The staff at Waterloo Road had best get ready for some heated showdowns at parent's evenings as former Footballers’ Wives and EastEnders star Zöe Lucker is to join the show's cast as Carol Barry, the mastermind matriarch of a Liverpudlian crime family.  

With a brood of unruly little scallies in tow who look sure to get into plenty of mischief at the Scottish school, Lucker and her family's arrival will no doubt be the cause of more than a few raised eyebrows and packed after-school detention sessions up in Greenock.

The show will be Lucker’s first major television appearance since leaving Albert Square and the role of strong-willed businesswoman Vanessa Gold behind in October of last year. 

She said: "I'm delighted to join the cast of Waterloo Road and work with Shed and the BBC again. It's a show I've always enjoyed and I'm thrilled to be part of the outrageous Barry family.

"Carol and her kids are going to ruffle plenty of feathers in Waterloo Road- you can't trust them as far as you can throw them! They're a family of great characters - you just wouldn't want the Barrys in your neighbourhood!"

Well, quite. 

While the citizens of Greenock are currently being terrorized by the Scouse clan as the series is filmed, the rest of us will have to wait until 2013 to see their first appearances on the show.