High School

Britain’s education system was still suffering from chaos in the early 1970s, with local authorities with the help of successive governments striving to abandon the post-war Tripartite system. The rejection of the concept and implementation of the tripartite education system started from as early as the late 1950s and has left a bitter legacy in Britain. Comprehensive education, though popular, was never fully implemented, resulting in a political struggle over the education system that continues today. Although, I sat and failed my 11+ exam (though did exceptionally well in my 13+), I was sent to a newly created comprehensive school some distance away from where I lived, as grammar / secondary modern schools had all but become moribund in my area.

My high school years lasted from 1973 to 1978. I left school at the age of 16, just as the Conservative Party was ushered into power in 1979 with a promise that they could cure the downward spiralling, economic ills of Britain with something called Monetarism. Sir Keith Joseph inspired Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the Conservative Party, to Monetarism, but Sir Keith fell out of favour due to his unfortunate views on eugenics. Britain’s economy was in poor shape during this time, with the country bankrupt, indicated by a much-needed loan from the IMF in 1976 and a series of strikes that came to be known as, ‘the winter of discontent’, which the Labour Party was unfairly blamed for. A popular Conservative slogan at this time was: Cheer Up The Conservatives Are Coming.

I was schooled in general subjects such as English, Maths, French, Metalwork, Woodwork, Tech’ Drawing, History, Geography, Science, Art etc, for the first three years of my high school. There was a certain amount of choice in the last two years of schooling, which was in preparation for the school leaving exams that I would eventually take, although, the inequality that existed in the Tripartite system still revealed itself, as my school only catered for C.S.E.s*, not G.C.E.s* (O / A-level)*. It was G.C.E.s, both Ordinary and Advanced that were needed for entry into university.

A typical day during my first year at high school was split up into four subjects, that is, four lessons a day, and the novelty of high school was that the students moved from classroom to classroom, not the teachers. Later on, particularly in the last three years, the day was split up into seven periods or rather seven lessons a day. We had registration first thing with our form tutor, a Mr. Gilmore, who was an annoying man from Marple, Cheshire, followed by collective worship usually with the headmaster or deputy headmaster and most of the teaching staff - though this never included the metal / wood work teachers. We had a break in the morning and afternoon for about fifteen minutes, and about an hour or so for lunch. Meals were served on the premises at a small cost and were a great improvement on what my junior school offered. There was a choice of cooked meals and sandwiches followed by a sweet. The school was newly built so the quality and standard was high, with a reasonable amount of resources. There was woodworking and metalworking rooms with several lathes, tech’ drawing tables, a drama studio with lighting, a gym including changing rooms and showers, various classrooms, science labs, a stage and a music room etc.
However, at the end of the first year disaster struck, as the school has been built with concrete beams that were deemed unsafe. The school was closed down for emergency repairs for a whole year and students were shipped out to various locations and received a sub-standard education. My year was shipped out to Peel House on Lancashire Hill, not too far from where I lived in Reddish. Peel House was wholly inadequate as a replacement and my school day was reduced to 10.00 am to 2.00pm - although, with hindsight, I see this now as less exposure to social conditioning rather than recieving less education.

Although, I do remember once the deputy headmaster unexpectedly telling a very adult joke in morning assembly - maybe he was hung over, I really don’t know why? I get the joke now (I’m over 21!), which I won’t repeat, but I remember at the time, he told the joke and every single kid at assembly looked puzzled and confused and the only two people to laugh were the Religious Education teacher and the very sexy, unmarried French teacher.

The teachers varied at the school from the more traditional and conservative, though few in numbers, to the more hip and trendy. A minority of the teachers had undertaken National Service in their youth, but some younger ones had come straight from university and lacked the experience and a certain maturity to deal with problems that came with working in a school on the lower end of the scale. Some of the teachers were simply a disgrace to their profession and should have been asked to leave, although, the 60s and 70s saw many non-committed teachers enter education. Too many of the teachers at my high school simply could not control a class and so little was ever taught. One maths teacher in particular had a nervous breakdown, but he was exceptionally useless. The PE teacher, however, delighted in handing out particularly vicious beatings to recalcitrant pupils.

During the 1970s many teachers wilfully abandoned their students and were too willing to go on strike alongside manual workers, which many have argued only resulted in the loss of any professional status teachers might have had. It was Max Morris, a committed communist and president of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), who’s combatant ideas using sanctions to force local education authorities to rise the pay of teachers, led a campaign for teachers to stop supervising such things as school dinners. Class teachers applied these types of sanctions with some alacrity, which was a foreboding sign of the shape of things to come. One of the long-term consequences of this was that numerous teachers left the NUT, which only served to strengthen the power of other unions representing teachers, thus sapping any power the NUT might have had.

In my last two years at school during the Christmas period, I worked on the lighting crew for the school pantomime. The first pantomime was called Once a Knight (originally entitled: Once a Night; until the headmaster stepped in), followed by Dracula Spectacular. They were the creation of the music teacher, whom I detested, and, a very hip, and trendy, but competent English teacher, who tried to push conventional boundaries back and engage students to think for themselves. Dracula Spectacular was my favourite, partly because I was in sole charge of the lead spotlight and it was the first time I every saw a girl in stockings and suspenders - not just any girl, but TM. a girl whom I admired from afar for two years. She played the part of ‘Super Teacher’, and like Superman or Wonder Woman before her, she would lose her regular clothes and reveal her new costume and super powers in time of need - it just so happened that her super powers required her to wear stockings!

From an Althusserian point of view, there was more social conditioning than academic education at my high school, which was deemed more important, presumably preparing fodder with the right consciousness for factories, though in reality factories were becoming extinct, as Britain’s manufacturing base dissolved, as world markets changed. Being late for school or for class - in preparation for arriving on work on time - was considered a major infraction of the rules. The dream of providing a comprehensive education for all in the early 70s remained very much a dream for many. The biggest flaw at my high school was that too many teachers had low expectations of their pupils from the start. To this day, I cannot understand why the music teacher didn’t’ teach music, why the French teacher didn’t teach French, why the metalwork teacher didn’t’ teach metalwork and why they were allowed to be negligent in their duty to teach - we would sit in their lessons while they busied themselves with irrelevant tasks. It was as if they were minding children, not educating them.

Later, when I was in more control of my life, and the education system had opened up and created more opportunities, I retuned and worked hard to get into university.

*CSE - Certificate of Secondary Education
*GCE = General Certificate of Education
*GCSE - General Certificate of Secondary Education
O-level - Ordinary
A-level - Advanced

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