Grammar bug

The last two blogs harking back to my school days have prompted some thoughts on the latest Conservative Party rumpus involving the resignation of Graham Brady as European spokesman in protest at David Cameron, The Tory leader's decision to abandon the party's traditional commitment to the grammar school system in favour of city academies.

I don't know much about the academies but I do have experience of grammar schools. I went to Wheelwright Grammar School for boys in Dewsbury and, when my two oldest boys were ready, I sent them to the Royal Grammar School, Guildford.

I guess this suggests I'm a big fan of grammar schools but this is not the case. I think they had some good points but there were a lot of flaws too.

My secondary education was based on getting through the 11-plus lottery which did nothing more than measure your ability to perform to a certain standard in a basic intelligence test. It didn't measure commitment, enthusiasm, ambition or hard work. It didn't seek to find out whether you were a well adjusted human being, nor try to discover anything about your table manners, your passing skills at soccer, your health and well being, your loyalty, honesty, integrity, affability or eagerness to learn. All it did was score your performance on a single day in a single test.

Oddballs and misfits

That this test allowed all kinds of oddballs, misfits and undesirables in to the system while excluding some honest hard-working young people who deserved a better break in life, should be a source of regret.

In a working class town like Dewsbury to pass that test was everything. To fail was to be branded for life at the tender age of 11, to walk, metaphorically at least, through a door marked "second class education".

In fact the door should have said "third class" because even the state grammar schools could not match the quality offered by the best of the public schools.

The shame about those state grammars is that they simply tried to copy the public schools, almost slavishly. One thing I hated about them was the way they made visible distinctions between the teaching staff. If you held a university degree you could wear a gown when teaching whereas those who only had teaching certificates were condemned to wear their "civvies".

My school had some fine teachers, not all of them degree holders. It also had some pretty bad ones, particularly in languages and mathematics. I was lucky enough to study under the best maths teacher who rarely had failures at O-level. Unlike modern GCES that seem to give a grade for almost any level of work, it really was possible to fail an O-level and to get a distinction meant far more than it does today.

There was the odd sadist too but that was normal for the time. The chance of catching a well-aimed board rubber on your temple was an everyday hazard that kept you on your toes.

One of my best teachers was a man we called "Bert" Throp although Bert wasn't his real name. He would play Judy Collins records in lessons. He introduced us to the work of northern writers like John Braine, Stan Barstow and Keith Waterhouse.

Gritty stuff

These people were writing about our own back yards. It was gritty, contemporary stuff that meant something to us. Bert would speak our own language, swearing sometimes, and talk to us as young adults. He didn't think much to grading. Some English teachers would try to stimulate our writing by setting essays designed to stir our imaginations with titles such as "the day the world ended". Bert would ask us to write from life. There was a big difference.

In effect, he was saying to us: "Your lives matter just as much as the lives of those rustics in Thomas Hardy novels or the grand families portrayed by Jane Austen."

He got through to boys who might have had problems at home that were effecting their work and self-esteem. One boy went from bottom of class to the top in one term. Whether either position was deserved is neither here nor there. The fact is that boy had been a bully because he had been bullied at home. Bert's recognition gave him confidence. It made the rest of us feel better too and he started to make friends.

Educational straight jacket

For those of a non-conformist nature, as I was, the discipline of grammar school was a straight jacket. John, my eldest son, feels his school engaged far too much in spoon feeding the pupils, stimulating little creative thinking.

I loved poetry but recall blanking completely in a lesson that tried to explain metering. I just didn't get it. In fact everything that tried to make language or art conform to rules I found a real turn off. Today I have no no great understanding of grammatical structures and arrange words instead in a way that seems natural. It works just fine.

This is probably too critical of grammar schools. I think that overall I had a reasonable foundation in school education that stimulated efforts at self-education later on outside the academic system. But a love of reading that has probably been of greatest benefit came from my family background, rather than school.

Instinctively a co-educational system seems healthier than all boys' or all girls' schools. George goes to a co-educational school and has no difficulty getting on with girls. A former grammar school friend who went in to the education system where he has been able to compare different delivery systems at first hand, has retained no great love of grammar schools. My own experience is tinged somewhat by nostalgia. I had some good times at school, some bad times too. But it wasn't what I would call a formative experience and that's a pity.

Grammar schools should stay for those who choose them but I don't think they should be presented as a model for the future. We can do better than that.