‘But you do have some reservations?’ I commented.
‘I shall keep an open mind about him, Gervase,’ answered Gerry. ‘I am a scientist after all. I shall give you my opinion after he’s been in the job for a few weeks.’
‘I don’t think you liked him, did you?’ said Sidney bluntly. ‘Come on, be honest. You just didn’t like him.’
‘Well, if you want me to be honest, Sidney,’ Gerry said, turning to face him, ‘no, I can’t say I did, There was something about Mr Carter which didn’t quite ring true. 1 can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t think he is all that he seems.’
‘Methinks you worry unnecessarily, Geraldine, my dear,’ said Sidney, looking at his watch and standing to go. ‘I think you will find Simon Carter will be an excellent successor to Harold, and we will get on with him like a house on fire.’
Prophetic words as it turned out.
11
‘Do the mandarins at the Ministry of Education, in their sublime wisdom,’ began the headteacher, ‘appreciate the volume of reports, recommendations, national guidelines, statutory orders, assessment procedures, statistical analyses, comparative data, projects and initiatives and I don’t know what else, which appear like the plagues of Egypt on the average headteacher’s desk every week? Does anyone down there in London ever consider sitting down and attempting to co-ordinate this little lot?’ She paused to indicate, with a sweep of her hand, the tower of thick files, fat brown envelopes and bulging folders before her on the desk. ‘If I had to wade my way through this morass of unwieldy reports and glossy documents each week, I should spend my entire time reading and paper-shuffling to the detriment of educating the young people which is my main concern. I really think it is quite ridiculous the amount of paper that headteachers and teachers are expected to deal with.’
I was sitting somewhat subdued before Mrs Rose, headteacher of Crompton Secondary School which was one of the most ‘challenging’ schools in the county. I felt it politic to listen. ‘Now, as you well know, Mr Phinn,’ she continued, ‘we have in this school some of the most difficult, demanding and disruptive young people of any school and I honestly believe that we are trying our level best to educate them, teach them to co-operate, be good citizens, appreciate the value of working hard and achieving their potential, no matter what level that is. But it is an uphill battle.’ She paused for a moment and looked down again at the desk piled high with papers. ‘And now we have another major national initiative, which I am sure is well intentioned but is something which will add to the pressures and demands of an already very exhausting and stressful job. I just wish all these administrators, consultants, advisers and inspectors, present company excepted, would let us get on with the job which is about teaching.’
When I had arrived at the school earlier that morning the last thing I had expected or indeed needed after the week I had just had, was a long diatribe about the pressures and stresses of teaching. I had pressures and stresses of my own without listening to others’ moans. And as for the plagues of Egypt, I thought to myself, I felt like the Egyptian messenger in the production of Antony and Cleopatra which Christine and I had seen some months back. As the messenger is beaten viciously about the head by the furious queen, after he informs her of her lover’s marriage to Octavia, the poor man attempts to tell her: ‘Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match.’ In other words – don’t shoot the messenger. I felt like repeating the lines to Mrs Rose who sat regally at her desk with all the authority and bearing of the formidable Egyptian queen herself. I too could have well done without this particular ‘little job’ on top of everything I had on at the moment.
Someone in the Ministry of Education undoubtedly had enjoyed himself dreaming up the ‘Language and Literacy for Learning’ initiative which Dr Gore had dumped at my door. English inspectors from selected authorities were charged with observing a range of lessons and evaluating how effective teachers were in using questions, developing reading competence, organising group work, encouraging discussion and teaching writing skills such as summary and note-taking. We were also instructed to examine how teachers evaluated pupils’ work. When I flicked through the lengthy commentary about the initiative from the Ministry and read the accompanying letter from Miss de la Mare, HMI, explaining the process, I knew it was not going to be a ‘little job’ at all but more like half a term’s work. All the information had come in one of those beautifully-produced glossy folders to which Mrs Rose had referred so scathingly. On the cover was a group of smiling students dressed in smart blazers, pristine white shirts or blouses and school ties, all in animated conversation with each other in what appeared to me to be the best-equipped library in the country. Behind them posed a beaming young teacher who looked as if she were moonlighting from her day job as a fashion model. So while I could readily sympathise with Mrs Rose when she launched into her tirade about this particular initiative, I was in no mood to listen.
‘Well, Mrs Rose,’ I said irritably, cutting her off and starting to put the folders and the papers in my briefcase, ‘perhaps this is not the best time to discuss the initiative.’
‘There is never a best time, Mr Phinn,’ she told me. ‘We are up to our eyes all the time.’ I got up to go. I was not intending to waste any more time convincing the head-teacher of the efficacy of the project. ‘Look,’ she said, her voice now softening a little, ‘I am the very last person to dismiss something out of hand before I have given it a chance, particularly if, in the long run, it might be to the benefit of the students. We need all the support and advice here and this project might have a spin off. You’d better sit down and tell me more about it and I will certainly consider it.’
So I explained the initiative and how the Ministry had asked that the sample should be taken across the board – high-achieving schools, ones where the results were low, large and small, urban and rural, grammar, secondary modern, comprehensive and special schools. The head-teacher listened attentively as I tried to describe the scheme, stressing the advantages of taking part, especially the extra funding. ‘So there it is,’ I said at last.
‘Tell me, Mr Phinn,’ asked the headteacher, ‘why have you asked me – this school – to take part in this enterprise?’
‘Well, Mrs Rose,’ I replied, smiling wryly, ‘it’s because you are flexible in your thinking, dedicated, a very good manager and always willing to take on a challenge. You are –’
‘Please don’t continue, Mr Phinn,’ she interrupted, holding up her hand as if stopping traffic, ‘or I might break out into hysterical laughter. You know, you ought to try your hand at selling time-shares in Spain or second-hand cars. Now, let me get this straight. You will spend a day in the school examining the written work of the students in a range of subjects and a further day looking at the way the teachers use language in their lessons?’
‘Yes, and I will also be interested in the kind of language the students use,’ I added.
‘Well, you will find, Mr Phinn,’ replied Mrs Rose, ‘that a good number of our students have a very colourful, if somewhat limited command of the English language.’
‘Not that kind of language,’ I told her, smiling.
‘And you are going to focus on just one student, are you?’
‘That’s right. I would like to join a boy or a girl for the day in each of the various subjects he or she is studying and observe the teaching. It’s called pupil pursuit.’
‘Pupil pursuit,’ repeated the headteacher, shaking her head. ‘Well, there’s a thing.’
‘It’s the term the Ministry of Education uses.’
‘Why is it, do you think, that the Ministry is so very fond of custodial words, phrases and metaphors? Education is full of such terms, isn’t it? We’ve got governors, inspectors, officers, detention, exclusion, suspension, discipline, terms, authority and, of course, those at the Ministry, judging from the letters I receive, are very adept at using long sentences. As you can tell, Mr Phinn,’ concluded Mrs Rose, smilin
g for the first time that morning, ‘I do still have a sense of humour.’ She tapped the folder on her desk and thought for a moment. ‘All right, then, we’ll give it a go.’
The following Friday I arrived at the school to undertake the pupil pursuit. Crompton Secondary School, a sprawling, flat-roofed, grey-coloured building built in the 1950s was situated in the very centre of a large run-down estate of red-brick, terraced housing. It was in a deeply depressing part of the town and surrounded by tall, blackened chimneys, deserted factories with every window smashed, over-grown areas of wasteland and decaying warehouses. Nearby was a small litter-strewn shopping precinct where each premise had a grill on the window. Crompton was not a happy place.
Mrs Rose had telephoned the previous afternoon to tell me which pupil she had selected to be ‘pursued’. ‘I couldn’t decide between Bianca and Dean,’ she had said. ‘Their attitude to life is not dissimilar, but Dean can be more disruptive so I’ve chosen Bianca. In fact, she and Dean are friends, so I expect you will be seeing a fair bit of Dean anyway.’
Mrs Rose had asked me to meet Bianca in the library before the start of school. She was fifteen, a tall, morose-looking girl with lank hair and a long, pale, unhealthy-looking face and was dressed in an exceptionally tight blouse, very short skirt and huge platform shoes. She looked very different from the students on the front of the glossy folder which I held in my hand.
‘So whatcha gunna be doin’, then?’ she asked in a weary, apathetic tone of voice which she had clearly cultivated over the years for use when talking to adults in authority.
‘I am going to be joining you for all today’s lessons,’ I explained.
‘Eh?’
‘I said, I am going to be joining you for all today’s lessons. I shall observe the teaching and also be talking to the students.’
‘Wha’ for?’
‘Because that’s my job.’
‘Who are you, then?’
‘I’m a school inspector.’
‘A wha’?’
‘A school inspector,’ I repeated.
‘And you just watch teachers?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And sit in classrooms an’ that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you have a proper job then?’
I decided not to answer that. ‘I am here to see how well the students are doing in their lessons.’
‘Well, it’s dead boring,’ she told me bluntly, scrutinising a broken nail.
‘I’m sure it’s not,’ I replied
‘Oh yeah, it is. It’s like watching those really really boring television programmes that you can’t turn off. I don’t understand what t’teachers are on about most of t’time.’ She turned her attention to another broken nail. ‘So watcha want to watch t’lessons for?’
‘As I said, I am here to see how well the students are doing in their lessons. I’m going tos be listening to the language in the classroom.’
‘You’ll ‘ear a lot. Some of t’lads have mouths like sewers.’
‘No, not that sort of language,’ I told her.
At this point, the most aggressive-looking adolescent I had ever seen in my life came into the library. He resembled a younger version of Magwitch, the convict in the Dickens’ novel Great Expectations who terrifies poor Pip in the graveyard. The youth had a bullet-shaped, closely-shaven head, several large metal studs in his ear and an expression which would stop a clock. When he came closer, I saw that he was decorated with a selection of unusual tattoos. On his knuckles LOVE and HAT were spelled out in large blue letters, on his cheeks small tattooed tears descended from an eye like those on the face of a circus clown and stretching from ear to ear across the full width of his neck was a series of dots, between small tattooed scissors. In the middle just above his Adam’s apple were the words CUT HERE. I learned later that one of his friends had decided to try and emulate this artistry himself with a needle and some Indian ink and using a mirror. He was now destined to go through life with the word TUC emblazoned across his throat.
‘Who’s ‘e, then?’ the youth asked Bianca in a deep, threatening tone of voice.
‘Eh?’ she grunted, chewing at the remains of the broken nail.
‘Him, who is ‘e?’
‘Inspector,’ said the girl.
‘Copper?’
‘Naw, school inspector.’
‘What’s ‘e ‘ere fer?’
‘Eh?’
‘I said, what’s ‘e ‘ere fer?’
‘He’s following me around for t’day.’
‘Tha wants to tell somebody.’
‘Naw, he’s watching what gus off in t’lessons.’
‘What fer?’
‘I dunno, ask him.’
‘Well he’s not watching me!’
I was being discussed as if I were not there. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to the boy. ‘You can speak to me directly, you know. I’m not invisible.’
‘Eh?’
‘You can ask me yourself what I am doing today.’
‘I know what tha doing. She’s just told me and I’m telling thee, tha not watching me!’
‘No, I don’t intend to,’ I replied.
‘And don’t thee eyeball me, neither,’ he said, glaring.
Just what was I in for, I thought to myself, and just how do the teachers cope with the likes of this lad?
‘His name’s Dean,’ Bianca told me, as he shuffled off, hands deep in his pockets, ‘and he fancies me.’
Struth! I thought.
The first lesson was mathematics. The teacher, Mr McNab, a bear of a man with a thick red beard, lined the class up outside his door, before explaining that he believed in firm discipline and what a retrograde step it was when the poor misguided powers abolished corporal punishment. He went on to tell me that if he had his way he would bring in capital punishment for some of the pupils, never mind corporal punishment.
‘When I taught in Glasgow, Mr Phinn, we were gi’en a thick leather strap called a taws when we started teaching and they didna mess aroond after getting a dose o’ that across their backsides, I can tell ye.’
On each desk, which were in rows facing the front, had been placed a pencil, the end of which had been sliced away and a number written on the exposed wood, a square of paper, a rubber (also numbered) and a text book open at the appropriate page.
‘I keep their noses to the grindstone here, Mr Phinn. Keep ‘em busy, I do. Gi’ this lot an inch and they’ll tek a mile. I don’t encourage any talking in my class because once started, they willna stop. I number everything in the room which makes it easier to check on things which go missing. It’s the only way I can make sure I get ma pencils and ma rubbers back. This lot live by the code of “If it moves, nick it, if it doesnae, kick it.” You see, they come from inadequate homes where they are allowed to get awa’ wi’ murder. They’re left to roam the streets, watch television till all hoors, play truant, get up tae all sorts of mischief and mayhem. What a lot of these lads need is security. That’s what they want – security.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Children tend to prosper from a caring and secure background.’
Mr McNab threw back his head and snorted. ‘Waay, not that sort of security, man,’ he blustered. ‘I mean maximum security. I’d lock the buggers up!’
The lesson was largely a silent one. The students worked their way through the exercise in the text book with the teacher patrolling the desks, peering over shoulders and fixing anyone who looked up with a rattlesnake glare. At the end of the lesson I accompanied Mr McNab, who was on yard duty, into the playground where he continued to enlighten me about his educational philosophy.
‘Of course, I’ve tried group work, paired work, discussion, this interactive learning carry-on but it just doesnae work with this sort of pupil. They know every trick in the book. And they know all their rights as well. Canna lay so much as a little finger on ‘em these days.’
When the bell rang for the end of break Mr McNab lined the pupils up a
nd they filed into school. A large boy continued to sit on the wall, making no attempt to go in; he just sat there, chomping away on a large chocolate bar.
‘You boy!’ shouted the teacher.
‘What?’ the boy shouted back, spluttering bits of crumb and chocolate in the process.
Mr McNab clamped his mouth together and his eyes became hard and angry. He strode over to the wall and his loud voice rang over the school yard. ‘When ye talk to a teacher, laddie, ya say “sir”!’
‘What… sir?’
‘Are ya deaf?’
‘No.’
‘Sir!’ roared the teacher.
‘No… sir.’
‘Didna you hear the bell?’
‘Yeah… sir.’
‘What’s yer name, laddie?’
‘Sean.’
‘Sean what?’
‘Sir.’
‘No! No! Your second name, yer great pudding!’
‘Andrew… sir.’
‘No! No! Yer other name.’
‘Colin… sir.’
The veins in Mr McNab’s forehead were now throbbing and his voice had increased several decibels. ‘Yer last name! Yer surname!’
‘Smith… sir.’
‘Well, what are ye doing sitting on the wall when the bell has gone, Smith?’
‘Having a rest… sir.’
Mr McNab’s voice suddenly became low and threatening. He was as tense as an over-wound clock. ‘I dinna like your attitude at all, Smith. Now, ye get up off that wall, dispose of that chocolate bar, tidy yerself up, move yer body smartly and get yerself to yer next lesson and I’ll see you after school for a detention.’
‘I can’t, sir.’
‘And why, pray, canna ya?’ demanded the teacher, his eyes nearly popping from their sockets and his face as red as his hair.
‘I don’t go to this school anymore,’ replied the boy. ‘I left last year. I work at the garage across the road, sir. I only came over to give my brother a message from our ma.’
Head Over Heels in the Dales Page 19
