ARRIVING for another day at the office, Sophie turned on her computer and grabbed the anti-bac wipes with a grimace before frantically scrubbing her desk.
The lingering scent of her female manager’s berry vape – coupled with the blinds being pulled – meant she knew the secondary school office she worked at had played host to yet another booty call.
Sophie spent much time navigating her colleagues’ sex lives at work when working in student services (posed by a model)[/caption]
The headteacher’s on-duty hook-ups led to Sophie and many of her colleagues quitting their jobs (posed by models)[/caption]
But raising a complaint about such working conditions was not as easy as it sounded for Sophie or her colleagues – as the man her boss was sleeping with was actually the headteacher.
Shockingly, it wasn’t a problem unique to Sophie’s school either – as within a three-mile radius, in the last two years three other headteachers had been caught cheating on their partners with colleagues.
But while one had been thrown out of the marital home by his wife and the other suspended from his highly-paid post for six months, Sophie’s school seemed far more relaxed about the on-duty hook ups.
The mum-of-two had taken the job working in student services to help her youngest son settle in to secondary school.
But while employed to offer emotional and practical support for its 1,100 pupils, it seemed she spent much of her time navigating her colleagues’ complicated sex lives instead.
Sophie reveals: “I was often requested to call our resident nurse for help with injured or poorly students.
“But it became easier to tend to them myself – despite having no medical training – because the nurse kept answering the phone bawling her eyes out.
“She confessed she had been dumped by a PE teacher she had been sleeping with behind his fiancée’s back for several months, but he had now ghosted her.
“Her heartbreak over this shrew of a man left me stumped. How had he managed to get a fiancé and a mistress?
“It was 24 hours later that I got the answer, thanks to a year leader in her late twenties barrelling in to student services dressed like a children’s TV presenter on acid.
“She joyfully declared she had been up all night with the very same P.E teacher.
“Reading the surprise on my face she was quick to set me straight.
“He’s hung like a horse. No joke. Huge.
“I suggested she have a chat with the nurse and swap notes – or failing that perhaps chat with the man’s fiancée – but she reassured me she was happy to share as she was also having a fling with the school caretaker.”
Sleazy school trip
But while some of the teacher’s behaviour raised eyebrows, and often a knowing smile, it was the behaviour of the headteacher that had first set alarm bells ringing among staff – and led to Sophie and many of her colleagues quitting their jobs.
The first red flag came when her manager, who had just ditched her husband and undergone a significant glow-up, threw a class trip to Chessington into chaos by abandoning the children on the coach to travel privately with the headteacher in his car.
It was a flagrant abuse of power but more importantly a huge safeguarding breach because it reduced the pre-planned pupil-to-staff ratio for the journey.
Most mornings I would come to work and the office would be filled with the cloy mix of her vape and his cheap aftershave
Sophie
Yet despite a string of complaints being made, nothing was done.
It was the green light the pair needed, and within weeks it was clear Sophie’s manager was doing little other than working out how to have sex around her lover’s timetable.
When the pair were caught touching each other in his office by a seven-year-old student – who was delighted to share his discovery in the playground – the pair simply requested frosting for the head’s office window, on expenses.
When Sophie’s boss told her line manager she had to visit the head’s office for coffee because she didn’t like the instant available, he paid for a flashy coffee machine out of his own pocket to keep her at her desk – but she refused to drink it.
Sophie’s manager abandoned the children on the coach during a class trip to travel privately with the headteacher in his car, causing chaos (posed by models)[/caption]
‘It was all so inappropriate’
As the months went on, her behaviour became more brazen, and her outfits more risque, until she turned up for a Remembrance Sunday Parade with a poppy red bodycon mini-dress concealed under her conservative work suit.
“She was so pleased with her colour-coded nod to the occasion she couldn’t help but show off her concealed outfit, paired with lace stockings,” says Sophie.
“She wasn’t seen for the rest of the day until home time came and she returned to collect her handbag with flushed cheeks the same shade as her dress.
“By then, most mornings I would come to work and the office would be filled with the cloy mix of her vape and his cheap aftershave.
“The blinds were down even though the office only operated in daylight hours.
“My colleague, who she had confessed the affair to, would grimace too and we’d both wipe our desks down just in case they’d had sex on it.
“It was all so inappropriate. Their priorities should have been students, not sex, but middle management’s hands were tied because she was untouchable.
“Sleeping with the head had put her in a position of power and she knew it.”
The final straw
Sophie and her colleagues were baffled as to how the behaviour was allowed to continue when there was so much evidence to show the pair were having sex during school hours, on site, among 1,100 children.
With no other choice, many – including Sophie – were left with no choice but to resign in disgust.
“We just couldn’t understand how this was allowed to go on,” she says.
“Office affairs are one thing but having them in a school surrounded by children is a step too far and I ended up leaving because of it.
“Just weeks later the reason for the lack of discipline from higher up became clear, when the leading headteacher who had managed the complaints was pictured on social media arm-in-arm with another member of staff.
“Her resignation a few weeks earlier had shocked colleagues, and his wife was seen moving out of their home around the same time.”
- Names have been changed.
A seven-year-old caught Sophie’s manager and her lover touching each other in his office, before sharing his discovery in the playground[/caption]
