenager gets pregnant! Since it's Chloe and her husband is responsible, that's one line of complaint gone.
• Semi-evil redhead turns out to have been home-schooled for a number of months and when she returns to Waterloo Road, she so wants to stay that she gets on the roof and threatens to jump off. She doesn't.
• Mr. Cleaver and Miss. Koreshi revise their PSHE lesson plans and the next day, Mr. Cleaver arrives to a lesson to return her bag. When then falls on the floor, distending her (non-matching, so she clearly has no sartorial sense) underwear onto the floor.
• Maxine finds out that her boyfriend is about to sell his 3-day old baby from a previous school. When she dumps him, he shoots her. Given that he's Earl Kelly, it's not much of a surprise. Janeece and Steph Haydock get there, but they're too late as Maxine goes slumpy and dies. Earl is arrested by armed police. The producers decide that a Next Time Trailer is not appropriate.
• The Headteacher's sister, Melissa, currently engaged to the Deputy Head, is already married. Twice. And not divorced.
• After Maxine's death, Rachel decides she's going to quit, but is ultimately persuaded against it.
• It comes out that Earl actually brought the gun into school, not his younger brother. After Bolton overcomes his fear of Earl and his guilt over not reporting him earlier, the younger brother is freed.
• Mr. Cleaver puts Bolton up for the UK young boxing championship, giving him pills beforehand to help him "focus". When Bolton wins the fight, putting his opponent in hospital but the pills are found before hand by another teacher. The referee is concerned enough to put the result on hold pending a drugs test. Ms. Koreshi dumps Mr. Cleaver, who is suspended pending a disciplinary inquiry. Bolton decides to quit boxing.
• The Kellys are evicted and in order to get £5,000 to get them accommodation, Marley has to dump his girlfriend, Flick. He does so.
• Melissa's bigamy comes out and 2.4 Deputy Head dumps her.
• A glamour model (who was a former pupil until she got pregnant) comes to school as a representative for a careers day. Philip is persuaded to try and ask her out. His mates push him into her assets. He almost gets suspended.
• Kim Campbell returns from Rwanda, complete with kid of unexpected skin colour. It's adopted. She hasn't exactly undergone the formalities with bringing the baby into the UK.
• Janeece decides to get her breasts enlarged so she can become a Page Three Stunna. The former has happened, the latter not yet. Now she's left the cast, probably not.
• When the girl with Asperger's demonstrates a talent for art, two of the girls decide to exploit her for cash. The girl has a full blown panic attack due to the stress and runs away, turning up safe and well at a road junction.
• Flick finds out about Marley's deal and dumps him.
• When it emerges that Philip is still a virgin with his 16th birthday approaching, an attempt is made to relieve him of said status. A Wild Teen Party at the Head's house is subverted as the kids clean up effectively. Philip decides that sex with an upset Flick is not what he wants his first time to be and declines the offer.
• Rose Kelly admits being an alcoholic and seeks treatment.
• Deciding to reform the girls' football team, one of the teachers gets his pals from the Army to help with their team work skills. Ms. Koreshi thinks that the Army will brainwash the kids to enlist and tells her class that. When Ms. Mason finds out about this, she informs Ms. Koreshi that an authority figure presenting one-sided opinions is brainwashing. Ooh, miss, you got told!
  • Janeece and one of the evil girls have a cat fight.
• Davina finally gets fully qualified teacher status! Then she finds out that Tom's been helping Rose out with AA meetings, and financially. Davina leaves Tom.
• A girl that we've never seen before and haven't seen again, who is apparently very clever, starts being all mouthy in lessons. Steph investigates after being accused of bullying her and find that she's a diabetic (which teachers should know anyway) who hasn't been taking her insulin as she wants to be a model. The girl, who has been having vision problems all the day, collapses in the corridor, but the thing is figured before hand, so a nurse can give her life-saving insulin.
• A baby episode! Chlo wants to give up her baby, but Donte doesn't. He threatens to divorce her, if that's what it takes to stop the baby going to adoption. She promptly gives birth in the girls' toilets, and decides she wants a baby after all. Meanwhile, the Home Office finally catch up with Kim, who smuggled 'her' baby into the country. They take Grace into care, to be sent back to her real family in Rwanda.
  • Double meanwhile, Rose fancies Tom, and the Kelly Kids know it. Also of note, Flick continues to accuse Philip of stalking her, even though he stopped that weeks ago.
• Flick Mellor's dad, the police chief, attacks Marley with a golf club. He gets arrested, and Flick decides to stay with the Kellys.
• Philip wants to get back at the world in general after he got kicked out of the choir, so he makes chocolate brownies with laxatives in them, resulting in lots of people rushing for the toilets.
  • In the investigation, it's discovered that Rose and Candice used old meat, but they get away with it, and aren't fired.
• Season Finale
  • It's the School Choir Competition. It turns out that Flick didn't write the lyrics, she stole them off the internet. Now everyone hates her.
  • Ralph Mellor turns up at the school again, angry that Marley's got a restraining order against him. Now everyone feels sorry for Flick.
  • Mellissa turns up, and she's pregnant! Eddy is torn between caring for his baby, and staying together with Rachel.
  • The School Choir goes to the competition anyway, making up new lyrics while waiting to go on stage. They write the words on the back of their shirts, with the word-perfect people in the front row. They end up winning the competition.
  • Ralph gets drunk, and blames the school for stealing his daughter. He steals a big digger, and uses it to demolish the front of the school. Rachel arrives just in time to stand in front of the digger, but Eddy stops Ralph before she can get hurt. Afterwards, Rachel says she's going to leave Waterloo Road.

Season 5 (Part 1)

• Inexplicably, Rachel is still here, but Eddy isn't. He's not mentioned.
• The school absorbs many of the pupils from a defunct private school called John Foster. The mutual class-based antagonism leads to an argument in the staff room and what is legally called a riot in the playground.
• Steph Haydock gets passed over for Head of Modern Languages in favour of someone who can speak better French. Incidentally, she's a lesbian.
• Newly trained teacher is fairly hopeless, fuelling said riot.
• There's a new Executive Head who essentially assumes command from Rachel, while keeping her in place. He also appears to have had a Hot for Student relationship in the past with said teacher.
• Two new kids with an abused mother go to school and later get told their father has been murdered.
  • And the mum is arrested for the crime.
• Rivalry between the two school groups continues, including a false accusation of rape against Bolton.
• Pictures of Mr Clarkson and a woman he spent a weekend with years back appear across the school.
  • They turn out to be left there by that woman's son. Guess who his father is.
• Evil Executive Head (EEH) starts a relationship with Ms. Campbell.
• One of the students is drunk from the night before, which gives a class mate the genius idea of stealing ethanol, putting it in drinks, and selling it. Hospital ensues.
• Lindsey James, one of the daughters of the murdered dad/murdering mum, and chief agitator on the John Foster side, gets a tattoo, and pressures her friends to get matching ones.
• Lindsey sees Karla (a girl with Asperger's) trying to comfort her little sister about their mother. So, Lindsey gets a gang together, pins Karla to the floor, shouts at her, and writes on her forehead.
• Ms. Haydock is really quite bad at teaching French, and gets in trouble with the new head of department, who will henceforth be known as Lesbian French Head (LFH).
• LFH sends Haydock on a teaching course. Haydock initially leaves, but decides to go back when the consequences of not going are made clear.
• Michaela White gathers a gang together to get revenge on Lindsey. Rachel gets wind of it and breaks up the third Cat Fight of the season before it turns serious.
• Food Tech teacher Ruby Fry pops home during an Open Day to get some dip for the crudités. When she arrives and sees her husband, the doorbell rings. Thinking that he's having an affair, she goes to open it- and sees some bailiffs. Hubby's company has gone bust and their house is being repossessed. Ruby goes back to show, has a Blue Screen Of Death that involves throwing food about, but with help from the pupils and the dinner ladies, puts together a new lunch.
• Michaela becomes less of a strop.
• EEH, who is hiding the fact that he's married (and to the head of the LEA, who has turned up to the Open Day) from Kim, discovers that Hopeless Teacher Who Is Hopeless has a sex tape of the two of them.
• Steph, wanting to avoid any more teaching courses, decides to use her "feminine wiles" on LFH. LFH, learning of this, plays along until just before a kiss. Steph decides to go on the courses.
• Steph and LFH go for a drink and a dance... then apparently end up having an off-screen "dance". Steph wakes up in bed with LFH...
  • It turns out they didn't have sex after all and she was merely put there to stop her drooling over LFH's sofa.
• An episode of revelations of the seedy kind:
  • The Deputy Head discovers that one Year 12 girl who wants to go to a uni is working as a lap-dancer to support her arthritic father. She blackmails him, saying that she'll claim he's a paedo (rather than a touchy-feely guy who is entirely innocent), but eventually relents when the father thing is revealed.
  • Lindsay reveals to Rachel Mason that her father abused her.
  • Lindsay was actually the one who killed her father
  • Mr. Clarkson discovers that his son did not come about by accident and was in fact to a household implement.

Season 5 (Part 2)

• Kim is pregnant and Max is the father.
• A new student named Finn joins the school, who is very badly behaved.
• There is a class trip to a farm, which is very run down. The farm is owned by a boy at the schools brother, and he told him to tell the teachers that the trip is cancelled. The boy doesnt listen and gets their class to go anyway. Some of the class wander off and start drinking and Josh gets injured. Sam steals a pig to keep as a pet, as she doesnt want it to be killed for meat.
• A father takes his daughter out of school without their mother knowing. The parents broke up, and the mother doesnt want him seeing the children. The father takes his daughter to his caravan to celebrate her birthday. The staff at the school are looking for them. Rachel follows, trying to convince the father to take his child back to school. It turns out he plans to murder the child to get back at his ex wife. The police arrive just as Rachel gets the child out of the caravan, just before it explodes. Father dies but child isnt hurt.
• A boy takes donuts into school and gets them confiscated by the teachers. He gets more from his mum, who he talks down to all the time. Kim confiscates these ones, and he told him mum that she called him fat. His mum goes in to complain, but then he gets in a fight and after a talk with the teachers, mum decides to stand up to her son.
• The school brings in a program to help clever children get to university. Michaela wants to join but isnt clever enough, so she starts a protest and the other children get a chance to be interviewed for it. Michaela does well in the interviews, but cant do the test.
• Lauren has a birthmark on her back which is revealed to her class, everyone laughs at her and upsets her about it, so she steals some acid from the science classroom and ends up injuring herself trying to remove it with acid.
• There is a new cook, who makes a lot of changes that Rose doesn't like. Rachel talks to him about it and Finn locks them in a cupboard.
• Ruby organises a clothes swapping event, then steals some of the clothes and tries to sell them on the internet.
• Steph has found a new boyfriend. She finds out that this man is Chris's dad.
• While on work experience, Sam puts a pair of shorts into Bolton's bag, cause he wanted them but couldnt afford them. They run out of the shop and hide under a bridge, and end up kissing. Bolton takes the blame for it when Rachel finds out.
• Ruby's husband leaves her.
• Finn is on work experience in Chris's science class, where he gets wound up by a class several years older than himself. He spends the day winding up Chris, throwing paint on his car, painting something rude about him on the blinds in the staff room, and encouraging younger children to misbehave in his class.
• Finn and Josh do drugs at school and get caught, and Sam and Bolton get in a fight, while the teachers are trying to impress someone.
• Josh and Finn put some of the drugs in Tom's food, and he goes unconscious when driving Kim to the hospital, as she is worried about the baby she is pregnant with. The car crashes and Tom is badly injured.
• Ros is being taught by Jo (the lesbian French teacher), and she mistakes the time they spent together as her having feelings for her. Ros tries to kiss Jo, who is not happy about it, tells Rachel. When she founds out that Rachel was told about it, Ros runs out of an exam to shout at Jo, in front of her class. Rumours are spread round and Ros lies to Rachel about the kiss being Jo's idea, and she makes a mess of the classroom. Ros eventually admits to lying about it when her parents get involved.
• Ruby accidentally sets the kitchen on fire
• Adam asks Rachel to marry him
• The Year 11 horde descends on a local portrait gallery and Finn manipulates Amy into defacing a portrait.
• Kim has unexpected contractions and needs an emergency Caesarean. Both she and her son survive (so far).
• Kim and Chris finally decide that, yes, they do both love each other.
• Ruby moves to grotty flat, makes a pass at Adam and nearly torpedos her job.
• Adam makes a wedding cake, but Ruby destroys it as she is kealous of his relationship with Rachel.
• Finn and Amy are not allowed to see each other any more, and the teachers try to keep them separated.
• Ruby loses her temper at Amy in class and locks her in a cupboard. Rachel finds out, and discovers that Ruby is addicted to some pills she got off the internet. She threatens to fire her.
• Ruby agrees to get help and gets back with her ex.
• Finn and Amy get into a crazy suicide bid, which turns out to be the mother of all grabs for attention. Finn is revealed as actually being human.
• Adam and Rachel get married, and decide to leave the school.
• The prom is held in the school hall, and it turns out to be really good. Sam asks Paul to go with her, even though she has a crush on Bolton, but in the end Sam and Bolton go together.

Season 6 (Part 1)

• Chris accidentally sleeps with a student, who he met in a nightclub and thought she was over 18. This girl turns out to be the head teachers daughter.
• Janeece is the new school secretary, and she is pregnant.
• There are two new pupils, who have been home schooled and havent been to school before. The daughter is desperate to get herself kicked out of school, so does her best to cause trouble then walks out of school and goes missing.
• The new head teacher tries to find this girl, because her own daughter went missing a few years ago. The girl is found-she had tried to go to her dads house, found that he had sold the house (which is in the middle of nowhere) and wandered off.
• Jess, the headteachers daughter, forges her mothers signature on a pass to get out of school. A boy sees her do this, and photocopies the pass, selling them to students for £5 so they can get out of school without getting in trouble.
• Sam and Harry (the head teachers son) skip school, as Harry thinks his dad is cheating on his mum with the spanish teacher. He turns out to be-but not with the spanish teacher, with someone else.
• Grantly's class make a magazine, to give out to other students, Jess adds an article to it, blaming her mum for her sister Bex's dissapearance.
• Ruby wants a baby, but she finds out she can no longer have children of her own.
• The school starts giving out contraception to students who need it. Jess needs some, as she Really Gets Around and has slept with loads of men, mostly older than her that she met at nightclubs. She tries to pressure her friend into getting some, as she is afraid her mum might find out, but she is not able to as the school nurse wants her to take the pill right there in front of her.
• The head teacher confronts her husband about his affair, and they argue about it, while Harry is upstairs. He hears them, eats a lot of chocolate and then makes himself sick.
• There is a girl who thinks she might be pregnant, as she had sex with her boyfriend and the condom broke. She decides to take the pill, but wants her boyfriend to get it for her. He isnt allowed to, tries stealing some but gets caught, and ends up pretending to be Chris and phoning the girls parents.
• Harry's parents find out about his eating disorder
• Janeece decides to let Ruby and her husband adopt her baby, as she does not want to be a mother yet.
• Vicky's dad is ill and in hospital, and she stays at Jess's house for a while, then moves into a shelter for homeless people, where she has a roommate named Chantelle who is always drunk and playing loud music and getting them in trouble. Chantelle gets kicked out of the shelter for causing trouble, and believes it was Vicky's fault. She decides to frame Vicky by stealing a purse and leaving it on her bed. Vicky blackmails Chris into passing her on a test that she failed, but that doesnt work, then her dad dies, and she gets kicked out of the shelter as they believe she stole that purse.
• The school adds new security cameras but the kids dont approve, so put a webcam in the staff room to spy on the teachers. Jonah (who is dating Jess) finds out about what Jess and Chris did, and hits him over it, but is pursuaded to lie about why he did it. Eventually Chris tells Karen he slept with her daughter.
• The school has a fundraiser day, but the kids have a food fight.
• Grantly's wife has Alzheimer's and forgets who he is, attacks him, and Steph wants him to send her to a home to be looked after. Eventually he agrees with her and gets her in one but cant afford it. Ruth is angry at him for accidentally teaching them the wrong stuff and causing her class a lot extra work, but when she hears them talking about it and feels sorry for him. The money they raised for charity will now go to Grantly to pay for his wifes care.
• Janeece wants her baby back, and Ruby gives her back.
• Karen's ex husband decides to move miles away, and the kids arent too pleased about it. They do have something to be happy about though, as Bex returns!

Season 6 (Part 2)

• Bex goes back to school, but she is paranoid because someone she met while she was missing texted her, and was following her. Jess is determined to know what is going on, but Bex wont tell her.
• There is a new boy at the school, who is badly behaved and brings his dog with him. He threatens to set the dog on Finn, as they instantly become enemies. He sets the dog on Bex cause she told the teacher that he touched her, cause he was bothering her in the cooler.
• There is a girl at Waterloo Road who recently had a baby, and she is worried her mother is trying to take the baby away from her, which she is, she wants to adopt her grandchild. It turns out that she is hearing voices in her head, and threatens to kill her baby. She is talked out of it, and is sent to hospital for help with making the voices stop.

Season 7

• On the first day of term, an abandoned baby is discovered at the school. The mother turns out to be Ally, Kyle's girlfriend, who conceived after being raped by her stepfather.
• Sambuca gets a brain tumour and dies after a day out in Blackpool with two truanting friends.
• Aidan gets two girls pregnant at the same time! And one of them is Jess, the headmistress's daughter!