Ministers imposed local lockdowns on Oldham on and off through 2020, in an attempt to quell the spread of disease. As a result, more face-to-face school hours were lost in the area than elsewhere in the country. Potts discovered that some children had begun riding around on the Greater Manchester tram network, using its free WiFi to do their homework. When that service was switched off, they moved to McDonald’s.
Then, as the pandemic abated, the cost of living crisis and rising inflation bore down on the same families. School attendance levels were poor. Some kids started turning up late, telling teachers they couldn’t afford to ride the bus. The school had to step in in the case of one exam-age pupil who had been working so many hours a week it broke the law.
But the jam kids presented a particular challenge. At first, the staff at Newman rang the parents of the students who had been turning up without lunch money, to investigate. Eventually, Potts decided the school would begin absorbing the cost of feeding the extra pupils, seating them in a separate classroom to avoid the indignity of the queue.
There is something reminiscent of military precision to Potts’s controlled demeanour. As he moves through Newman’s corridors, he orders children to tuck in their shirts or tie their shoelaces. His manner with the kids is not brusque but brisk, as if he is reminding them of a standard they’ve mutually agreed to uphold. In his office, I’d noticed a copy of Soul Fuel for Young Explorers, a best-selling, adventure-themed devotional written by the explorer Bear Grylls. Before he was a teacher, Potts was indeed briefly in the army and still serves as a volunteer cadet. He is a born problem-solver.