"Nec valet a rat asinam"

Here's a picture of my old school. It was a bit more than a school for me: it was my home too-Dad was the caretaker

The above photo shows the first phase: one of three as the school expanded in a radical growth process that saw other local secondary schools close as the needs of an expanding population were addressed on huge sites. We moved there in 1962 just before a winter of epoch-making weather. Dad retired in 1979 having been part of the fabric of the place for 17 years.
It's tempting to look at Perry Common and assume that this huge enterprise represented everything that went wrong with education. It's tempting and it's inaccurate because far from it being a de-personalised education factory it was held together by a brilliant team of idealistic, inspirational and caring people many of whom would attract some pretty vicious labels in contemporary newspapers, ones I wouldn't use to line a ferret cage.
We had great profile in sport, superb dramatic productions, a high quality school orchestra and a range of outdoor activities, arts and debating societies were run by people who cared and were given space in which to help us develop and challenge. Aspirations were high and all of this was underpinned by a strong sense of identity and belonging. And guess what, it didn't work for everyone; things seldom do. There were pinch points: higher achievers by and large went to grammar schools arguably defeating a truly comprehensive ethos. For the 60's and the main part of the 70's jobs were easy to come by and academic shortfalls didn't remove employability. It was only later that the rapid shifts in the economic prosperity of the area and our City weighed heavily against hopes and aspirations. We had a Latin motto "Quod Possum Perfectium" (To the best ability) and it was chosen on the assumption that everyone had a key strength, a "something" they could develop. We were, although we didn't get it at the time, riding the wave of a post-war culture that had experienced crippling austerity, the re-drawing of nationhood and the re-definition of where power lay in complex societies.
I had a notification on Facebook Today from NewSchoolsNetwork who tell me that they're doing this

"Next week we'll be visiting the #BlackCountry as part of the New Schools Challenge - give us your views on education via our short School Survey."

Here it is:

 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wnPyCe2p6Y9A7Q__JFjrFLybg0HMcvJEm4hIUVBhPjQ/formResponse

.....and it seems to me at any rate to continue to reinforce that which doesn't work-or more accurately is perceived not to work. It's been around 11 years since I worked in Education on an employed basis. Here were some "folk rules" that emerged during the mid eighties onwards:

• If a school changes its name-it's in trouble
• If a school shortens its lunch-break-it's in trouble
• If a school publishes a new Behaviour Policy it's because the old one was perceived not to work-so it's in trouble.
• If a school changes its uniform it's in trouble
• If a school carries out a purging of long-established teachers who know their way around the community it's in trouble-but no where near as much trouble as it's going to be in soon....

The new schools network is, I guess a sad and inevitable outcome of the removal of Local Government as a significant partner in education and it appears that we have lost the inspirational voices that aligned themselves to the quality of the educational experience rather than a tightly focussed series of "run faster/jump higher educational outcomes" that by and large have little to do with generating confidence, flexibility and resilience.

And here's the rub. Our old motto was made to mean something to us-"Do your best, you'll feel better" (The mantra of self-help!) and it could now be replaced by "Nec valet a rat asinam" (Not worth a rat's arse): it's the how a number of my ex-colleague teachers feel (possibly worse) describes how our mercilessly vilified and too often abandoned kids feel about themselves.

A closing observation. I was taught history by the Deputy Head Teacher, Jimmy Conchar-a mercurial mind that was always up for a challenge. Our fierce debates about the outcomes of the Peace Treaty of Versailles and the causal relationship with the rise of Nazi Germany embraced the Scramble for Africa, The socio-economic conditions that inspired Marx, Engels and Dickens and the inevitable recognition that Eastern Europe was the coin to pay for 21 Million plus Soviet dead and at the same time ignored the pre-war Stalinist purges. This man's knowledge and eclectic mind taught us beyond facts: he taught us how to think. He would have no place in our contemporary world of measuring achievement and I'd like to think that he wouldn't want one.