When Miss Clare reveals that Fairacre’s village school is 100 years old, it is decided that a special celebration is in order. Suggestions are rife, ranging from a tea party to an elaborate pageant. Miss Read not only has to deal with organising the pageant, but also has to deal with the skylight in the school building, which is leaking – again, and with the new infants’ teacher, Miss Briggs, attempting to inflict on the school her daft philosophical theories that she had learned at her recent teachers training college.