Thursday 26.11.09 (Thanksgiving for you, if you're American, but not for me. Hope it was good.)
We rushed out through rush-hour traffic this evening to make it to H's school. It was the night where the school encourages sixteeen-year-olds to stay on after their compulsory stay expires. Oddly enough, it was at a school that we had never visited. H's school works in partnership with the boy's school up the road, so there we were at 5.59 trying to find somewhere to park. H is our youngest, so we won't have to do it again. Like nappies, it's not something I'm going to miss.
The school is an old one by Coventry standards. I found myself noticing things about it that I'm sure escape the pupils. There are some lovely remnents of the 1954 architecture and ethos. The school was one of the first comprihensives in the country and attempted to emulate the independent sector. Some of the steps are made of very large, hard stones, worn smooth by many feet, but not worn away. Above the stage in the hall is a plaster frieze in Grecian style with paired male and female figures. I wasn't able to work out who they represented. There are wooden plaques of the type seen in independent schools with the names of old boys who have achieved national sporting success. Perhaps thirty names in fifty years.
All of these things came to my notice because the talk was turgid. Twenty minutes of self aggrandising on the theme of how excellent the school is, in spite of the figures dictating that at best its results are just below the national average. The sixth formers who spoke were however, charming and beautiful to the extent that I had to wonder if they had been chosen as head boys and girls on the basis of those characteristics. We were warned, though we didn't know it at the time. Standing at the sides, a man next to us pointed out the high and wobbly staging, "Room up the back", he said. We declined, high and wobbly doesn't combine well with fat and clumsy I find. "Are you sure?" Mr Jovial continued, "He goes on a bit once he starts". We thought it was a bit of a mean comment. That was until the talk commenced. What I'm saying is, I have true admiration and respect for any boy who has been taught by that particular teacher. Even though the teacher prefers to call himself Director. Maybe especially so.
The scrum around the trestle tables commenced. Not selling cakes and plants, but futures. What can you do with this A Level, or that one? Teachers of the less popular or less respected subjects working hard to drum up support, English teachers barely visible. Pupils keen. A credit to their school. H looked a bit daunted, but in spite of encouragement from school, she's settled on College instead. More-or-less anyway. She'll apply to sixth form anyway, just in case she changes her mind between now and September. And why shouldn't she? A year when you're nearly sixteen is, after all, one-sixteenth of a lifetime. By the look on her scrunched up face, I think we can count on it that she won't be taking business studies, and given the lack of disguising this, she maybe shouldn't take up acting either.
In the middle of the night, I woke Nick up coming to bed. He expressed disappointment that I had not written in my blog that he and his team have won three gleaming national awards for their work on improving bus travel. Frankly, since I got myself in trouble for my early writing about not getting the specific box of Thorntons' Continental chocolates I wanted, I decided to lay off more than casual mentions of him. Last night, he said that it would be all right to write nice things about him. Ah, but this blog is all about me me me isn't it? I agreed to publish a list of one hundred things I like about him. It won't be hard, it will be mushy. I'm just saying, you might want to skip the next entry, that's all.
Title is a quote from memory from George Eliott's Middlemarch. Casabon makes me on a bad day look cheery. Back on the up.
No comments:
Post a Comment