Free School in Nottingham

[LancsLad]

In a more mature society we would be better served by profiling individuals rather than examining them, and I think this is particularly true of individuals with AS who often have a very imbalanced skills set.

 

To support this idea I can kind of remember the summer holidays between primary and secondary school, I had more or less finished primary school suspended rightly so because of a violent attack on another pupil and my emotions were running high, without work to do I did some art stuff at home or whilst fishing possibly shop lifting the things needed to do it. I can then remeber going off to the Lake District walking and backpacking with a couple of mates and ending up at a YMCA centre for a time. One returning home I found out that my dad had entered some of this art work in the town shows art competiton, the largest town show in Europe at the time, and as such this would have been a couple a marquees filled with artwork. I am not sure if it was because he turned up with the stuff in my name but it was put in the open class and one item went on to win first prize. I can remember going to the presentation not through choice and the confusion of recieving a trophy and a cash prize which went into the family coffers which I felt good about we ate well for a few weeks, and I got a new fishing rod out of it for £35 at the time a lot of cash so the overall prize must have been good. The art work stayed on display in the town hall and i could not be bothered to go and collect it so don't know what happened can't remeber exactly what it was but can now remeber being in the town papers the flash gun being a real shock to me.

 

On going to secondary school, an old secondary modern, a school which had 7 sets in maths and english and whose top pupils at the time only sat CSE's O levels being deemed too difficult, I was placed in the bottom sets for everything. Part of this was I had been suspended at primary school when they did some tests to get an idea of abilities, and the presumption that anyone with previous behavioural problems must by nature be in the 'remedial' groups. I found this to be devestating to my confidence and for a time decided to accept my fate and that this school was not going to be a fresh start after all something my parents had said it should be.

 

I give this example in that it is easy for me to think of these as past times, but I suspect everything would pan out the same today. I would miss my SATS would have to endure similar types of stigmitisation. I can remember at this age being so confused and that the school system as the dominant force was manipulating my life and passing judgement on the person I am. I can remember thinking at least we have a subject called art to look forwards to. In reality the teacher didn't like anything I did, though I suspect I did some very good work. I can remeber putting so much into this crappy orange A4 exercise book and week after week getting 6 out of 10 with the odd 5. After about two months one of the lads in the class sensing my frustration which was boling over by running out of the lesson said look you always get the best mark out of the boys I looked at him blankly. This is funny looking back but from memory we had to go through a window and lifted all the classes homework books, he was right i always was top of the boys with my 6's interestingly besides one girl who had a run in with the teacher the lowest girl marks were 7 up to 9. From memory my parents came in to see the head teacher with the books and we got a change of teacher with the head of art taking over the class. I never got an appology those things didn't happen. The whole eppisode and issues with proving I should not be in the bottom sets as the work was far too easy led to me rejecting the concept of school for a bit. I unfortunatly as I also had such a bad experience of art I rejected that as well and i think my trophy was thrown into a lake. I can rememebr conciously saying to myself you have to hit the erase button in your head as this art stuff is too painfull. I did that for some years and forgot about it untill in my thirties my dad retold the story and at first I thought he was talking about my brother it was only when he said did I know where the trophy went that i can remeber throwing it into a place where there was no chance of changing my mind and getting it back, he showed me the press clipings to confirm it as well.

 

I use this story to support the concept of profiling over examinations and how the system dominates peoples lives. At that time in my school I had nothing to show to support who i was as a person, but was very much labeled as a problem. Within my year group of 170 my art achievement in the summer possibly would have been seen as pretty good given my age and adult competition but there was no recognition of it in the system. The same could be said of my best mate who was also in the remedial groups and deemed a failure in the school, a few months back I had watched on as he scored all the points in the schoolboy match at Wembley as part of the Challenge Cup day watched by about 70,000 people and broadcast live on BBC grandstand. I know he found it hard to take as well.

 

The system is based on the measurement of individuals based on 'academic' ability and has a concept of examination to do this. It is completely useless at recognising talent and being able to attatch gravitas to achievements in many areas of life. I can remember watching a documentry on Wayne Rooney which focused on using computer analysis to measure his spatial awareness, reaction speed, power and ability to predict the mental and physical outcomes of his oponents. Its conclusion is his abilities are best being described as being in line with the performance of a very high spec computer system and absoloutly at the pinical of human performance, but Wayne is still that thick Scouse rouge with a dumb girlfriend called Colleen. I know people who have worked on the design and landscaping of their property and this perception is not true, though they would agree they are not going to get 10 grade A's at GCSE. But rather they are quite sensitive shy souls who are very keen to learn and have their own opinions and want to express them, they are also very warm people and have time for the people working on the project. The point is who are we to pass judgement. In the case of Wayne Rooney the relevence of what he did at school has now passed and as such we turn to that other shallow measurement device in our society how much financially is he worth.

 

Surely the answer is to profile people as they move through life showing their achievements in whatever areas they opperate in. For me personally the summer I talked about would have had some value in such a system, instead because of the system I tried to eradicate my achievemnt from my life because there was no where for it to go. My mate in that class had a difficult time going to prison at one point in his life and saw himself as a failure. I can remember talking to him over a pint and saying how many people have experienced Wembley gasp at a brilliant side step as he burst through the line to run away score his second try and then kick the conversion in front of the posts aged 11? Strangely he did not really remember the event and I had a clearer picture of it than he did.

 

I can remeber as an assistant head of sixth form being one of the first people in this counrty to work with the ASDAN Youth Award Scheme in trying to create profiles for young adults, examination success being one part of it. I can remeber trying to get the idea into other schools and finding massive resistance. The source of all that resistance interestingly was from schools which were doing really well under the existing system which is in place today, with the exception of one area. These schools were often interested at using the system for the most able in their ranks who were trying to show mainly Oxford and Cambridge Colleges that their 'A' grade candidates had something extra. Interestingly they had no desire to implement the scheme at lower levels rather they though it had no value whatsoever. In other words we do not support a concept of profiling which might enable individuals to include other achievements to counterbalance lack of achievement in academic areas, rather profiling was only for the elite who had already gotten over the academic line. In truth the existing system is not simply flawed in some areas it stinks to the core!

 

Unfortunatly things are not changing because the majority of kids are simply average, that is the nature of average as a concept. Because of this parents have to support something which rewards average without giving it this status, rather it must be elevated. The problem for the majority of parents is they can no accept their kid is average at all. In my past i was a senoir grade qualifed cricket coach, and as such coached and managed regional teams and would be pleaded with by parents to go to clubs and look at their child. My response was unless they were playing at least two age groups above them and were making a significant contribution on a consistent basis it was not worth my time or petrol, parents can't take that sort of opinion. I would give in and turn up and 95% of the time my preconceptions were right only to be told they were on an off day. Interestingly out of my under 13 team there are currently three of the lads in the current county champions winning set up and one of the girls is in the England squad who I understand are World number one. And this is the problem with profiling at any age who makes the subjective judgements? There are people out there like me who would fairly place value on achievements where they are above or importantly well above average levels. Making such judgements in the right way, and this means being realistic and not inflating ego's would have massive impacts on the

self esteem of the individuals concerned. My experience is that often the most talented are very unasuming, confident in their own ability and would not talk about it unless you pushed them to do so. The problem is that the parents of average kids would all expect to have a bit of this action. They would want a profiling system to benefit their child and if it could not groupthink says undermine it, write a letter to the Daily Mail.

 

The sad reality is that the current system is undermining many individuals and not serving them. It is easy from a groupthink position to say well not everyone can be academically blessed, the system has after all to be proportionate and fair to the good kids. There might be a case in this, and it could be valid if the system looked at the broader landscape of achievement rather than have a narrow blinkered approach. When individuals are very capable in areas outside of these narrow 'academic' boundaries its not that the system doesn't recognise achievement it is far worse than that it can activly goes out and attacks ability for simply existing as an indicator that not all people are equal. I will finish with one very poignant example.

 

In that same period at school in year 7 as it is we had woodwork and were given a block of wood to saw, file, sand down and varnish to practice simple bench skills. Every other kid picked up any piece of wood, I can remember choosing one which had a very twisted grain structure, with the teacher saying take another one that will be very difficult to work with my reply, no this is the right one. All the other kids over a few lessons turned theirs to a person into totem poles, I sculpted mine influenced by some Venetian glass my mum owned and stood out by a mile. When it was finished my woodwork teacher smiled at me and said I think you should go and show that to your head of year. I turned up at her office and she looked at my work and asked me what we were supposed to do and what the other kids had done in the class I told her they had made totem poles. I was then told to follow her to the deputy heads office where she took my work inside and left me waiting in the corridor. When I was called in I was hit across my hands with a cane because in their opinion it was highly wrong what i had done and they used the word 'erotic' to describe my work. I returned to my woodwork teacher to return the piece very confused and he cried as I explained what had happened I can remeber him shaking and appologised for sending me to the head of year as it was his fault and he should of come with me as he wanted me to get a merit badge for what I had achieved. He did importanly tell me that they were so very wrong in what they did and that I should believe in my own talent. Dealing with the cane was easy I simply hit the erase button in my mind. For me the system was completely fucked up and I resolved to try and do something about it and become a teacher as a result. It also led me to try and support concepts other than examinations as a means of valuing kids. In truth i worked very hard in trying to change things, unfortunatly I am not sure ho much i really achieved if you look at where we are at today, more or less in the same place, though i doubt kids get hit for being talented but I might be wrong.

[chris54]

Some of that takes my back.

 

I went to a small, by today's standers, secondary modern which had, just renamed its self a comprehensive. There were 3 streams, A,B,C. In what we now refer to as years 10 & 11, C stream were the no hopers who were only at school because the government had newly raised the school leaving age to 16. The A stream did GCEs in English and Maths, the rest was CSEs. So to do a GCE in either English or Maths you had to be good at both. If you were outstanding at any subject, the school would enter you at GCE level but you had to pay the entrance fee. My parents payed for me to do GCE in Woodwork and Engineering Drawing. I passed both. (The examination board that was used, you passed or failed, nothing in between, and if you did fail, you never know by how much.)

I think I may have got Maths and Science give the chance but there was only so much my parents could afford.

 

There was no question of staying on at school post 16, That was only for the Grammar school kids.

If you did manage to Pass your 11plus and win a scholarship, you then had to find a Grammar school that would take you.

Grammar schools then were independent Fee paying school that would also take children funded by the LA. Two of my sisters passed their 11 plus but were not accepted by the local Grammar school, they came from the wrong sort of family?.

So Basically, in order to have even the faints chance of going to university, first you had to pass your 11 plus, then find a Grammar school that would take you.

As at the age of 11 I could not read or write, only realising in much later life that I am dyslexic, (It hadn't been invented when I was a child, I was Just thick). No chance for me.

No one I know ever gave the Idea of going to university a thought.

 

At the time I left school, there were jobs for every one, at least where I lived, even the C stream kids who left School on their 16 birthday walked straight into jobs.

 

I applied for and got an apprenticeship, a proper old fashioned 4 year apprenticeship. It was with the local electricity board. They took on 135 apprentices the year I joined. Much of the selection process was based on a series of test they set you.

 

I did well gaining distinctions in the engineering subjects I took. But I never capitalised on this, I still had the feeling that I was not clever enough to do more.

 

My educational experiences have left me with some strong views, I am totally opposed to any form of selective education for one thing.