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Tonya Walters is a Year 9 student at Waterloo Road High School, the daughter of Nicky Walters and sister of Preston.

Series 11[]

Tonya's life comes crashing down when the family are evicted from their house after failing to pay bills on time. Though her mother doesn't want anyone knowing their business, Tonya tells her classmates and the news spreads around the school quickly. She befriends Izzy Charles and they bunk off school together, rescuing some mice from a pet shop and setting them 'free' in a park before the police locate them and take them back to school.

Later in the series, after history teacher Neil Guthrie is horrible to Tonya about her chances of being elected school council representative for Year 9 (which she indeed loses to Shola Aku), Tonya becomes convinced that Neil has murdered his wife and buried her in his garden. Tonya and Dwayne Jackson break into Neil's garden and start to dig up the grass. They soon find a buried bone which they think confirms Tonya's suspicions, but Donte Charles and Neil catch them, and Neil explains that the bone is a ham hock that was buried by his neighbour's dog. He then confesses that his wife isn't actually dead and she just left him for his best friend and took their daughters, and he found it less humiliating to pretend to be bereaved than admit his wife left him.

In the next episode, Samia Choudhry catches Tonya attacking Steve Weever in the school toilets, and when Samia asks Tonya why, Tonya explains that Steve insulted her and rated her a 1 in a 'Hot or Not' group chat of the boys'. Samia, Tonya and the rest of the cheerleading team later protest against the group chat during a school basketball friendly match.

Series 12[]

Throughout this series, Tonya is shown to be good friends with Dwayne, and when he runs away from school and stows away in the luggage compartment of a bus, Tonya eventually reveals his location to his foster fathers Mike and Joe, who track him down and find him passed out rom dehydration in the luggage compartment.

Later in the series, Tonya is devastated after her brother Preston suffers a cardiac arrest caused by bulimia during a school charity run, and when she finds out that Myles Massey found Preston's lifeless body and ran on without trying to help him, she splats him in the face with a sausage roll and shouts at him.

Series 13[]

At the start of the series, Tonya is seen stealing from a shop until she is caught, but she escapes after new pupil Schuey Weever suddenly appears in the shop and helps her escape. Schuey then bundles Tonya onto a bus full of new pupils heading for Waterloo Road, before hijacking the bus and driving it to school himself.

Later, Tonya punches Schuey in the face for calling her a girl, and he lies that school caretaker Donte Charles did it, to hide the shame of being hit by a girl. Donte calls Schuey a scumbag and Schuey wants to get him back.

Tonya comes up with a plan to steal the bracelet of Izzy's that Izzy gave to Donte to fix. Tonya and Portia flood the bathrooms to distract Donte while Schuey and Tonya sneak into his office to look for it. Donte comes back into the office, and when he puts his coat down, Tonya steals the bracelet from his pocket. After discovering that the bracelet belonged to Izzy's late mother Chlo, Tonya returns the bracelet after bribing Schuey with a pair of flash trainers to give the bracelet back to her.

When Schuey discovers that the trainers are just one of many expensive things Tonya has in her stash of stolen goods, he says a mate of his can give a good price for the stash, and Tonya and Schuey become 'partners in crime'.

Towards the end of the series, Schuey asks Tonya to retrieve their stash of stolen goods as he has a buyer, but when she tries to get it out of her hiding place in a vent underneath the school's electric fuse box, she accidentally causes a school-wide power outage, and when Donte goes to investigate, he finds the entire stash. Schuey demands that Tonya either get the stash back or find another way to get him the £400 that he would have got for selling the stuff. Preston finds out and grabs Schuey up against a wall, threatening to call the police, but Schuey says that Tonya did all the stealing and would be the one on CCTV. The truth comes out about Schuey and Tonya's thievery after Preston is caught trying to steal the stash back for Schuey.

In the last episode of the series, Izzy, struggling to cope with the situation at home where the Walters are living with the Charleses due to having nowhere else to go, gets into a fight with Tonya, during which she rips open Tonya's bag and a pile of makeup products fall out, which Tonya claims are not hers. Tonya is accused of stealing again, but after her mother Nicky is run over by Schuey's father, Izzy tearfully confesses at the hospital that she planted the makeup in Tonya's bag to try to get her kicked out of the house, because of her struggles to cope with the overcrowdedness of the house.

Series 14[]

In Series 14 Episode 2, Tonya is devastated after the sudden death of her nan. She befriends new student Billy Savage after he comes across her moping in the stairwell and he encourages her to talk to her nan on her answerphone, as he does with his late mother.

In Series 14 Episode 3 Tonya tells Donte that she is suffering severe period pains and that Nicky thinks she is making them up to get off school. Donte gets her a doctor's appointment but when the doctor suggests prescribing Tonya the contraceptive pill, Nicky refuses to entertain the idea. Nicky later catches Tonya and Dwayne Jackson leaving the girls' toilets after Dwayne came in to help her when her pains flared up in class. Nicky and Tonya get into an argument when she accuses Tonya of sleeping with Dwayne, which is why she wanted the contraceptive pill.

In Series 14 Episode 4 Tonya doubles over in pain in the school corridor and she is taken to hospital by Nicky and Steve Savage. In the hospital Tonya is told that her symptoms are normal for a teenage girl but she believes she has endometriosis. She is prescribed some painkillers and when Nicky gives them to her, she apologises for not listening to her before and tells her that she will do everything she can to get Tonya the right diagnosis.

After he helps her get Nicky to care about her period pains, Tonya tells Donte that she wouldn't mind it if he proposed to Nicky. They get engaged in Series 14 Episode 5 after she proposes to him.

In Series 14 Episode 7, Dwayne admits to Tonya that he has a crush on her and they kiss in a cupboard in Nisha Chandra's classroom after a group of kids who are aware of their feelings for each other grab them and shut them in there. Dwayne and Tonya's relationship is short-lived however, as she immediately dumps him when she finds out that he let slip to the police about Preston punching Boz a few weeks earlier, leading to his wrongful arrest for Boz's murder.

Series 15[]

Quotes[]

  • "My mum's gonna kill me!" (first line)

  • "You've got one on your back and all. My nan calls them slag badges." (about Amy's tattoo)

  • "Who died and made you Marcus Rashford?"

  • "You don't get to do whatever you like just cos your mum died, you know."

  • "Ugh, tragic, both our parents are here now, there's no escape!"

  • Tonya: "We found your wife's bones! You buried her here! Did you kill her?"
  • Donte: "Tonya, that's enough!"
  • Tonya: "Look at it! First he said he had her cremated, then he buried her! And now we've found her!"

  • Tonya: "You don't know what he said about me! He called us a stoned ginger hamster!"
  • Samia: "Well he's Dean Weever's cousin, what do you expect? They're all scratters anyway."
  • Tonya: "He said I'm a 1 on the list."
  • Samia: "What list?"
  • Tonya: "Hot or Not. It's the group chat where the boys rate our looks."

  • "Just give them a chance to calm down. My mum's always saying she's gonna throw me out, but she never does."

  • "Yeah, gobbing off now, aren't you?! You're sick, everyone here hates you!"

  • Tonya: "Can you even drive?"
  • Schuey: "What do you think I'm doing?"

  • "We've been on the streets twice, thanks to my family letting us down. Donte didn't have to take us in. He did it because he's decent and he's caring. And no, he's not my dad. He's better than that."

  • "It's all kicking off with Kelly Jo and Mr Guthrie's kid!"

  • Izzy: "Why are you still doing that stupid voice?"
  • Shola: "I'm speaking French."
  • Tonya: "No, you're speaking stupid."

  • Tonya: "Yeah, well, I tried to get the stuff, but the power went out, and-"
  • Schuey: "Alright, let's go get it now."
  • Tonya: "No no no, we can't. Izzy's dad found it and now the police are involved."

  • "It's nothing to do wi' you! Just cos we share the same house doesn't mean we're a weird family, right? He isn't your brother!"

  • Tonya: "You're out of order, do you know that?!"
  • Izzy: "Me?"
  • Tonya: "First off, keeping it to yourself, second off, getting your auntie onto us like she's Childline or summat!"

  • Tonya: "Was it your mum?"
  • Billy: "How'd you know?"
  • Tonya: "She'd never let you come to school with your tie like that."

  • Billy: "You know people are staring at me?"
  • Tonya: "Yeah, cos you're new. And you're actually not that bad to look at."

  • "Preston's my brother. Honestly, he's not that cool. But it's cute that you think so."

  • Dwayne: "No, I know, I mean...I'm just...I'm sorry that it's happening to you. I'd hate to be a girl."
  • Tonya: "You wouldn't last five minutes with this pain. I've seen you scream over a paper cut."

  • Luca: (signing) "You're signing's terrible."
  • Tonya: "Terrible? I mean, he's defo talking about you, because I'm nailing it, so..."

  • "No. I'm going to see Portia, because she needs me and I'm a good friend."
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