“Your son is frankly just not academic material”.
The sentence took but a few seconds to utter, burned deep, and had a profound impact, both on my mother who saw the inaccuracy of the judgement and me who lived with it for decades afterwards.
I was just 11 and that careful, considered assessment of me, by Ms. Reeves in a classroom in Edmund Waller School would play out with the inevitable fail at the 11 plus and five years in a secondary modern school, with all of the others, who the selection system also judged also runs.
It didn’t scar me for life, but I must admit that during the next 35 years that I taught in inner city comprehensive schools I never quite thought I belonged on the teaching staff. It was a feeling underlined by the fact that in the first few years, I was the only “secondary modern” lad on the staff.
And so, to the point, which is of course that no child should be written off at 11, by an educational system which was predicated on the idea that most children were not academic and should be directed to something less challenging.
That said many secondary modern schools offered public examinations and while their records might not surpass neighbouring grammar schools they held their own.
At which point I could continue in the same vein, but instead I will indulge myself with an outrageous bout of self-promotion.
For tomorrow, sees the publication of the book on Didsbury's pubs and bars written with Peter Topping. It is my ninth book, with a tenth waiting in the wings to go to press.
The first which was a study of a small rural community on the edge of Manchester during the Industrial Revolution was published by the History Press in 2012, and was followed by Manchester Remembering 1914-18 five years later.
In between the first book and today, there have been another seven, written in collaboration with Peter Topping, of which the latest is out tomorrow, leaving me just to sign off the manuscript for the tenth book which was commissioned by a children’s charity as part of the commemorations for their 150th anniversary.
I don’t pretend that I am anything special, there are after all plenty of people who have begun writing or painting in later life, and their work stands equal to the professional authors and artists.
So that is it …………. Everyone should have their fifteen minutes of fame, and when that is over another fifteen and then as many as it takes to get to morning.
I was just 11 and that careful, considered assessment of me, by Ms. Reeves in a classroom in Edmund Waller School would play out with the inevitable fail at the 11 plus and five years in a secondary modern school, with all of the others, who the selection system also judged also runs.
It didn’t scar me for life, but I must admit that during the next 35 years that I taught in inner city comprehensive schools I never quite thought I belonged on the teaching staff. It was a feeling underlined by the fact that in the first few years, I was the only “secondary modern” lad on the staff.
And so, to the point, which is of course that no child should be written off at 11, by an educational system which was predicated on the idea that most children were not academic and should be directed to something less challenging.
That said many secondary modern schools offered public examinations and while their records might not surpass neighbouring grammar schools they held their own.
At which point I could continue in the same vein, but instead I will indulge myself with an outrageous bout of self-promotion.
For tomorrow, sees the publication of the book on Didsbury's pubs and bars written with Peter Topping. It is my ninth book, with a tenth waiting in the wings to go to press.
In between the first book and today, there have been another seven, written in collaboration with Peter Topping, of which the latest is out tomorrow, leaving me just to sign off the manuscript for the tenth book which was commissioned by a children’s charity as part of the commemorations for their 150th anniversary.
I don’t pretend that I am anything special, there are after all plenty of people who have begun writing or painting in later life, and their work stands equal to the professional authors and artists.
So that is it …………. Everyone should have their fifteen minutes of fame, and when that is over another fifteen and then as many as it takes to get to morning.
Well said Andrew. An excellent Blog post.
ReplyDeleteThank you Peter
ReplyDelete