THE THREE Rs
Posted: 01 May 2026, 01:15
THE THREE Rs
09 October 2002
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting very confused about the modern education system. Looking at the tale of woe which has unfolded in respect of the ‘A’ Level results, and listening to various ‘public servants’ and politicians wriggling on the hook was excruciating enough for me but what it did to the blood pressure of anyone who has been directly affected I can’t imagine, what’s going wrong? I’m afraid that this gives a clue to where I am starting from, I am convinced that there is something dreadfully wrong somewhere and our young people are paying for it.
Over sixty years ago I entered the education system at the age of four. This was in Stockport but if I’d been in Barlick at that time my experience would have been exactly the same. The first thing they taught us was how to sweep the classroom floor, from there we went on to reading, writing and arithmetic. Overall, we were taught what discipline meant, the teachers weren’t constrained in any way, they could clip your ear, use the cane and give you extra work. I still look back to those days with warm thoughts about Mrs Ackroyd (“That was only a love tap!”) and Miss Hogg the headmistress. I came out of that school well-equipped enough to sail through the next two years and get into Stockport Grammar School with very little extra work. I don’t think I was cowed or psychologically damaged and eventually went to university as a mature student when I was 42.
The point I’m making is that under what would today be seen as a brutal and old-fashioned regime, I got a good education. My question is how much better is it today with all the testing, rules and regulations and ‘modern’ methods of instruction. To try to answer that one I would have to be an expert on statistics and that is the route favoured by our lords and masters, the ‘Experts’. Well, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Or to put it another way, statistically speaking, a person who is stood with one foot on a block of ice and the other in a bucket of boiling water is on average, comfortable! So, if I’m to ignore statistics, what measure can I use? The first thing that strikes me is that in those days, a teacher, and particular a head teacher, was a respected member of the community, they ranked with the doctor, the solicitor and the priest. Can we say that about the modern image of teachers? They are doing the same vital job so what’s changed? My theory is that the teachers have been used as a scapegoat by government for years to cover up inadequacies caused by under funding the system.
The next thing that worries me is the increasing pressure on children to make choices very early in their school career that set their path later in life. Once someone has committed to either the sciences or the humanities they are locked in. I was taught basically the same subjects right through my school career, it wasn’t until I was 16 that decisions had to be made about pursuing either science or literature. Apart from annual form examinations and eventually the mock GCEs no testing was done and I don’t see how we lost out. It seemed then, and right through my life, that I had received a perfectly adequate education. In fact, it wasn’t until I was at university in the late 70’s that I found that I had a definite advantage over the young people because I had been taught English Grammar, I was astounded to find out that it ceased to be taught as a subject after 1956. In this respect at least, I had been given a better education than the young people I was competing against. How can this happen?
I look at the people I know in Barlick who are about my age and listen to the way they talk and the range of their interests and all I can say is that the local schools and the teachers served them well. True their horizons were limited in many ways but this was the fault of an elitist system, not of the primary education they received. There weren’t enough places at the High Schools and the Grammar Schools to cope with the talent that was lying there, opportunity was not equal.
Which brings me back to the recent disasters in marking. Now I may be a cynic, but one possible explanation for altering the results arbitrarily could be to match the numbers of passes to the seats available in the universities. I have a dreadful suspicion that this is actually what is going on. If this is so it is a crime against our children. The examiners that I know are immensely experienced people and they mark fairly, they know what is up to standard and what isn’t. The only time they will ever adjust is in borderline cases and it is always upwards. Their marks show that our children are improving, it is nothing to do with league tables or total numbers, it is a measure of quality. The solution is not to downgrade examination marks to match the number of places available, it is to make the necessary investment to allow all children that qualify and wish to go into Higher Education to have the chance. Their parents and grandparents were handicapped by an elitist system, could this be the explanation for what we see happening now?
A true story for you, a teacher friend of mine came out of a Parent’s Evening with tears of laughter in her eyes. She said that one of the parents had asked a question, he stood up and asked whether it was really necessary in this day and age for children to be taught to repeat from memory things like 9 times 7 is 54. I rest my case!
09 October 2002
09 October 2002
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting very confused about the modern education system. Looking at the tale of woe which has unfolded in respect of the ‘A’ Level results, and listening to various ‘public servants’ and politicians wriggling on the hook was excruciating enough for me but what it did to the blood pressure of anyone who has been directly affected I can’t imagine, what’s going wrong? I’m afraid that this gives a clue to where I am starting from, I am convinced that there is something dreadfully wrong somewhere and our young people are paying for it.
Over sixty years ago I entered the education system at the age of four. This was in Stockport but if I’d been in Barlick at that time my experience would have been exactly the same. The first thing they taught us was how to sweep the classroom floor, from there we went on to reading, writing and arithmetic. Overall, we were taught what discipline meant, the teachers weren’t constrained in any way, they could clip your ear, use the cane and give you extra work. I still look back to those days with warm thoughts about Mrs Ackroyd (“That was only a love tap!”) and Miss Hogg the headmistress. I came out of that school well-equipped enough to sail through the next two years and get into Stockport Grammar School with very little extra work. I don’t think I was cowed or psychologically damaged and eventually went to university as a mature student when I was 42.
The point I’m making is that under what would today be seen as a brutal and old-fashioned regime, I got a good education. My question is how much better is it today with all the testing, rules and regulations and ‘modern’ methods of instruction. To try to answer that one I would have to be an expert on statistics and that is the route favoured by our lords and masters, the ‘Experts’. Well, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Or to put it another way, statistically speaking, a person who is stood with one foot on a block of ice and the other in a bucket of boiling water is on average, comfortable! So, if I’m to ignore statistics, what measure can I use? The first thing that strikes me is that in those days, a teacher, and particular a head teacher, was a respected member of the community, they ranked with the doctor, the solicitor and the priest. Can we say that about the modern image of teachers? They are doing the same vital job so what’s changed? My theory is that the teachers have been used as a scapegoat by government for years to cover up inadequacies caused by under funding the system.
The next thing that worries me is the increasing pressure on children to make choices very early in their school career that set their path later in life. Once someone has committed to either the sciences or the humanities they are locked in. I was taught basically the same subjects right through my school career, it wasn’t until I was 16 that decisions had to be made about pursuing either science or literature. Apart from annual form examinations and eventually the mock GCEs no testing was done and I don’t see how we lost out. It seemed then, and right through my life, that I had received a perfectly adequate education. In fact, it wasn’t until I was at university in the late 70’s that I found that I had a definite advantage over the young people because I had been taught English Grammar, I was astounded to find out that it ceased to be taught as a subject after 1956. In this respect at least, I had been given a better education than the young people I was competing against. How can this happen?
I look at the people I know in Barlick who are about my age and listen to the way they talk and the range of their interests and all I can say is that the local schools and the teachers served them well. True their horizons were limited in many ways but this was the fault of an elitist system, not of the primary education they received. There weren’t enough places at the High Schools and the Grammar Schools to cope with the talent that was lying there, opportunity was not equal.
Which brings me back to the recent disasters in marking. Now I may be a cynic, but one possible explanation for altering the results arbitrarily could be to match the numbers of passes to the seats available in the universities. I have a dreadful suspicion that this is actually what is going on. If this is so it is a crime against our children. The examiners that I know are immensely experienced people and they mark fairly, they know what is up to standard and what isn’t. The only time they will ever adjust is in borderline cases and it is always upwards. Their marks show that our children are improving, it is nothing to do with league tables or total numbers, it is a measure of quality. The solution is not to downgrade examination marks to match the number of places available, it is to make the necessary investment to allow all children that qualify and wish to go into Higher Education to have the chance. Their parents and grandparents were handicapped by an elitist system, could this be the explanation for what we see happening now?
A true story for you, a teacher friend of mine came out of a Parent’s Evening with tears of laughter in her eyes. She said that one of the parents had asked a question, he stood up and asked whether it was really necessary in this day and age for children to be taught to repeat from memory things like 9 times 7 is 54. I rest my case!
09 October 2002