Crap Education

Every morning a few hundred teenage boys each put on a black blazer with a purple, white and black badge on its pocket, grey trousers, white(ish) shirt and a purple and black striped tie, and made their way on foot, on a bicycle, or by bus, to Highbury County Grammar School. I was one of them.
In the first two years there, boys were also expected to wear a cap. This was a round cap segmented into purple and black quarters, with a black peak. No one did. They kept their cap in their pocket until nearing the school, so as to be seen wearing it only while walking in the gates.
My parents were proud of me in my school uniform, and insisted I wear my cap when going by bus to visit Auntie Hilda and Uncle Bill on Sunday afternoons. I was cross about this, and shrunk so no one saw me.
The other aspect of the uniform for the first two years there was short trousers. That was expected, and expected by parents too, when boys first wore long trousers they were ribbed by grandparents and uncles for presuming to enter the realms of adulthood.
A Martian came by doing a study of the human race, all he said was, ‘Dese peepol, dere crazy’, got in his spaceship and went home again. I begged him to take me with him but he said, ‘Nah’.
On the way to school groups of black-blazered boys would collect to walk to the school together, chatting about this and that.
This was a selection of the country’s top 25 per cent at the 11-plus exam, who had found themselves in that quartile as a result of getting good grades at the age of eleven.
It was only a selection of the 25 per cent, because others locally who passed the 11-plus chose to go instead to the newly-opened comprehensive school, Woodberry Down. The reason a particular 11-plus-passer chose one school over the other will have varied from case to case. My mother preferred me to go to Highbury because it was nearer, she did not believe in people having to travel far to school when that was not necessary.
In my year-group at the grammar school, not one boy, not a single one, went on to university (or none that I am aware of). That’s disgraceful isn’t it? Not one of the country’s top achiever’s in that year at their 11-plus exam found their way to a university. Yes it is disgraceful. It was not true of those who went to Woodberry Down, but was Highbury County Grammar.
The reason for this outrage was partly because of the way the school saw itself, as a kind of pastiche English public school, with a focus on sport, Latin and English history as the main things you needed in order to succeed in life – that and a colour-segmented cap. Each year was also streamed into three streams, with the bottom stream regarding themselves as not in the top 25 per cent at all.
In a true English public school it probably didn’t matter much if all you did was play cricket and wear a cap, as you had the parental influence, accent, and cultural sneer to sort you out, but we had none of those things.
And neither were most of the boys the slightest bit interested in cricket, or Latin, or English history for that matter, though I have developed a keen interest in British and European history since, but not of the sort we learned about at school.
The one sporting benefit that the school did impart, though, was that almost all the boys learned how to swim. This was because the school had a swimming pool, and there were swimming lessons twice a week. The pool was filled with cold water first thing Monday, then emptied on Wednesday evening and refilled with cold water again. Monday-morning and Thursday-morning lessons were in clear but icy-cold water – good for the public-school spirit – and those with a lesson on Wednesday afternoon found themselves splashing about in a warm murky silver-green gloop. But at least it was warm, by then.
Nearly all the boys learned to swim – one or two never did – though some, such as Micky, were only barely confident at it, see Cricked Neck.
As regards the academic education, although none went on to university, a few went to teacher’s training college and three were accepted at art college, though Les’s dad refused to allow him to go. Engineering, said Les’s dad, that’s the only sensible occupation, none of this arty-farty learning stuff, and Les’s dad was quite a forceful character. Les ended up spending his working life as a middle-manager in the offices of a pharmaceuticals company (Roche).
Of the other two accepted for art college one was me, and I only lasted there a year, and the other Barry, who became a lecturer at Salisbury College of Art (and so another bloody teacher) and a leading light in the Bournemouth theosophists.
While none for our year went on to university that was not true of every year. Peter Gilks, who was in the year behind me, went on to Manchester University to do maths; and for his working life he became . . . another bloody teacher.
Of the boys in the school, most were from families where the parents – usually just the father – had a working-class job. Some were from those who owned a small business, usually a shop, and then there were the Jews, making up round about a quarter or a third of the total. The Jews were of two types, some were the sons of parents who had escaped the Nazis, and others from longer-standing Jewish families whose grandparents or great-grandparents had as likely as not escaped from the Russians. Some of the Jews’ parents were in working-class jobs but most were in business of one sort or another, especially the German-accented ones. There were a handful of other immigrant children, a few Greek Cypriots and one or two Indians.
All in all, I think I came out of it better than I might have, my strongest subjects by far at school were art and maths, I sometimes wish I had gone on to do more of the maths, though for what? To become a teacher? Instead I have used maths – albeit not wildly complex maths – quite a lot in my work as a computer programmer, and I still do.
Yes, all-in-all pretty well, though I am convinced that was more in spite of the schooling than because of it.
And when Tory (or UKIP) MPs say they believe that the grammar school system should be re-introduced, I wonder why they so want to destroy the life chances of others such as me. They must be nasty, nasty, people.
Dave

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