The semester's starting at The Oaks boarding school, and at Discovery House eight students have to deal with running their own dorm. With Chris in love with his older brother Miles's ex-girlfriend Anya who has to help the new girl Bethan adjust while Staggsy and Drew pull every prank they can think of, what can go wrong?
Dignity goes out the window at Discovery House as everyone sucks up to Chris to convince him to become houseparent. Meanwhile, Tally's mom bails on her and sends her a present instead... the kind no one's allowed to know about.
A new pupil arrives in style on the back of a motorbike... but Jax is determined not to stay. She makes plans to get herself expelled, and starts by insulting the music teacher, Niamh. She marches into the staffroom demanding a coffee, takes possessions from her housemates, threatens to walk around the school stark naked and disrupts assembly. Eventually, she ends up before the school Disciplinary Board for endangering the life of a classmate. But does she get what she wants? Meanwhile, Chris is angry to discover that Miles is still two-timing Anya with his driving instructor Susie. When Miles fails his driving test, Chris hopes that the problem will go away, but, unaware, Anya buys more lessons for her love-rat boyfriend.
Anya decides to take driving lessons... from Susie. In the car, she discovers a tape that she had made for Miles, and realises what's been going on. She is heartbroken. Jax begins her punishment, helping in the creche, and is surprised to find Beans there too. When Beans is wrongfully accused of hitting one of his young charges, she is struck by the unfairness of the situation - she is the one trying to get into trouble, but he stands to be punished for something he didn't do. She sets out to clear his name. Chris enters a Young Journalist competition in the local paper, and interviews Tally about her famous mother. But Tally says more than she should, and when the article is published, she is horrified.
Jealous of Beans and music teacher Niamh's friendship, Jax writes an anonymous letter to the school newspaper accusing them of having an affair. As editor, Chris decides to publish, but Beans is very angry, and determines to find the accuser. Jax begins to feel guilty... Chris confesses to his father that he doesn't want to join the family firm of architects, but that he wants to become a journalist. Mr Silverstone is furious, and cuts off Chris's allowance. As neither of them has any family plans for the weekend, Tally takes Bethan riding. But Bethan has never been on a horse before.
Bethan is caught crying. Drew and Staggsy try to find the cause of Bethan's unhappiness, and finds a whole stash of letters that she's written to her mum, but never posted. They also discover that her birthday is coming up, and the House decides to throw a surprise party. Beans is still mad at Jax, but Jax is determined to make amends. Eventually, Beans accepts Jax's apology, and they become firm friends. Meanwhile, Chris tries to tell Anya how he feels about her, but can't find the words. Bethan is delighted that her friends are celebrating her birthday - until she learns how they found out.
It's exam time. Tally tries to skive out of them by feigning illness, but doesn't fool deputy head Jan Roberts, who threatens to put her down a year unless Tally can show her a reason not to. So she ropes in her friends to help her make a film about her life at The Oaks. Staggsy and Drew are caught cheating. Grilling them about the episode, Jan Roberts realises that Drew can't read, and that Staggsy has been helping him. Anya isn't happy with her design and technology project, and in frustration smashes it. Chris thinks Miles destroyed the model, and reports him. Now they all have to face an investigation by the School Council - can Anya let Miles take the blame, or will she confess that it was her?
Chris has written a play for the school Drama Society. It stars Miles. To help Chris, Anya volunteers to be lighting director, but soon argues with Miles. She tells Chris she'll only continue if Miles apologises, so he arranges for them to meet. Miles soon talks Anya round, and they are back together. But Miles also tells her that Chris has a crush on her. Despite being grounded, Staggsy is determined to escape school and go to his sister's birthday party. Tally is organizing a beauty contest, which appals Jax and Beans, who decide to sabotage it...
Drew discovers that a homesick Staggsy has decided to go back to being a day boy, and feels angry and upset. Shy Bethan is selected to make a speech on behalf of Darwin Family at the inter family public speaking competition. Bethan is mortified. To help her, Beans suggests that she imagine the audience naked, and Jax challenges Beans to turn up naked. Will he? Bethan gets so upset that she runs away. Tally decides to do the speech in Bethan's place, but at the last minute Bethan turns up, and makes an emotional speech about her hero - her mother - who is dead.
In protest at the rule that says no pupil of the opposite sex should be in another's room after 9pm, and to prove that there is such a thing as a platonic relationship between boys and girls, Jax decides to move in with Beans. But what does Beans think of the arrangement? Now that her schoolmates know about Bethan's mum's death, they are treating her differently. Tally is determined to help her get over her grief by helping her to get a life... and a boyfriend. Meanwhile, Chris decides it's time to stop moping over Anya and get himself a girlfriend. Drew welcomes Damian as his new roommate - now it's Staggsy's turn to feel left out.
Jax calls Beans' bluff and pretends that she's in love with him. Embarrassed, he eventually tells her that he had only pretended to have a crush on her to get her out of his room. Can they still be friends? Chris drops design in favour of media studies, but Miles tells their father, who is furious. They have a terrible row, and Chris swears that he will no longer take any money from his father, not even for his school fees. However, Chris's relationship with Natasha is blossoming, much to Miles and Anya's annoyance. They ‘bump into' the other couple on a date, and there's another row. Damian drives a wedge even further between Drew and Staggsy.
Staggsy confronts Drew about his attitude, but Drew refuses to talk to him, believing he told the whole school about his dyslexia. Damian eggs them on to fight it out, and they agree to meet in the gym... It's two weeks until Bethan's athletics county trials, but she is unhappy with her performance. Her trainers are past it, but she won't replace them as they're her ‘lucky' trainers. Tally determines to help Bethan. Anya, whose parents are having financial difficulties, applies for the sixth form prize, but she makes Miles promise not to tell anyone. However, Chris too is secretly sitting for the prize, and only one of them can win. And Anya is growing increasingly jealous of Chris's relationship with Natasha.
As the sixth form prize exam begins, Chris and Anya realise that they are competing. It's only after Chris wins the prize that he discovers what it means to Anya - that she will have to leave the Oaks. So he swallows his pride, and his dreams of a career in journalism, and makes it up with his dad, leaving the prize to Anya. It's Miles's driving test - he's shocked to see that his ex-girlfriend Susie is the examiner. And as the country trials approach, Bethan is increasingly stressed. It doesn't help when they lose their driver to take them to the trials. Can Miles come to the rescue?
Half term is over already, but what a difference a week makes for the residents of Darwin House. Staggsy has recovered from his homesickness and is back as a boarder, and Bethan is sporting a trendy new image. Anya has decided to dump love-rat Miles in favour of his brother Chris, but a tabloid story reveals that Miles has already made other plans, in this case, joining some famous actress in New York. Have Chris's dreams of romance finally come true, you ask? Nope. As Chris and Anya begin to date, Chris notices that Anya goes to visit Miles before he leaves. He ends up believing she went there to get back together with him, and dumps her. Meanwhile, Tally becomes overly jealous of Bethan's new image and poses as her when a person comes to interview her. Bethan finds out and chaos begins.
It's election time at the Oaks and Anya is ready to win. But everyone else isn't too ready for her. It seems as if every time someone mentions Miles they always bring up her and laugh. Her opponent is a kid name Marcus who wowes the ladies with his charm and gets the guys green with envy. Then Drew and Staggsy decide to nominated a very reluctant Chris, which gets Anya in an even more sad predicament. She becomes extremely determined to win, even if it means cheating. Which may be her only way to win, thanks to her campaign manager Jax, whom after returning from Beans' house in Transylvania, becomes an absolute nuisance, and claims that Beans is so rich he has servants to do everything for him. In fact, she gets so out of hand that she tells everyone that Anya is trying to get rid of the cleaners and that kids will have to clean their own things. With this said, Anya fired Jax. Afterwards she went to talk to Chris, who automatically believed that she was trying to copy his essay. But
Cupid goes on a rampage at the Oaks on this episode. Staggsy's absolutely smitten with Bethan, and keeps trying to get her attention with strange things, like a tee shirt with his picture on it. Poor Tally, still quite jealous of Bethan, keeps going around trying to kiss people. On Anya's front, she keeps trying to avoid Chris, considering nearly all of their conversations end up in fights. But after practicing archery and putting their things away in the games shed, they accidentally lock themselves in. Chris can't get his cell phone to work and the only choice the two have is to talk everything out. That is, until Bethan finds them.
The new history teacher, Jason, has arrived to the Oaks, and Beans is less than happy. It seems as if Jason is always on his case. And as Jason assigns a report, Beans has other plans, in this case, by not doing the report at all. Instead he offers a full jazz performance (hence the title ""Swing Kids."") But even with all of this, Jason gives Beans a failing grade. And even worse he holds his guitar hostage. Meanwhile Drew and Staggsy, up to their old pranking selves again, decide to move an old car they find parked in the lot. However, their sweet joke turns very sour when it crashes. And guess who owns this car? None other than Jason. Drew and Staggsy immediately fled the scene after this happened, and Jason blamed Beans for it. He also threatened to break Beans' guitar. Beans tried to be a bit nicer and redid his report (actually typed this time.) Yet Jason still failed him. Beans couldn't even believe it and still Jason messed with Beans and his guitar. This angered Beans and he pun
It's parent's evening at the Oaks, and Drew's mum and dad have come over for a visit. Drew and Staggsy were serving hors d'oeuvres in two shirts they took from their new reluctant roommate Beans. It was then that Staggsy, while hiding behind Drew's mum and Jan Roberts, found out the unthinkable: Drew's parents were getting a divorce. Of course, Staggsy did not want to tell Drew, but in a pact they had signed that they would never withhold a secret from each other. Meanwhile, Drew finds out that Chris has been spending time with a woman named Simone. As the two go into town for pizza and pool, Chris leaves without Drew, and drops (i think) his wallet (or some kind of jewelry.) Drew jets off after him, and that's where he figures it out. Staggsy, caught between all of this confusion, decides not to tell Drew and just let his parents tell him when they take Drew to lunch. But then Drew asks Staggsy to come also.
Everyone in Darwin Family has been victim of vicious pranks!! A culprit comes and leaves cereals in beds, fruit salad in Bethan's shoes and ‘loser' written on Chris's head in permanent marker. Of course Drew and Staggsy are automatically blamed for this. But it is up to them to figure out the whodunit. They decide to have a stakeout to figure out who did it. They set nets to capture him and turn on a video camera. However it turns out that the person who had done it was acutally...gasp...Drew. He was sleepwalking--a thing that happens to young people when their parents decided to split. Meanwhile, Tally is failing Design class. She decides to keep the secret from Bethan and instead tells her than she and Daniel the design teacher are dating. Bethan finds this repulsive and tells Eddie, who then tells Daniel. Daniel tells Tally that she almost ruined his career. Bethan also tells Tally that if Tally weren't so jealous of her none of that would have happened.
Anya talks to Beans and confesses that after being dumped by both of the Silverstone brothers, she's created an imaginary boyfriend by the name of Felix Van Shellbeck. Her parents love him. No, we're not kidding. And when prize-giving evening comes around, Anya wants Beans to pose as her dear Felix. But of course, Beans's uniqueness causes the entire fiasco to be given away. Meanwhile, Staggsy enters one of Drew's paintings in the Oaks' art competition. The only problem is that he entered it under HIS name.
Pranks start up again in the house, and everyone gets one, with the exception of Anya. This makes her feel left out, and with the help of Jax, decides to TP the canteen. But she accidentally smashes a statue of the Oaks founder which was also in the canteen, on her way out. Of course the punishment for this is EXPULSION, something that Anya doesn't want to experience. But yet she didn't want to tell. Rumors are spread all around about the culprit, and no one even tried to suspect Anya. But as Jan Roberts demanded to know who it was, Anya immediately confessed. Then, Jax confessed. Soon afterwards, Chris, Drew, Staggsy, Bethan, and Tally also confessed, showing their support for Anya, in a traditional ""if-you-take-her-down-you-have-to-take-us-all"" way. Jan Roberts had no choice but to put the entire house on probation.
The punishment given to the Darwin family in the last episode put a strain on everyone, grounding them all for the weekend. It becomes way too much for Chris to bear, and ignoring the grounding, goes into town and gets drunk. Drew, extremely upset with something, goes to talk to Chris, but Chris, still drunk, says things to upset him, and then leaves. Drew gets mad and messes up his room. Chris finally realizes he was drunk, finds Drew in a church (?!?!) and apologizes. Then Drew tells him what bothered him so much: His father found a new girlfriend, and was moving to America.
The Oak's school poll results come in, Tally was awarded dumbest blonde, and Beans was awarded most eligible bachelor. Tally, convinced that image is everything is determained to change her look, Beans on the other hand is to full of himself, so he decides he needs a girlfriend. Chris decides he must do something to solve his problems with Anya, Will he leave the Darwin family?
Jan Roberts announced that the Founders day fireworks were going to be cancelled. After the announcement Drew and Staggsy are going to make sure those fireworks will go on-no matter what. Meanwhile, Beans has fallen for a lovely girl named Beatrice. The only question is will she get in the way of Beans and Jax's friendship. Anya finds out a way to reasign Chris to Magazine editor, the only thing is, if it doesn't work out the way she planed, she'll have to date Marcus!!!
Christmas is around the corner and The schools Karaoke contest is comming up.If the Darwin House does a good performance it might be enough to make Jan roberts let them off probation, but can they pick a song without getting in a fight? Meanwhile, Staggsy is worried that He and Drew will get caught for letting off the fireworks. Drew could care less about school, and he'll prove it, but his actions could be fatal.
The end of the term, has finally come. Bethan finds out tally isn't going to L.A. after all, she's staying at the Oaks for Christmas, and Bethan might too. Drew has been expelled for the fireworks, and Staggsy doesn't remember what happened to him on the tower. Drew can't say the words, He'll have to find out another way to tell Staggsy. Meanwhile the roads are closed and everyone is stuck, leaving time for the last goodbyes.