A/N: Here it is, the Teachers AU nobody asked for! I've written four chapters so far and so I will aim to update regularly but I am a teacher myself and so if I am swamped at work and I get behind with writing, that might not always be possible.
There's a good chance many of you won't know much about the English educational system. I've tried to write it in such a way that the plot and setting are explained as needed but please do ask if something is unclear. I've learned so much about the US school system from reading fanfic, so hopefully nobody will mind me dragging you across the pond for this fic!
Regarding ratings, the rating may go up to M - I'm not sure. However, I am not a smut writer and it makes me feel uncomfortable to write, so while this is going to be totally slow burn and there will be emotional (and some physical) pay-off, if you're looking for explicit smut, you've come to the wrong place. Sorry! I thought it best to say that here so that nobody is disappointed further down the line. Hope I don't lose too many readers for this.
And on that note, enjoy! :)
"Our plan for this academic year is a simple one. Consolidate the First Order's hold over Alderaan's three secondary schools belonging to its trust, sign the documents relating to our take-over of the failing school, Central Primary, representing our expansion into the primary market and-"
Kylo's phone buzzed in his pocket.
"And formulate a strategy to bring the last remaining school in the local authority under the First Order's control, Alderaan Grammar School."
Kylo's eyes flickered down as he discreetly pulled his phone out and unlocked it. The message was from Hux.
In King's Head prepping for INSET with Phasma. Are you ever going to join us?
His eyes flickered back up the shiny mahogany table in Lord Snoke's study, attempting to keep his expression impassive.
"Do you have anything to contribute, Ren?" Snoke asked, his momentary inattention not having gone unnoticed.
"Nothing, my lord," he replied. "Just wondering how much longer this meeting is going to go on for. Some of us have work to do before tomorrow."
A fruity chuckle came from his left. "Impatient boy," said Palpatine, an ex-politician and businessman with an offshore bank account or three, who now somehow found himself Headmaster of the flagship academy in Alderaan, Naboo High School. Kylo disliked him intensely.
"You mean you don't?"
"That's what deputies are for!" He raised his tumbler of whiskey in a toast. Maul, a tall, black man in his early 40s who never smiled and ran Mandalore Academy with a rod of iron, raised his own glass and clinked it against Palpatine's.
Kylo didn't bother responding. He just stood up. "If that's all…?" he addressed Snoke directly.
"Not quite, Ren," said the lord. "Sit down, boy."
After a moment of hesitation, his jaw working out his frustration, Kylo sat slowly.
"I want good results from Starkiller Academy this year. Your results this summer were disappointing. Very disappointing."
"They were the best the school's ever had! A 17% increase on what it was getting before First Order took it over and up 8% on last year's," cried Kylo, not being able to help pushing himself forward. "Since you put me in charge two years ago, I have-"
"Yes, yes, you're so impressive . Yet still twenty-three places behind Alderaan Grammar in the league tables," interrupted Snoke softly, his eyes fixed on Kylo. "They intrude on your catchment area. They take the best students who should go to Starkiller. If Starkiller is to succeed, your results must surpass theirs."
"Alderaan Grammar is one of the best schools in the country, my lord! With respect, you can't seriously expect us to surpass them in just two years."
"And yet I appointed you to do precisely that. Are you saying you are not up to the task, Ren?"
Palpatine and Maul were watching the exchange with great interest. Kylo slowly leaned back into his chair.
"No. My lord."
"I want Alderaan Grammar School, Ren. First I want it to fail. Then I want it for the First Order."
"As do I!"
"Then make sure that this time next year we are having a very different conversation, Ren. Otherwise it will be you who have failed. Dismissed."
Kylo stood up, grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and stalked round the table. As he came to Snoke's chair, he paused and looked down. "I won't let you down, Lord Snoke."
Snoke's unnaturally pale eyes stared back up at him, assessing him as they always did. "I'm sure you will not. Not my protégé, not Kylo Ren."
"Good luck with the first day back, Ren!" called Palpatine, breaking the connection between the two.
Kylo made a rough noise of acknowledgement and escaped the room without another word. Once outside, he stopped on the gravel drive to put on his heavy, black coat and pull up its collar as if in defence against the cold, despite the September evening being balmy and warm. He pulled out his phone to text Hux.
On my way. Been stuck at Snoke's.
The King's Head was a cosy pub in the centre of town, about a twenty minutes' walk from the wealthy part of Alderaan where Snoke lived. Kylo didn't mind. He put in his earphones and shoved his hands in his pockets, setting off down the street at a brisk pace, a dark shadow moving swiftly between the glow of the street lamps.
He found Hux and Phasma in the back room of the pub, having commandeered a large table on which they had spread out papers and their laptops among discarded crisp wrappers and empty pint glasses.
"Fucking finally!" cried Phasma as he wove through the tables to join them. "Was he giving you a ten course dinner or something?"
"I wish. This round's on me."
He dumped his coat and bag at the table, went to the bar and returned a few minutes later with beers for the three of them and several different flavours of crisps and nuts. In the meantime, Hux had cleared some space for him.
"What news from the supreme leader?"
Kylo rolled his eyes at their nickname for Lord Snoke. "Results this August weren't good enough because we didn't beat the grammar school in the league tables and he needs us to do better this year. Or else."
"So I'm guessing you're leading with that in your welcome back speech tomorrow?" suggested Phasma sarcastically. "Very motivational."
"Fuck that," muttered Kylo into his beer. He had completely forgotten about his speech.
"You have written it, haven't you, Ren?" pressed Hux. "It's rather important. It sets the whole tone for the year, for what new staff think about the school…"
"Enlightening as always, Hux," he cut him off. "Have you drawn up a schedule for the day?"
Armitage Hux, Assistant Headteacher in charge of curriculum and other dry aspects of school life - anything, in short, which could be expressed in a complicated spreadsheet, loved nothing better than drawing up timetables. He pushed his laptop over to Kylo.
"Here you go. We start at 9am with your welcome speech. That goes on till 9.45 at which point-"
"I'm talking for forty-five minutes ? What the hell, Hux?"
"You've got a lot to cover. Welcomes to new staff. All the results analysis, which I have prepared for you in a separate spreadsheet and emailed to you last week. The school development plan for the coming year. It will take longer than you think if you do it thoroughly."
"Fine. Then what? The fire bell goes off to wake everyone up?"
Hux pursed his lips at the jibe. "Then half an hour for Phasma to do her child protection refresher training. Then coffee in the canteen."
"Highlight of the morning!" put in Phasma.
"At 10.30 we have a special session I've organised on biohazard training with an outside company."
Kylo turned to Hux and fixed him with a blank look. "Biohazard training. For teachers."
"Sounds shit, right?" said Phasma quickly, who was rather better at reading Kylo's moods than Hux was. "It's for health and safety. What to do when a kid throws up, how to clean it up, how to dispose of needles or blood - that sort of thing."
"Do we really need some guys in hazmat suits to come and tell us at great expense what to do if a student has a nosebleed?" asked Kylo, his voice soft, his hands clenching into fists under the table. "Do you think our staff are morons ?"
"I just thought that-"
"You are not paid to think , Hux!" bit out Kylo and took a few deep breaths. "What's after lunch?"
"Tutor team meetings then I've arranged for a series of teaching and learning collaborative sessions."
"Cancel them," said Kylo. "No-one gives a shit. After the tutor team meetings make it department time."
Hux opened his mouth to argue but Phasma sighed and said, "Do it, man. Kylo's right. Plenty of time for that sort of thing later on. People need preparation time in their departments."
"If you think that's best." Hux grabbed back the laptop and made a big show of deleting several lines of text from his schedule.
Kylo slowly relaxed his hands, picked up his glass and drained the last of his pint. "I need to go. It seems you both have everything under control."
"Getting an early night, Ren?" wondered Phasma as he stood up. She had a glint in her eye that suggested she knew that he hadn't yet written his speech and therefore exactly why he was leaving.
"Something like that. See you both in the morning."
He walked home, earphones back in and hands shoved once more into his pockets. Having reached his flat, he flicked the lightswitch, dropped his bag to the floor, hung up his coat and flung himself backwards onto the sofa, relishing the silence and the solitude after the noise of the pub and Hux's inanities.
How other people actually managed to live with other people he simply didn't understand. People were awful.
But biohazard training for teachers? Trust Hux to come up with something so ridiculous. His shoulders shook and his lip twitched. Tomorrow would be fucking hilarious. He almost wished there was someone he could share the stupidity of it with.
Alderaan Grammar School. Rated in the top five schools for A Level results in the national league tables for the last ten years. Founded in 1587 by Queen Elizabeth I and now one of the few academically selective state schools left in the country. Admitted girls to the Sixth Form for the first time in 1992 and throughout the school eleven years ago. Current headmistress: Ms Leia Organa of the great Skywalker dynasty of educators.
All these impressive facts passed through Rey Smith's mind as she swung herself off her motorbike, parked round the back of the school on the first day of the autumn term, and locked her helmet to the handlebars. She looked up at the imposing redbrick Victorian building in front of her and took a breath as she walked round to the front entrance.
Over the doorway was the school's Latin motto: non ignorantia sed scientia.
"Not ignorance but knowledge," murmured Rey, giving the inscription a nod. She did not understand Latin herself, but she had memorised the motto and its translation before her interview back in March and it wasn't the sort of thing you forgot, not when it was shortly followed by getting your dream job.
Once inside, Rey headed for the science labs. She left her coat and bag at the desk she had already made her own in the last few weeks of the summer holiday. She hung up her freshly ironed labcoat, running her hand almost protectively over its gleaming white material. Without the labcoat, she was just Rey, twenty-three years old, and nervous as hell about starting in a new school. But when she put the labcoat on the following day and faced her first class of new students, she would wear it like armour and her plastic safety spectacles like a mask and she would become Miss Smith, Teacher of Physics and perfectly capable, thank you very much.
Leaving the science staffroom, she went to find her pigeon hole and collect her planner, flicking through its blank pages and marvelling at it. So very soon, it would be filled with lesson plans, reminders and mark sheets for students who were currently just names on a database system. In the staffroom, she bumped into the Deputy Head, Poe Dameron, sticking schedules for the day in pigeon holes.
"Nice to see you again, Rey," he greeted her with a warm smile. "Hope it's all going well so far."
"It's brilliant!" she replied with a wide smile. "Everything's so - so different from my previous school. It's all so clean and organised and - honestly, you have no idea how glad I am to be here!"
Poe laughed, a big, belly laugh. "And we're glad to have you on board with us. Sounds like the place you were at before wasn't so great."
Rey wrinkled her nose. "It was a dump. Behaviour was really bad and their discipline policy was awful. And senior management just didn't care."
"Bad luck," he murmured sympathetically. "Well, you'll find things very different round here. Our kids are really great and when there are problems, Leia and I have things locked down pretty tight. You'll get all the support you need. This is only your second year teaching, right?"
"Yes, I was an NQT last year. Not that I really got much mentoring."
Poe shook his head. "Mentoring new teachers is so important. If you're not going to do that, honestly, why are you in the job in the first place? Makes me so mad. You coming to the meeting? It's almost 9."
Rey nodded and they set off together for the hall and the start of the training day.
"Actually, you're really lucky you picked AGS to apply to. We're the only local authority controlled school left in Alderaan; all the rest belong to this multi-academy trust, the First Order, and trust me, you do not want to work for them."
"I know," said Rey, grimacing. "I live with Finn, you know, who came here from Starkiller Academy. He's told me all about them."
Poe's face lit up. "You're Finn's friend! Of course you are; that's how you came to apply in the first place. I remember now. And yeah, he was lucky to get out of their clutches and find a job here. Once you're in with them it's practically impossible to teach in Alderaan and not be in their power."
"You make them sound like the mob!" grinned Rey, her eyes darting everywhere as they walked down the main corridor, past display boards advertising musical clubs, sports teams, the dinner menu, student artwork and photos from school trips.
"You're not far off. Anyway, you'll hear enough about all that, I'm sure." He pushed open the door to the hall and gestured for her to precede him. They separated after that as Poe made his way to the front of the room, where his colleague, purple-haired Assistant Head Dr. Holdo, was connecting a laptop to the overhead projector. Rey hesitated on the threshold, nervous once more at the sight of so many unfamiliar faces, for she had not yet met most of the other teachers. Her palms began to sweat and she had to take several calming breaths. Surely Finn had arrived by now…
A hand stuck up in the air a few rows back and then her best friend and foster brother had stood up and was beckoning to her to join him. She rushed forwards with a relieved smile and sat down gratefully in the seat he had saved for her.
"You made it!" he exclaimed. "I started panicking when I didn't see you when I arrived. I mean, you should definitely have got here before me."
"I went to the lab and the staffroom first," she explained. "Picked this up." She indicated her planner with a touch of pride in her voice.
"Good for you, Peanut." He nudged her. "I'm so glad you're here and you're out of that dump you were at last year."
"Same for you. Another year free of Starkiller."
He gave an exaggerated shudder. "Never going back to that hellhole. Hey, you know what my friend who's still there texted me to say they have to do today?"
"No, what?"
"Biohazard training for two hours."
Rey snorted inelegantly. "Biohazard training? What the hell? Are they building a nuclear bomb over there?"
"I know, right? I mean, I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if they were but-"
"Shh. It's Leia."
The room was falling silent as the headmistress mounted the podium to begin her opening speech.
"Welcome to Alderaan Grammar School and to the start of a new academic year. It's lovely to see you all back and to welcome the new faces among you. I hope you all had a wonderful summer. We will start by reviewing the fantastic GCSE and A Level results that came out this August before we move onto our aims and objectives for the coming year."
Secondary school - school for children aged 11 (Year 7) to 18 (Year 13). Also called high school.
INSET - a day of staff training when no children come to school.
A Levels - exams taken by 18 year olds at the end of their school career.
GCSEs - exams taken by 16 year olds.
Sixth Form - the last two years of secondary school (Years 12 and 13). Students study for A Levels.
NQT - Newly Qualified Teacher, someone in their first year of teaching after their training.
Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think and come and find me on tumblr at: misscrawfords.