Our eldest daughter has achieved a lot in a short time, She was Prime Minister (elected by her peers) of Liverpool Schools Parliament, she has spoken, on behalf of the youth of Liverpool at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, at a Youth conference in Portugal, she has chaired a Liverpool conference for Amnesty International. She gave a reading at the service when Mike Story became Lord Mayor. She worked for Liverpool Youth Service in her summer holidays as a “street mate” mentoring 8 to 12 year old children. She saved her wages to pay for a school trip to China.
She is an accomplished public speaker, being the runner up in “The Crystal Speaking Contest” a national public speaking contest. She was part of her school Debating Team that took part in debates organised by the English-Speaking Union. It was because of this that she was offered an exchange scholarship by the English-Speaking Union and has been attending a college in Canada since last September.
You may think these are just the boosting of a proud father and indeed they are, but there is a point to all this.
Recently she has been back in England, not just on holiday but because she auditioned for a part in a play. She did not realise at the time of auditioning that the reason the others were auditioning was that apart from being staged in Canada the play was doing a tour of England in March, playing in London Oxford and Warwick. This meant that she could spend sometime at home before returning to Canada.
Our daughter was excited about being home and wanted to share her Canadian experiences with the girls and teachers at her old school, she was Deputy Head Girl last year, so she paid a visit.
Now you would think that such an inspiring former pupil would be welcomed with open arms, not the case. The school receptionists would not let our daughter into the school. The reasons given were two-fold, first there was not a teacher available to escort her round the building and secondly she would have to be Criminal Record Checked before she could be allowed access to the girls and a CRB check would take weeks.
She asked to speak to the Principal; schools no longer have a Head, but was informed that he was not available. He is never available; I can honestly say I have never spoken to the man. He seemed to be embarrassed by parents of the girls from the old school as if speaking to a fee paying parent would some how effect his standing with the new school ethos.
I can understand why he is called the Principal as the Gaelic translation of his name is “Ugly Head’
Our daughter came home very upset at her treatment. She had been a pupil at the school for nine years, seven of those years as an independent school and the last two as an Academy. There could be a personality clash between our daughter and Uglyhead, our daughter has a personality and Uglyhead doesn’t.
What kind of a sick society have we produced that a former pupil cannot be allowed into her old school until some bureaucrat has decided she’s not a criminal? This has turned innocent until proved guilty on its head and it is hoped that the next government will address this.
Our daughters experience was entirely different to my own. At 19 I came back from my first round the world trip as a Photographer on a cruise ship. The Head Master of my old school, St. Swithins Secondary Modern, Gerry Kieron rang to invite me to visit the school and speak to the pupils about my experiences.
While it was an independent school our daughter’s school was the top performing girls school in Liverpool and one of the top schools in the country. The problem was money; there was not enough money to maintain the school and the school changed from an independent school to an Academy. When the plans to change were first suggested the Headmistress, who had been there for many years, decided to leave and take up a position with another school, she was Head Hunted. Many of the staff also left, some taking early retirement, while some went to other local schools. Lots of NQTs were brought in, newly qualified Teachers, they were cheaper to employ than the teachers they were replacing.
UglyHead was brought in, he is a manager, a bean counter, and his job was to change the ethos of the school, to turn it into an Academy. Education, Education, Education, that failed Labour mantra was the order of the day and 125 years of educational tradition was swept away. He has two male Deputy Principals and very few women in his management team. This is probably because his long-term aim is to turn the Academy in to a mixed school. Uglyhead does not approve of single sex schools, when all the research has shown that girls do better in a single sex environment. Boys will be admitted into the sixth form, and then after a short interval the school will become mixed.
At one meeting UglyHead stated that he had only “excluded two girls from the Academy, at his previous school, which was all boys, he was excluding two a week” that was supposed to reassure parents. In the previous nine years no girls had been excluded and very few were ever suspended.
More “local” girls were now attending the school was another success according to Uglyhead, that might be, but it is not local girls, rather girls who are now resident in the area attending the school. What rot, the school in question had been a day school for decades so all the pupils came from the “local” area. The real reason for the changes was political.
He also wants to introduce “vocational subjects” such as Hairdressing. This is after telling the Art Students, that Art was not a proper subject at the same time as telling them two weeks before their GCSEs they were “slacking”. That really helped lots of the girls to decide to take their A Levels elsewhere.
UglyHead also stated that the “ethnic minorities” were now represented in greater numbers than ever before. There was always a high number of children from ethnic groups which valued education and saw it as a privilege, not a right, to be able to attend a school that achieved good academic results. The school also had great success with special needs students. Far from being a fee-paying school, many of the girls were there on a bursary as an open access school places were awarded on academic potential rather than ability to pay, this was the major reason for the financial difficulties the school found its self in.
The library has been turned into a computer room, despite new computer rooms being built and large numbers of books have been disposed of. Before becoming an Academy one of the traditions was that the library fish were given names by the first years, the fish were always named after literary references, Heathcliff and Cathy one year Pride and Prejudice the next. On becoming an Academy this tradition was continued and the first year students named the fish Wayne and Colleen after those well-known authors.
By coincidence Wayne and Colleen, the authors not the fish, also attended my old school of St. Swithins, I wonder if the Rooney’s paid a visit to the Academy would a teacher be available to show them round or would they have to wait until they had been CRB checked?
The school also received a visit from Bury born Cherie Booth. During her speech Ms Booth told the assembled girls about her poverty stricken childhood in Liverpool. The great distance she had to walk to get to her school, as she could not afford the bus. You could see her school from were she lived, if it was not for the curve in the road, some walk. Even retiring Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle has questioned Cherie’s tales of her childhood poverty. Ms Booth went on to say how wonderful that the school was now an Academy it was open to all. It always was open to all with the ability to pass the entrance exam. That is why the Bursaries were available.
It is ironic that people who enjoyed a free Grammar School and University education are telling those presently in education what a great opportunity has been provided for them by the Labour Government, when in truth, had the same amount of money been given to the school, rather than spent on an Academy, an even better opportunity would have been on offer.
Results are falling, there are discipline problems and the school is no longer the top girls school. The standards have been sacrificed on the altar of equality and The Academy is well on the road to mediocrity.
As a parent I was prepared to put my money where my mouth was and invest in the future by spending my limited resources on education and encouraging hard work, personal social responsibility and creativity as I believed and continue to believe this was the best way I could support not only my children but play a part in shaping the world we live in. Ultimately I think what I am trying to say we all make choices and we have to live with the consequences of those choices.
This year is a general election year and I would encourage everyone, especially parents and young people, to really consider their vote as an investment in the future. My vote will be gained by the political party that can convince me it has the guts to act like a responsible parent and make hard choices, whether its about spending money, standards of behaviour or can best demonstrate leading by example. Sadly the choices are pretty limited and I suspect I am not the only one struggling with the issues of trust and belief in the whole political process. It would make life so much easier if there was a box on the ballot paper that said “None of the above!”
The views expressed are my personal views and not those of clickliverpool or its associates.
"It's a Wonderful Life"
(Thu 02/12)
TURN IT DOWN.
(Thu 11/11)
Do we need another Beatles book.
(Mon 11/10)
President or Pope, who is most welcome?
(Mon 16/08)
