Hi there. If you’re reading this page, it’s because you’ve discovered that I resigned from my position at Kellett and disappeared from the school entirely sometime in the middle of June. This page will answer all of your questions (at least, to the extent that I have answers). To state the obvious, this is my version of events. It includes my opinions and theories based on everything that happened, some of which is speculative and even unprovable. I’m sure the school would relate some details differently and perhaps add a few more of their own. All I’m trying to do here is give an honest account of my personal experience of the events of the past six days, because I don’t want to have this conversation 37 different times with the people who are invariably going to want to know. So, without further ado, here’s an extremely verbose FAQ.

Q: What the fuck happened?

I got an email from Vicky sometime late in the afternoon on Friday, June 12th. It just said that Paul wants me to come by his office at 3:10.

Obviously, my immediate reaction is some mixture of confusion and terror. I am not aware of any reason that Paul would need to speak to me. My mind and my heart both start racing, and I try to stay calm. Part of this effort includes imagining non-terrifying reasons that Paul might want to talk to me. Eventually my desperate brain conjures one: Emma has just resigned, and the school is down a History/EPQ teacher for next year with limited time to find a replacement. He’s probably going to ask me if I want to take on any of that role next year, since I’ve only got a .6 part-time contract. (Oh, how I flatter myself.) I start running through that hypothetical conversation in my head, wondering what I should say if he asks me about this. (In the back of my head, though, I know that Joe would be the one asking me about this, not Paul, so this is probably wrong.)

It was definitely wrong. I entered Paul’s office to the sight of him, Joe, and Lorraine already seated at the conference table. I was invited to take the empty seat at the head.

Imagine, if you can, how you’d feel in that moment. I have absolutely no idea what this is about, yet simultaneously I know that I am fucked. It’s over. I’m done here.

Paul wastes little time on pleasantries and gets right to it: I’ve been accused of making several comments to different students that have made them feel uncomfortable. He describes two separate incidents, in both of which I’m accused of “mentioning a student’s bra.” He reads a bit of detail, hoping that I’ll know what he’s talking about. At this moment, however, I am in full panic-mode. My mind is blank, and I’m just sitting silently in the chair, listening, trying to process what is happening. I tell Paul that I don’t know what he’s talking about, struggling to produce any kind of thoughtful, coherent response.

Since I’m not able to muster a robust defense of myself, there’s not much more to the meeting. Paul says that I’m being suspended from work (with pay, mercifully) while they investigate these allegations. I am not to come to work on Monday, and I am forbidden from discussing this with anyone. I’m told to wait for an email from HR sometime during the day on Monday, informing me of a meeting on Tuesday that I will attend to follow up on this.

My sense of that initial meeting was one of confrontation and condemnation rather than investigation or inquiry. Though it was framed as a meeting to inform me of and perhaps discuss allegations made against me, the tenor from the beginning was more like that of an arraignment. This was not, “here are some things you are accused of doing - did you do these things?” It was, “here’s a list of things that you did. Why did you do these awful things?” I did not get the impression that I’d be able to explain or plead my way out of this. From the moment I walked into that office and saw those three identical unwavering, stern countenances, I knew that there was not going to be a happy ending to this story. They had already made up their minds, and I was done.

And then I had to live with that feeling for the entirety of the weekend. I lost sleep. That interaction was the last thing I thought about before I ever did manage to close my eyes and the first thing my mind returned to when I woke up. I rehearsed myriad imagined arguments with that stony-faced trio in practically every waking moment over the next two days… trying to figure out what they were talking about, trying to make sense of the utter seriousness of the situation with the (to my mind, at least) fairly mundane allegations against me, trying to imagine what I might say to regain some traction, some hope, some dignity.

I was at least able to recall one of the “mentioning a student’s bra” incidents in this sadistically long time between meetings - more on that in a moment. That incident, though, happened almost two months prior. The timing of the meeting only added to my confusion. As I sat with my incessant ruminations over the weekend I moved from disbelief to annoyance, now believing that I understood at least part of what I was being accused of, and that these accusations did not warrant the incredibly dramatic and, frankly, already punitive (they did this to me on a goddamn Friday afternoon, the villains) behavior of the administration.

I didn’t come to work on Monday, as I was instructed. This was not without its own problems, though, as the school didn’t really offer me sufficient guidance on how to manage this. Am I supposed to log it as an absence in the HR app? If so, what do I put in for my reason? (There’s no “I can’t come in because I’m being investigated” option - I checked.) I have a timetabled lesson on Monday. Am I supposed to set cover? Respond to emails? What’s worse, because I’m not allowed to tell anyone what’s going on, I now have to lie to several of my colleagues: Jenny (my morning taxi buddy), Stéphane (my line manager), and Leon (the cover scheduler). I try my best to do what I think I’m supposed to, so I put “sick leave” in the HR app, set cover for my Y9 Latin lesson that day, and keep an eye on my emails.

The school, of course, does not hold up its end of the deal. Monday passes - no email from HR. I finally reach out directly to Lorraine via WhatsApp at around 5 PM Monday evening. She says sorry, Paul wasn’t in, so they weren’t able to have a meeting. (Was anyone ever going to tell me this if I hadn’t asked?) She tries repeatedly to reach Paul via text, email, and phone, but he’s not responding. I have no instructions to follow now, so I ask Lorraine what to do, and she makes something up in the absence of official guidance. She tells me not to come to work again on Tuesday but be ready to come in for a meeting. So I put it another sick day into the app and lie to the aforementioned three people again about why I’m not coming to work.

Tuesday morning, I do get an email from HR. Paul is still unwell, but Lorraine and Joe will meet with me at 1. I put on some work-appropriate clothes and make my way to school for the meeting. It’s in the middle of a school day, lunchtime, so the first floor area is full of students. I try my best to dash into the HR office without anyone seeing me.

It’s difficult for me to convey in words just how incredibly anxious, afraid, embarrassed, and defeated I felt as I sat down for that meeting. I was quite certain that I would be fired, possibly within the next half hour. Still, when the meeting began, I led with the only thing I had to try to placate my superiors - an explanation of one of the “mentioning a student’s bra” incidents. (If you want to judge for yourself, here’s what I remember, and what I told Joe and Lorraine that day: It was Friday, April 24th. I know that because it was a Feel Good Friday, and I make a note of all of them in my planner, along with what colors to wear for the dress-down day. The colors for that day were pink and red. I don’t remember the student, but I remember the interaction: it was a science cover lesson, and as I was milling about, making sure the kids were doing their work, I overheard a female student say that she had forgotten to wear anything red or pink. Looking at her, I noticed (because it’s the first thing anyone would have noticed) that she had a florescent-pink bra on. It was clearly visible, uncovered as it was by the white tank-top she was wearing. I pointed out to her that, actually, she was wearing a pink bra. She paused and thought, and gave some sort of a nod, and said “true.” That was the entirety of the interaction. One can still make the argument - and I’m even amenable to it - that I should simply not have that interaction at all. Fine, fair. But that was the interaction, and it was two months prior to this meeting.)

The explanation went nowhere. Joe had some printed notes in front of him with all of the allegations written out, and he was flipping through them, clearly not all that familiar with what was in the documents. “No, that’s not what it says here…” he countered, only then to realize a moment later that he was in fact confused (bless him) and mixing up two different allegations. It didn’t matter anyway. I don’t know if the school had done more muck-raking (sorry, investigating) since the Friday meeting, but there were now many more things being thrown out at me, none of which was mentioned in the original meeting with Paul. This included the allegation that I had called one of my tutees “princess” - apparently this is egregious misconduct, regardless of context or circumstance, which were not given and I assume also not known. The nadir of the litany was surely the recitation that I had made a comment about a male student’s stature (“and he is short…” Joe confirmed). The allegations were coming faster than I could respond to them, and all of it presented to me now for the first time. I was completely unequipped to react and unable to mount any sort of defense other than to say, truthfully, that I don’t recall saying or doing much of what Joe had read out.

After a few minutes, maybe (I have no idea how long it was, actually, for time ceased to have any meaning), Joe and Lorraine had heard enough. They asked if I’d leave the room and wait in the reception area of Paul’s office while they conferred. I dutifully filed out of the room and sat on the couch. I’m not being dramatic when I say that sitting there on that couch was one of the loneliest, lowest moments of my life. I was at the mercy of the two people who had just spent the last however many minutes telling me what an irredeemably poor excuse for an employee I’d been. Again, I thought, I knew that I was fucked. I tried to be stoic, to breathe, to be present in the moment, but I struggled. Really I just felt a tremendous sense of despair, of foreboding.

Lorraine calls me back in. I can’t even imagine what a pitiable sight I was, trying to summon the energy to pick myself off of that couch and subject myself to yet more of this ordeal.