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With Christine demoted a new head teacher arrives - Vaughan Fitzgerald, with his partner, art teacher Allie Westbrook and her children Tiffany and Floyd. Soon afterwards Olga, the unstable wife he left for Allie, arrives with their sons Leo and Justin. She is about to enter a psychiatric unit and dumps the boys on Vaughan. Leo is affable but Justin is hostile towards his father, picking a fight with Floyd and though he apologizes he is insincere and makes it clear he does not want to be at Waterloo Road. Returning from their cruise George dumps the mercenary Carol who gets revenge by posting pictures of his being sick on the ship on the Internet. Darren Hughes' mother dies of a drug overdose and he moves into the school house, prompting Vaughan to propose that the school forges stronger links with the community.

Vaughan encourages the students to offer their services to members of the community, a decision which leads Lisa and Shaznay to rob elderly Mr Carmichael of a vase which, unbeknown to them, contains his wife's ashes. He comes to the school insisting that they stole two thousand pounds but Vaughan realizes that he is as much a chancer as the girls. Simon's efforts to reconcile Floyd and Justin fail due to Justin's hate-filled recalcitrance and after a run-in with the boy George resigns, having scooped fifteen grand in compensation from the cruise company. Dynasty also leaves, to join the police, whilst Maggie discovers that Rhiannon, who had been a great comfort to Darren at his mother's funeral, is now having sex with him. She determines to put a stop to it.

Two young teachers - both probationers - arrive at the school; the correct geography teacher Marco D'Oliveira and flippant Guy Braxton, whose subject is graphics and art and who has trouble keeping order. Kind-hearted Lenny defends new pupil Carrie Norton against his bullying sister Lisa and dumb friend Shaznay but is shocked to see Carrie and Guy kissing and tells Vaughan. Carrie's mother then comes to the school and what she has to say surprises everybody. Meanwhile Bonnie inadvertently betrays Kenzie's secret and Christine's attempt to get out of girls' nights with Audrey by claiming that she is dating George backfires on her.

Whilst Maggie comforts Sonya over her cancer scare the PTA meets to discuss the proposed merger with Havelock High, Carrie's mother supporting it and bringing her up against Christine and Lorna. Homeless Guy tries to keep secret the fact that he is dossing in the school but is thrown a life-line by an unexpected source. Olga and Marco lead a field trip where Marco's dull, authoritarian approach leads to a sit-down protest and, separated from the others Kenzie, angry at Bonnie's betrayal of her, takes great pleasure in telling Justin and Scott that Bonnie has slept with them both. However when Bonnie has an accident and falls down a cliff differences must be put aside to help her.

The PTA group, led by the hostile Steph Norton, arrives at the school and Vaughan is anxious to make a good impression to prevent it being merged with Havelock High. Sadly things do not go to plan as the evil Lisa sabotages Marco's science lesson, injuring Carrie, Leo, obsessed with a computer game, trashes the library when Vaughan challenges him and an erotic book - written by Audrey - is read out loud. Bonnie admits to Lorna that she is receiving malicious texts whilst Sonya gets the results of her cancer test, leading to a misunderstanding.

Dale is desperate for a place in the national cycling team, starving himself to be the correct weight but this proves disastrous when he takes his trial. Abdul is baffled when his father Hassan is evasive regarding the family background for Abdul's genetic science project. He initially suspects that he may have a genetic disorder but is appalled to learn that he was adopted and his father never told him. Kenzie leaves home after rowing with her mother and Scott is an unexpected peace-maker whilst Leo agrees to help Bonnie trace her stalker but uses her computer to play his game, causing Olga to step in. Sonya tries to rectify her situation but somehow fails to do so.

Abdul reconciles with his father, who explains that his adoption was hurried and not quite legal, in order to get him out of a filthy orphanage. They plan to go away together but before they can do so Abdul receives devastating news. Dale goes off the rails now that he is out of the cycling team, taking Maggie's car for a joy ride with a terrified Lenny as his passenger. Kenzie finds both Justin and Scott literally fighting over her and decides to dump them both whilst Bonnie's persecution continues and things get worse between Olga and Leo. Sonya and Guy get close but she has still to tell the truth about her illness.

Now aware that Hassan bought him illegally Abdul meets his real mother Yasmeen and is charmed by her though Leo encourages him to be sympathetic to the man who brought him up as his son. Ultimately Abdul's loyalties are tested as he must decide with which of the two he wants to live. Dale goes from bad to worse and Lenny is suspicious when Maggie's car is found crashed into a tree and shocked to find his sister in bed with Dale. After Maggie finds cannabis in Dale's possession he gets stoned and climbs onto the school roof but loyal Lenny rescues him and makes him see sense. Christine cheers a depressed Marco leading to a date whilst Lorna is shadowed by a mystery man and Bonnie finds an unexpected ally in George. Between them they track down her tormentor - or so they believe.

Justin is expelled for cyber-bullying Bonnie but Kenzie believes he is innocent and has her own suspicions as to the culprit, leading to an accusation, an act of selflessness and the truth finally coming out. Lorna's estranged husband Rob turns up, anxious for reconciliation. He has a PR company and offers to help prevent the merger through a press campaign. This includes high-lighting Sonia's supposed cancer and she reluctantly agrees but comes clean at the press conference. An angry Rob rounds her whilst the revelation does the resistance to the merger no good.

Christine is shocked to find that Vaughan, already admitting defeat, cannot be bothered to attend the public consultation and argue against the schools' merger, so she decides that the pupils do the presentation. Rob shows his true colours when it becomes apparent that he has no interest in saving the school, only trying to bully Lorna into a reconciliation and he is arrested after assaulting Marco and locking him in a cupboard with Kenzie, who is due to lead the presentation. At the same time Darren accidentally makes a discovery proving that the take-over is not as beneficial as it first appears and involves private interests. Eventually Leo persuades Vaughan to turn up and take to the stage whilst the pupils lock the audience in as they put their case to keep Waterloo Road independent. Hopefully they will succeed. . .

Gerry is personally involved when the body of Martin Ackroyd, his first inspector when he joined CID, is discovered having been missing for thirty years. Prime suspects are former officers Bryant and McCabe, whom Ackroyd believed to be corrupt and are now involved with career criminal Dominic Chapman, as is Ackroyd's ex-superior Ronald Sainsbury who colludes with them to discredit Gerry. Gerry tracks down Tommy Naylor, another crook the dead man had in his sights and whom Bryant and McCabe unsuccessfully attempted to frame. Gerry decides to take the law into his own hands after his daughter Caitlin is threatened but this only makes him seem guilty of the murder in Sasha's eyes.

With evidence suggesting that his cosh was the murder weapon and a trumped-up assault claim from Sainsbury things look bleak for Gerry but DAC Strickland is sure of his innocence and lets him go. With dangerous men in pursuit Gerry goes on the run with Danny, to whom he relates that Ackroyd was as corrupt as any of the other suspects and was in Chapman's pay. They call on Tommy Naylor, who directs them towards honest Ted Case, another retired officer and he gives them evidence of Ackroyd's involvement with Chapman. This in turn leads Gerry back to Bryant and McCabe and arrests are made, followed by recrimination, chicanery, a funeral and a departure.

When the recently deceased pathologist Dr Hatton's findings are discredited the team looks into the 2005 drowning in his bath of cricketer AJ Da Silva, a suicide according to Hatton though AJ's father and brother are convinced he was murdered. Ted learns from coach Keith Ainsworth and former captain Ryan Reed that AJ was thoroughly disliked by the other cricketers in his side as an arrogant, drunken womaniser. In fact his affair with a team mate's wife was held responsible for the man's suicide. After another person is found dead the key to AJ's demise is found to be match-fixing and its consequences and, the case solved, Ted springs a surprise on his colleagues.

In 1989 32-year old Charlie Hayes, a stock market trader, fell to his death, a presumed suicide, from his office building near Tower Bridge but a blow up photograph in a retrospective art exhibition reveals a background figure who pushed him.Cash-strapped Steve takes advantage of insider information as the team interviews Charlie's former girlfriend and colleagues, prime suspect being obnoxious Kevin Dodds, whom Charlie exposed as a rapist and the team brings him in. However the rape gives him an alibi for the murder and Danny and Steve discover that Charlie was sacrificed to prevent him disclosing certain anomalies within the company's trading.

In 2002 married Anna and Jim Briggs - who worked for a look-alike agency - were found dead in a supposed suicide pact. Now Anna's phone has been discovered, containing amorous texts to a mysterious lover. The team interviews other look alikes, including Anna's sister and professional rival, Lesley, and ex-soccer star Mikey Bishop, whom Jim impersonated and who says that he met Jim and found him harmless. They also find Mikey's wife Clara is over-protective of her husband as it becomes apparent that he was Anna's lover. a truly bizarre role reversal however proves the key to solving the murders of the two victims.

In 2011 private investigator Dave Hooper was murdered in his office, assumedly the victim of a botched robbery but now his secret notebook, written in shorthand, has come to light though ex-girlfriend Carmen Cresswell could not decipher it. Alison Downing hired Dave to pursue a thieving boyfriend Jason Sharp as did cancer victim Barry Warnock following the burglary of a rare stamp known as the Russian Cousin and worth £40,000. Consequently the progress of the stamp holds the key to the identity of Dave's killer.

Ted Case joins the team to reopen the murder of vicar Leonard Whitechurch, a white man with a black wife who was stabbed in 2006 after receiving racist hate mail. His widow Alicia tells them that his curate Wendy had a crush on him but she hung herself two years after his death. The poison pen letters are traced to ex-convict and white supremacist Kevin Duncan but Ted believes the motive to be more complicated than purely racial. Duncan admits he wrote the letters in revenge as the victim disapproved of his dating his daughter Sally but a revelation from Leonard's younger son Luke exposes a rift in the family and leads to the solution of the murder.

The 17 year old skeleton is unearthed of Cheryl Sheekey who disappeared after her pub quiz team syndicate won a fortune on the lottery. In the frame are the quiz team organizer Craig Bentham, his wife Lizzie, who suspected him of an affair with the dead woman, Cheryl's childhood friend Eleanor and her husband Terry, who squandered his winnings and is now on hard times, making him the prime suspect. The team must establish which, if any of them, killed Cheryl as well as trying to set Sasha up with a boyfriend.

A blood-stained bust uncovered in a graveyard links to the 2008 murder of alternative health practitioner Jason Henway. Angela Morris blamed him for taking her late mother Gwen off chemotherapy but had an alibi. Jason's business partner Evan Langley stood to gain but points the team towards Jason's brother Douglas, a doctor practising cryopreservation, keeping the clinically dead alive through low temperatures, since he left the business having quarrelled with his brother on his wife's death. As well as solving the murder the team must also deal with Sasha's departure when she is offered an appetizing promotion.

On New Year's Eve 1999 progressive mental health campaigner Greg Collins was murdered and now the discovery of his diary is found, chronicling his fear of his likely fate. The team interviews his colleagues including Toni Pembury, who tells them that Greg was battling a drugs company, and Samia Khan, now a peeress, who fell out with Greg after leaving his mental health charity to set up one of her own. Then they are ordered to halt the inquiry, supposedly in the wake of the mishandled Henway case. When Greg's journal goes missing they must work unofficially to solve his murder - and work fast since UCOS is threatened with being disbanded.

Allie starts a virtual baby scheme to teach pupils parenting skills but few of them take it seriously. One exception is Rhiannon, who confesses to the understanding Harley that she may be pregnant. Darren is less than sympathetic and, although the pregnancy test proves negative, she ends the relationship when she sees how shallow she is. She is consoled by Maggie, who suggests a career working with children. Carol stages a kitchen accident in the hopes of suing the school but is thwarted by Vaughan, who sacks her ,whilst Tiffany attempts to get through to Justin.

Gabriella Wark returns to school from therapy, a far gentler person, though she encounters general hostility from most of the staff and pupils, except Rhiannon and Allie's children, whom she invites to her house in her parents' absence. The vindictive Shaznay and Lisa alert dozens of students to the house and chaos ensues, with the two nasty girls trashing Gabriella's dead sister's room. A fight breaks out and Gabriella is knocked unconscious and falls into the swimming pool, from where she is rescued by Kacey. Sue and Hector are summoned and order the gate crashers to clear up the mess, appreciating that they have misjudged Gabriella, who is trying to improve, though they do end up kissing. So do Tiffany, who leaves the party early, and Justin, who has accompanied Vaughan and Leo to see Olga in hospital and wrongly assumes that his parents may reconcile.

Lenny Brown is studying hard for his mock exams but with no help from his controlling, idle sister and lacking self-confidence, he cracks up, spoiling his paper and having a panic attack. Matters are not helped when the projected exam grades are leaked, leading to a pupil walk-out led by Lisa but realizing that it is Lisa holding him back he returns to school to successfully resit his exam. Knowledge that Vaughan is paying Olga's medical bills causes another rift between Floyd and Justin. The latter is consoled by Tiffany, who ends up in bed with him whilst Hector pursues Sue to a health spa for further extra curricular activities.

Justin steps in to help Mickey McArthur, a grubby boy he sees shop-lifting but the boy repays him by stealing his wallet so Justin goes after him, leading to a fight. However the realization that there is urban poverty on his doorstep inspires Justin to open a food bank at the school. Sonya is entering a short story competition but her trashy romance does not impress her colleagues so Christine suggests she write about something from experience. Meanwhile Kevin and Leo hack into the computer system of technology giant Wire Data and Floyd catches his sister kissing Justin. A love-lorn Hector invites himself to a dinner party the Lowsleys are giving for Vaughan and Allie but Sue asks him to leave.

Police descend on the school after Leo and Kevin have hacked into Wire Data's system, confiscating the computers and causing chaos. Company owner Jackson Whittaker arrives at the school and, after Kevin owns up, is set to prosecute, though Kevin has his own insurance policy which could land him a role in the organization. Under pressure from Floyd Tiffany tells her mother that she is sleeping with Justin whilst Christine is less than pleased to find her alcoholism the subject of Sonya's short story and Hector's advances lead Sue to suggest that she and Simon find work elsewhere.