Remember the days of the old school yard?

THEY say you should never go back. Well, I’m glad I just did. What a pleasure it was to attend the open day at Dale Community Primary School, Normanton, held as part of the celebrations to mark the school’s 100th birthday.
I was at Dale between January 1974 and July 1980, and with many talented teachers who made lessons fun and inspiring, we looked forward to each new day. Without doubt, it was the happiest time of my childhood.
On this open day there were lots of reminiscences about our wonderful headmistress, Miss Clarke, and her colleagues. Of course, there was sadness as we remembered those who’ve passed away, but mostly there was joy at meeting familiar faces from the past, and making the acquaintance of former pupils from other eras.
Barbara Brocklehurst, now one of Dale’s teaching assistants, used to be a “mum at the school gate” when I was little and it was good to catch up with her. And I was so pleased to be reunited with Mrs Bowen, one of Miss Clarke’s deputies, without whom the annual summer fairs just wouldn’t have been the same.
It was also lovely to have a good long chat with Mrs Fox, who, together with Mrs Salmon, helped to run the school like clockwork. Together we looked at old photographs gathered by former staff and pupils, and by Living Derby. We shared memories of some of my favourite teachers like Mrs Smith, Miss Roberts, Mrs Wilson and Mr Odell.
Mrs Fox’s most important task, as far as the children were concerned, was taking care of our bumps and scrapes. She was always there with a comforting word and a kind smile and, of course, a dab of “magic” – tincture of iodine. It stung like crazy, but we all wore our yellow-stained skinned knees with pride. No school year would be complete without a few visits to Mrs Fox’s room.
Ian McMahon was there, as always. He joined Dale when I was in the third year of juniors, right at the beginning of his teaching career. The driving force behind much of the school’s sporting success, he also happens to be a darned good teacher and, during the day, was the butt of quite a few jokes; a sure sign of respect and affection. Present-day Dale pupils were fascinated with tales of his platform shoes. Well, sad to say, I am old enough to remember their debut at a school disco about 1979.
Accompanied by current headteacher Linda Sullivan, I took a tour of the school. Going back into those little classrooms, almost 28 years to the day since I last walked through the gates, was certainly an emotional experience; but it was also fascinating. There’s a new dining room and hall; an old hall divided into classrooms; blackboards replaced by interactive white boards; and even indoor plumbing.
But it was the similarities that struck me most. There’s no doubt that formal education is taken very seriously at Dale, but still evident among present-day staff and pupils is that sense of shaping a new generation of young people, socially as well as intellectually.
And that balancing act can be no mean feat. The school’s catchment area has never been one of Derby’s wealthiest, and many of its pupils come from homes where English is a second language. But Dale always provided its own very close community and continues to do so. It’s a happy school, and it was a delight to go back. I hope it won’t have been for the last time.
Living Derby is helping Dale compile a book to mark the centenary and encourage anyone with memories or photographs of their days there to get in touch. They can be contacted through the school, or by emailing info@livingderby.com.

ENDS

A degree of uncertainty?

Is someone trying to tell me something? In the last week I’ve received no fewer than four e-mails from educational establishments offering the “degree you’ve always deserved”. How do they know I deserve one? Or, for that matter, that I don’t already have one?
As it happens I was one of only four of our 40-strong sixth form not to opt for uni. I’d had enough of lectures and essays and attempting to cram 200 years of British and European history for a three-hour exam. Subsequently, I’ve gone through life degree-free and perfectly happy.
Until, that is, all these e-mails arrived. When four different universities declare you have “unfulfilled potential”, and offer courses especially tailored to the “requirements of the mature working person”, you just have to take a closer look.
But what course might I choose? I got a decent pass at A-level geography, and so began there. Now, come on don’t laugh, there’s much more to it than pointing out Dar es Salaam on a map. As it happened the universities were similarly unimpressed: not one offered any such degree.
The point I’d missed, of course, was that what these universities have in common – aside from having no campuses other than a computer server (that alone should probably have alerted me) – is that they offer “Life Experience” degrees based on the knowledge you already have.
I began to consider my own great bank of accumulated knowledge.
What kind of degree could I get? The history of Star Trek? Shopping telly? The long-term psychological effects of supporting Derby County? Unfortunately, none of these options were on offer, so I turned to the find-your-degree guide.
It turned out that five years of Sunday School entitled me to a bachelor’s in Bible studies. And successfully balancing my cheque book for the last 20 years should see me all right for a doctorate in economics. OK, it took me two attempts to pass my O-level, but I’ve never failed a maths test since.
But I was a little concerned by the reassurance that I had “worked for this degree no less than someone who sat in a classroom”. I mean, there wasn’t even an examination to pass. These degrees were intended for someone in search of an ego boost. Someone who felt they deserved recognition.
And recognition, of course, comes at a price. Although the precise cost was not readily displayed on any of the websites.
I wondered, then, other than providing that ego massage, what use a phoney degree might be. Despite assurances that I could include it on my CV, business card, passport or any other official document I fill out, surely doing so might well prove fraudulent?
Indeed, a quick internet surf revealed a story about several New York City fire fighters who were arrested for purchasing bogus diplomas in order to earn promotions; and another report that several on-line universities were shut down some years ago when it was discovered that hundreds of unqualified people in the US and UK had used their fake qualifications to get jobs as computer experts and, even more worryingly, as teachers.
With fake degrees available to anyone with access to the internet and a credit card, where could it end? With people walking around giving out medical advice based only on ten years of watching Casualty? The mind surely boggles.
Personally I think my ego’s content to go on acquiring the random bits of trivia that occupy my brain and not worry about a degree. It seems to have worked so far. It’s what they used to call the University of Life.

The trauma of the Nativity Play

PICTURE the scene. There is a frisson in the air. The nervous chatter of anxious parents hums through the assembly hall. Out of sight, teachers make last-minute adjustments to swaddling bands, and halos are straightened. Yes, it’s that annual ritual of triumphs, tears and tinsel, Little Donkeys and dropped Baby Jesuses – the school Nativity Play.
You’d have to be a stern soul indeed not to be reduced to some level of teary-eyed nostalgia at the thought of all those six and seven-year-olds just waiting for the chance to shine in front of their families and friends. But while all you proud parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles are beaming with pride as your little ones take to the stage as Mary or Joseph, spare a thought for those who never make it into the spotlight – those for whom the school Nativity Play will be a source of perennial disappointment.
You might have guessed, then, that I was one of those children never destined to take to the Nativity stage. Granted, I was saved the ritual humiliation of being the shepherd who tripped over his lamb, or the wise man who forgot to hand over his box of frankincense. But a part in this lovely Christmas tradition was all I yearned for. Every year as the Nativity casting took place, I sat up straight, looked as pretty as I could, spoke clearly and loudly and smiled manically. But it was never going to work; I was overlooked every single year. Not because I wasn’t serene enough to have been an angel, or demure enough for Mary – although these may well have been valid reasons – but because I was just too tall. I may not have reached giraffe-like proportions as an adult but, when I was six years old, I towered over all but one of the boys in our class. And the same was true for several of the other girls too.
And somewhere along the way, one teacher or another had dictated that it would look much better if the short girls got all the plum roles. As a child I thought this was possibly the most unfair thing in the world and I would try to hunch down just so they might think that this year I was finally shorter than the boys. Of course I was 15 before that happened and the era of Nativity plays was long gone.
Not everyone could play a part, of course. These were the days when the Nativity Play was just that. The pure, unadulterated, Christian story of the birth of Jesus. There were the Holy Family, shepherds, kings, angels, the innkeeper and his wife, perhaps a donkey and some sheep, and occasionally a human star. But that was it. I’ve heard of modern Christmas plays with enormous cast lists, and ones that even feature Harry Potter and the Tweenies, just so that everyone can have a part. Ours didn’t even have a Santa Claus.
Of course, the teachers made sure we didn’t miss out entirely. We were positioned to the side of the stage where we sat cross-legged on the floor, beside the naughty kids and the ones whose attention spans were so short that their acting threatened to break into improvisation. We were given drums to bang, triangles to ting and tambourines to shake. These were particularly popular with us girls because we could pretend to be Agnetha or Frida from Abba.
And, of course, we were allowed to sing along with the carols and Christmas songs – although I have an old friend who told me that a perfectionist teacher once ordered them to mime to the songs because she wanted only the good singers to be heard. What a horrible thing to do to a small child. And at Christmas, too. Nowadays you could probably sue.
I did get to participate in our senior school carol concert, although quite how we had one I’m not sure, Derbyshire County Council having cast disapproval on religion in schools by that point. I think we were all right if we didn’t actually mention God. Anyway, our German class was required to stand before the rest of the school and sing the first verse of O Come All Ye Faithful in German: Herbei o ihr Glaugibigen, Frohlich triumphierend; you see, I can still do it. And for that one shining moment, we were the stars of the show. It didn’t impress my non-German-speaking classmates, of course. They just thought we were showing off. But it was our moment nonetheless.
I feel I should probably now make a confession. I did once appear in a Nativity Play, as the Angel Gabriel no less. And I had lines. But then I was in Brownies and we had no boys to tower over.

There's nothing wrong with an "old fashioned" education

I WAS talking to a woman at the bus stop last week. She was concerned about the amount of homework her eight-year-old granddaughter had been given. “Homework? She’s eight – surely she doesn’t have homework?” I queried. And after a bewildering five minutes of key stage this, and Ofsted that, I discovered just how far primary schooling has moved on since I left Dale School, Derby, in 1980.
I was fortunate to have benefited from what even people of my age would consider an old-fashioned education. Our school in Normanton was run under the auspices of the always immaculately turned-out Miss Clarke. She was petite and ladylike and ruled the school with an iron, if perfectly manicured, hand.
While other school heads were embracing modernity, Miss Clarke made sure her boys and girls were brought up the classical way. No trendy educational ideas for her. From the moment the old school handbell was rung on the playground outside, and the chattering crocodiles of more than 500 children filed inside, we were taught on traditional, if occasionally quirky, lines.
Each morning the school, divided into infants and juniors, attended assembly. We entered the halls to the strains of classical music. The composer of the day was clearly displayed at the front, and woe betide anyone who could not read or pronounce his name. From Tchaikovsky and Brahms to Schubert and Liszt, we learned to recognise a huge range of music. Among Miss Clarke’s favourites were loud or stirring pieces, like Grieg’s Morning or Delibes’ Coppelia. It was all about instilling in us enthusiasm, energy and get-up-and-go. And it worked.
And each day there would be a poem to listen to – like Keats’ To Autumn – and always read with an almost fevered relish by Miss Clarke’s ever-jolly colleague, Mrs Smith, her foot tapping out the rhythm of the words. She read all manner of poems from writers as diverse as John Masefield, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. We started each morning with a hymn and a prayer, of course, and to my shame my primary school self never questioned what my non-Christian schoolmates thought of that. But I loved it, and I’ve always valued hymns and prayers for their use of language and poetry, as much as for their spiritual content. There was also the element of everyone doing something together, which just seemed to set us up right for the day.
PE lessons at Dale also had an interesting twist. Confined for most of the year to the concrete playgrounds on either side of the school, or in the assembly halls, our sports curriculum relied upon the equipment we had inherited from earlier generations. Indoors there was the usual gym apparatus with poles to twizzle on and rope frames to climb up, monkey bars to swing on and a range of aged benches on which to balance, all of which bore the marks of 75 years of children’s feet bashing and rubbing on them.
When it came to fresh air fun, there was a more exotic choice. Nestled among the skittles and canes, beanbags and hula-hoops were a set of ancient shinty clubs. Now, unless you went to Dale, or lived in the Scottish Highlands, you’re unlikely ever to have encountered that particular sport. It was a forceful and violent Gaelic forerunner to hockey and quite what this set of clubs, which resembled upturned and flattened out walking sticks, were doing in the PE cupboard of a Derbyshire primary school, no-one seemed to know, but under our teachers’ guidance we would, gently of course, tap a plastic ball up and down the playground around the obstacles laid out before us. It probably owed very little to the archaic sport, but it was utterly engrossing nonetheless.
But I think the most valuable lesson that Dale School taught us was the how to mark the passing seasons and seize the moment to appreciate the world around us. No matter how important the lesson we were having, there was always time to abandon it for a morning spent outside studying a frost-encrusted spider’s web, or a bird’s nest. Then it was back inside to write stories and poems inspired by them. It was fun, but it was learning too, and it never seemed like hard work.
I wonder, with all the emphasis, in today’s schools, on homework and breakfast clubs; with lessons in citizenship and technology; with ICT rooms and interactive white boards in most school; with websites, newsletters and class councils to keep pace with - all the undoubtedly wonderful and essential components of modern education – is there still time for our youngsters to experience the more esoteric aspects of life? It would be an awful pity if, amid all that technology and financial investment, they were literally missing out on smelling the roses.