Joe Casey is Deputy Headteacher at Waterloo Road High School, and also serves as Head of Modern Languages and the Safeguarding Lead.
Series 11[]
On the first day of term, Joe helps to support Danny Lewis after he is caught living in the school's boiler room and gets tackled to the ground by Joe's husband, police sergeant Mike Rutherford. After Danny is sent into the school's new Behavioural Unit (BU) after fighting with Dean Weever, Joe and fellow deputy head Lindon King clash over their respective styles in dealing with the situation, especially after Lindon calls the police after Danny and Dean are caught with weed.
At the end of the series, after Danny stabs Vinny McCullen, headteacher Kim Campbell resigns and endorses Joe as her successor, but LEA rep Erica Thorne offers the acting head role to Lindon instead, although in the end Lindon turns it down and Kim stays in the job.
Series 12[]
In Series 12, social worker Jamilah Omar gives Joe a letter for his and Mike's foster sons Dwayne and Zayne from their biological mother Lisa. Joe, who had just started making plans with Mike to adopt the boys and feared losing them, puts off telling them about the letter, even after Lisa herself turns up wanting to see the boys. Eventually, the boys steal the letter from Joe's office themselves after hearing about it from Myles Massey. Lisa is a recovering alcoholic, and as she has only been sober for three months, she and Joe agree that she is not ready to look after the boys full time, but they begin to see her on occasion.
Later in the series, Joe accidentally rips his trousers in front of an Ofsted inspector while kicking a football back to the pupils. He is forced to borrow a bright yellow pair of trousers from dinner lady Nicky Walters as a replacement, and after being mocked and laughed at by the pupils, Joe's stress over the Lisa, Dwayne and Zayne situation overcomes him and he snaps at a group of students in the red canteen before running out of the school in tears. Lindon goes after him and calms him down.
Series 13[]
In Series 13, Joe is briefly left in charge of the school when Kim and Lindon go to a meeting with Andrew Treneman and Serena-Michelle Davies about Waterloo Road potentially joining Lowry Community Academies academy trust. In the same episode, Joe's husband Mike is accused of inappropriate conduct with pupil Shola Aku when an innocent situation gets out of hand, and Mike and Joe fall out after Joe hands Shola's diary in to Kim after Amy finds it, and the contents of the diary are damning for Mike. Shola confesses the contents are made up, however.
In Series 13 Episode 4, Kim takes the day off to support her boyfriend Andrew Treneman after finding out he has cancer, leaving both Joe and Lindon in charge. Joe tells Nicky and Donte Charles that he wants them to start teaching life skills classes. Joe also ends up inviting Lindon round to his and Mike's house for dinner.
Later in the series, during inset day when the staff are at St Clements Academy for teacher training sessions, Serena-Michelle asks Joe what he thinks of the idea of joining the academy trust. Joe speaks highly of it, but when he asks Serena-Michelle what the catch is, he is concerned when she reveals that if the school struggles, the trust might bring in improvement teams or ask staff to reapply.
Series 14[]
In Series 14 Episode 1, Joe has been appointed acting headteacher following the departure of Kim the previous series. The trust sends in Steve Savage, headteacher of one of the other academies, to mentor him. Things get off to a terrible start when Joe brings the staff into their new 'staffroom' and they discover that it is a tiny cupboard-like space with no seating, and that the large fully-furnished staffroom that they saw when they first came to the new building is being refurbished into a charging hub for the students' tablets.
Amy Spratt confides in Joe about her financial troubles, and Joe offers to bump up her salary with a TLR payment, but she accidentally lets this slip to the rest of the staff, and there is uproar and Joe is soon accused of cronyism. He abates the staff by telling them that all of them are being offered these payments, but later has to tell them that it is not viable as the school is already way over budget.
There is further uproar among the staff when Joe suspends Neil Guthrie for restraining Dean on the floor after Dean tried to punch him. As the staff protest at Joe again, he escapes into a lift, which promptly gets stuck between floors. Neil sarcastically labels this a 'serious access issue', and he and the staff close the school 'for safety' and walk out, leaving Joe stuck in the lift. Joe proceeds to have a mental breakdown in the lift, and is in a defeatist daze when Donte finally shows up and lets him out.
Later in the pub, Joe tells the staff that he has stepped down as acting head and the process of finding a replacement has begun, before Steve takes him to one side and confides in him that he himself has been appointed as headteacher of Waterloo Road. Joe stays on as Steve's deputy.
In Episode 2, Joe and Steve quickly clash over Steve's methods, when Steve orders a full bag search of the students after spotting known drug dealer Carla Duggan at the school gates. When Joe finds a stash of class A drugs hidden above a ceiling tile in the disabled toilets and they are found to have been given to Mog Richardson by Carla, Steve comes up with the idea of Mog arranging to meet Carla and secretly bringing him with her to confront the dealer, of which Joe completely disapproves.
In Episode 6, Joe attempts to investigate Boz Osbourne's disappearance, but Steve shuts him down and fobs him off until Mike says that it should have been taken more seriously and declares it a police matter. When Schuey Weever tells Joe that he was supposed to meet Boz on the towpath on the night he was last seen, Joe tells Mike, and the police go down to the towpath and find Boz's body in the canal. Joe is stunned when Mike comes into school to inform him and Steve of this. Later, Mike phones Joe from the canal, telling him that police investigations have discovered that Boz crashed his bike and landed in some bushes, and the fact that his body somehow ended up in the canal makes it look like his death was not an accident.
Series 15[]
Quotes[]
- "Go down the ramp and not the steps, yeah? Ooh, careful guys, sorry. Morning, morning." (first line)
- "That is a vulnerable kid in there with no family support. If their teacher uses fear, intimidation and bullying, then we cannot complain when they do the same thing!"
- Valerie: "Danny. Uh, no complaints so far, he irons his uniform, and makes his bed. I'm even teaching him a bit of guitar."
- Joe: "Val, I can't even get mine to flush the toilet. I know. You've struck gold, my friend."
- "Wendy is warming to the dog."
- "Sorry, I feel like I'm just being negative. It's clearly been made by someone who really loves Chlo, and that's...are you alright?"
- "Mike, they've been moved from place to place for eight years, they need stability!"
- "Nothing, just, you know...nice to have you around...even if you're not in uniform."
- Jamila: "You han't told 'em? Oh come on, it's their mum!"
- Joe: "Yes I know, but I can't just let her wade in and play happy families and then just let 'em down, it's not fair."
- "Yeah, laugh it up, Gen Z. Right, this guy used to be able to pull a hundred-metre wheelie! Look at that!"
- "Yeah, well, uh, Miss Whitwell is actually head of biscuits, so if you just wanna head through to the office there, she'll sort you out, and Mr King'll be right with you."
- Mike: "I heard you've been flashing students, you filthy animal!"
- Joe: "Uh, yep. And now I'm wearing Nicky Walters's cast-off sweat pants."
- "Alright, SHUT UP! Well, is this all just a joke to you, is it? You think that you can just do whatever the hell you want, what, because I have a laugh with you, you can just get away with it? Am I-am I-am I just a joke?! Hey? Right, well, today actually means something to the teachers who put the hours in! Who fight your corner, despite all the crap that you throw at us! And all we ask is that you treat us with a shred of dignity and respect! That you treat us like bloody human beings!"
- "Oh, you're not gonna clear that up? No. Right. Like a couple of foxes."
- Joe: "Leadership is a chance to turn heartbreak into opportunity, and disappointment...into hope."
- Preston: "Chill out, Braveheart."
- Joe: "Uh, Kim is not with us today, so uh, I - well, myself and Lindon will be running things."
- Nicky: "Check out Ant and Dec over there."
- "No it didn't. She has made some great leaps today. Before the whole...well, catfight thing."
- Joe: "Honestly? Uh, what's the catch?"
- Serena-Michelle: "Sorry?"
- Joe: "Well...shorter hours, better resources, I mean, even the biccies in the staffroom. When do we have to hand over our first-born?"
- "We are like Batman and Robin, me and him. We're gonna be fine."
- "Just, hey, go easy on the pizza, you, right? Save some for everybody else. Honestly. Slices are going down like a homesick mole."
- "Change is never easy. We're used to things the way they've been, and it's scary to jump into something new, but we can make that leap together. And it's sad to say goodbye to Miss Campbell, or Mrs Treneman, as she's now known, but I am so proud to be stood here as your new acting head. It's my hope in our new building we can create an environment that fosters curiosity, exploration and respect. Together, we can do great things at the new Waterloo Road Academy, and I know - oh!"
- "Come on. Come on! Come on, just get me out of the lift - this is absolutely ridiculous! Who made this lift?! Who - it don't even have a brand, course it don't have a brand. Because they don't...don't...come on!"
- Schuey: "Get a load of the new TA! Thinks we have to do what he says."
- Joe: "Oh, yeah. Mr Savage? He's your new headteacher, Weever."
- Joe: "Careful what you wish for. Right, this? It's not an easy job."
- Coral: "Well, you manage it, how hard can it be? Well, I say you manage it - you didn't really cope with the headship, did you? Sorry. I can be a right cow when I'm nervous."
- Joe: "Mm. You nervous every day?"
- "I'm sure Mr Savage won't be long. Yeah, it's the lot of a headteacher, there's always something waiting round the corner, just dragging you away."
- "I-actu-I've got a-I've got a class. D'you wanna come and watch me educate some yute?"