To Think That Comprehensive Schools of the 70s and 80s were "Shit" and did nothing for many pupils and where in many cases just as bad as the "Modern" Schools they replaced

[soul2000]

I suffered terribly at my "Middle Class" Comprehensive in the early 1980s and when I was taken out by my parents at the end of 3rd year I could not even hold a pen correctly. I had forgotten even this basic thing, the Secondary school taught my absolutely nothing , and just left me dreading school everyday ( Not through Physical Bullying) I was able to defend myself that way , but through Mental Torture from Staff as well as pupils.

I honestly believe I would have learnt more in a old fashioned "Modern School" The dreaded words, I believe that they would have at least taught me basic Maths/English and I would have been able to show some ability on the sports field.

I know some people will come on and say " I got in to Oxford from My Comprehensive , as did my 10 friends". There must be many people like me though that received an education that was totally inadequate.

They must be some people who believe like me that believe these experiences put them off Education , and made it very difficult to even contemplate returning to any education ( Why Would you go back to something that caused you so much pain and fear)

A long post I know, but was feeling Crap in bed last night and started "Crying" I know its 30 years ago . ( I have Blocked it out for many years) Since I started studying again Open University) I can get fear and trepidation in bed , thinking about education ( although I am doing ok with the O.U)

Mine was alright. Not great, but I think they did OK by most of the pupils in a mixed intake from a mixed area.

I'm sorry some if you had a shit experience but it's hard to generalise (then as now).

The Teachers at my 1970s Staffordshire "Pit Town" High School , just prepared us for their words " the Pit for Boys , Factory for Girls.

The Careers Evenings ( Having a Laugh) The Careers Teacher , just used to say write out Application Forms for the Factory . The Army was considered an "Exotic" choice , Any Girl Saying she wanted to be a Secretary " got a look is if to say you've got "Big Ideas" The Suggestion of University from anyone was met with a chorus of Laughs from the other pupils. The career teacher said "I Can't Suggest University because It is a fantasy for anyone from this school maybe if you do well , you can go and do some Secretary Courses at Night School.

Not that It mattered to me as I left in the March of 5th year after Pushing the Sports Mistress in the "pond"

YANBU!

I went to a rubbish secondary school during the 80s and any qualifications I achieved were in spite of my school and not because of it! I remember a couple of really good teachers who cared about the kids, wanted us to do well and were enthusiastic. Too many were biding out their time until retirement and had no interest in young people.

Ironically I am now a teacher and looking back I really wish I had been aware enough to get my parents to complain about the poor standard of teaching I was subjected to.

This was my experience too of my Manchester comprehensive in the 70s. Teaching was mediocre at best. I left my primary school as a bright, keen to learn 11 year old and left 5 years later with 1 0 level. Classes were disrupted a lot, I only wish I'd made the "top set" after year 7 - when the year was streamed - as the girls in that class worked hard and got on far better. I can still hear my Maths teacher telling us to be very quiet as she had been "up all night with the baby", no surprise I still can't do algebra. I get upset when I look back as I feel cheated out of a decent education.

Mine was crap. And I had a wonderful 7 years there.

One teacher, who happens to be a family friend, has said of that school, and how it functioned in the 70s and 80s (the head went commando and did his own thing- no O'levels, only CSEs, teachers called by first names, no English language teaching etc etc) "We failed those children".

I was always going to do well, because I loved school, and studying, and had supportive bloody pushy parents.

Friends of mine who were just as bright as me did fall through the gaps. My best friend at the time, when I meet up with her now is bemused at how the kids were simply allowed to just not do anything. By the same token, I was considered to be virtually not in need of any teaching and for my A levels was just plonked in the school office and left to work on my own.

There have been comments from people , who got in to Oxford, asking"how Can you get to the end of Year 9 and not hold a pen correctly" .

I guess to someone from Oxford University , it must be a mystery and unfathomable. Its just like former Etonian's who are cabinet Ministers not understanding how ordinary people live.

The first thing , (The Joke of a private school did) was to get a Teacher to hold my hand and show me the motion of a pen at 14 yrs 10 Months old.

That is a great indictment of ten years of state education, a 14 yr old who can't hold a pen correctly .

How could I have had no help from a "State School" other than a woman who followed me round tying my shoelaces. I guess this was what a Senco was in the 1980 s a unqualified "Do gooder" who did more harm than good.

I don't get the bit about not being able to hold a pen properly, either. Don't most people learn that by the age of 10?

I can't agree with the proposition that comps were rubbish in the 1970s and 1980s, I'm afraid. Mine was in a rough area of Merseyside but had fantastic, inspirational teachers who showed me that I deserved to go to a top university every bit as much as somebody from a privileged background. God bless them.

My comp '86-91 was utterly non academic. They had a mantra that everyone should strive to be equal. Academic subjects such as maths were dumbed down and ignored in favour of learning in depth social issues. I got great GCSEs as I bought workbooks from the local town bookshop and did it all myself. The teachers saw me as a snob, elitist, how dare I aim to be academically better than anyone else. My careers person sabotaged a placement I applied for (off my own back I got another placement with the same company just a different town - screw you careers arsehole).

I had my coping mechanisms and I survived the misery. Unbelievably they asked me to stay on at 6th form just to make their exam stats look good, yeah cos I really want another two years of this shite.

I left and went to a sixth form college. The school warned my parents against it, telling them there were some dodgy people there. Pot kettle methinks. I flourished and got A's at A level and went to a good uni.

I am now an accountant and the school is in special measures.

soul I went to Oxbridge and it's not remotely unfathomable to me...

If school is poor and parents can't or won't pick up the slack, then you're fucked.

At my school, I'd bet my bottom dollar kids left without knowing how to hold a pen...and a heap of other stuff too!!! Absolutley not their fault. And not yours.

I got lucky. My Mum was prepared to move heaven and earth for me. And what she couldn't help with (a lot, since she was pretty much illiterate due to undiagnosed dyslexia and had left school at 15) she would have no shame in enlisting the help of others.

Without that, I absolutley know I would be in your shoes now!

soul, I made a comment along those lines because you hadn't said at that point in the thread that you have dyspraxia.

And I didn't say it because it's unfathomable to me that someone might not be able to hold a pen. I was just surprised that you would be blaming this on your comprehensive school, when one would normally expect a child to be given help with something so fundamental much earlier in their education - ie. at primary school.

I totally agree that far too many schools back in the '80s & earlier did very little to cater for students with additional educational needs. It sounds as if that was also true of independent schools, from what I've been told.

Please don't give me the "someone from Oxford University ...not understanding ordinary people" line, though. I'm not FROM Oxford University, I'm from the northeast, & was the first person in my family to go to ANY university. And as I already said upthread, I went to Oxford from a very ordinary comprehensive school, thanks to some good teaching, hard work on my part & probably a fair bit of luck.

FWIW soul I think the state is absolutley crap at doing the stuff that parents can't or won't do.

State education relies on parents.
NHS hospitals rely on parents for sick kids.
And let's not even go there as to how the state looks after children in its care...

Maybe most people can hold a pen correctly, but due to "Dyspraxia" I would hold ( Or Not Hold the pen) so hard the hand writing would be "Illegible" and my hand would Hurt terribly , so I refrained from actually writing anything.
I was only noticed at registration because my name was on the register. In fact I remember ( Because A friend told me at the time)
That the form tutor called my name out from the Register and was told by my friend "Oh X has left" The form Teacher Did not even know.

I went to Grammar school & when I reached the 4th year, it converted to Comprehensive. At which point teaching, education, school ethos etc became a pile of shit. Im glad I I didnt have too long to go, when this stage was reached.

Loon. It was not to say you don't understand ordinary people. It was to suggest that for Oxford University or any University student, that something as simple as holding a pen , is a complete nightmare and that my writing on paper became "Illegible work" . I actually think I might have lost some marks in my English Gcse

The other thing that happens is you come up with " Coping" Strategies .My Strategy by the time I got to the Private school ( 1 Year Down But October Birthday so 18 months down!) was to play on my "Stupidity" and at least make people Laugh at you on your terms not their terms.

Wordfactory. You will be aware , that It is extremely difficult to explain to people that you are Verbally Excellent, but Can't grasp the concept of Right or Left in your brain. You are sometimes able to do a task Brilliantly one day , the same task the next day is impossible .

That Cost me a D grade as opposed to an E . . It has held me Back.....

I went to a comp(left .1978). It was brilliant, loved it, got really good results (.4 good a levels) I grafted though.

My comprehensive school of the 80s was appalling. I switched off right at the beginning when I was having to dodge chairs that were flying around the room.

Thankfully schools are nothing like that anymore and the comp my children will attend is a decent school. If schools were still like the one I attended I wouldn't send my children as my school served no purpose.

The school DH and his 2 brothers attended sounded horrific - chairs flying around, teachers hitting the kids, teachers swearing, a culture of low expectation etc. I wouldn't send my children to a school like that either - they would learn more staying at home watching Homes Under the Hammer and Bargain Hunt.

That was exactly like my school TheCrackFox and it wasn't occasionally like that it was every day. I hated it. In educational terms I regressed, I was at a higher level academically when I left my primary school at 11 than when I left secondary school at 16.

I left my comp. in 1978, if they made a TV show about it no one would believe it.

The French teacher kept 6 dogs in her car and if a pupil stepped out of line she would throw the dogs lead at them.

The history teacher told stories about when he used to work at: the Weetabix factory, cadburys, the RAF, the Navy, down a coal mine, the list was endless. He never once gave a proper lesson.

The geography teacher looked like Rolf Harris, had a big bushy beard, dressed in shorts with no underpants. He rode a bike inside the school and carried a guitar. He was Scottish with a strong accent. He would stand on the desk, so you could see up the leg of his shorts, and sing "Rickety Tickety Tin" a charming song about Lizzy Borden, child murderer. He would be playing his guitar.

The English teacher would burst into tears any time the boys gave her a hard time and locked herself in the cupboard.

At the end of the year you had exams and nothing on the paper had been taught. I am glad we not have a national curriculum and SATS.

I think that education was piss poor in the 80s whatever type of school you went to. I believe that Margaret Thatcher dramatically improved state education.

The 1981 Education forced LEAs to provide proper provision for children with special needs including dypraxia. I believe that the national curriculum, leagues and OFSTED have raised standards. Seeing the standards that other schools in a similar situation can achieve has tackled the culture of low expectations. The Tories who everyone hates also banned the use of the cane!

I suppose that problem the OP faced was that these reforms did not have time to bed down. Sadly there are still many teachers who do believe in the existance of dyspraxia or dyslexia.

Mine was absolutely awful.

In my year, 2 out of 150 students went to university at all, and in the entire time the school was open they sent one student to Oxbridge.

When I asked if they would support me in appying to Cambridge they talked me out of it because they didn't believe that I would get the grades or that I would pass the entrance exam. (I ended up teaching myself enough to get 4 grade As at A level to everyone's amazement.)

It felt like the teachers were on strike most of the time I was there. No after school sports, no extra curricular activities.

I don't believe in the 11 plus system.

However, I know I would have had a better time socially at a grammar school. I couldn't fault the teaching for a minute but they were really up against it because about a quarter of the kids were bright, sensible and wanted to achieve while the rest were idiots and thugs.

What an enriching social blend.

soul I just wanted to say well done on overcoming all these barriers and now studying at the OU. There are lots of us who didn't have the best start who have made the most of studying later in life.

OP sadly I don't think the situation has got any better for SN kids, many are now managed out of the state system altogether by ambitious schools and academies concerned with league tables. All too often a hard won TA is just a glorified babysitter. This is due to inadequate staff training and a paucity of aspirations for these children from teaching staff that takes my breath away when I compare the UK to other nations.

Mumsnetters are a bit of a niche group, within the general population the number of adults without functional and literacy skills after so many years of compulsory education is still quite shocking. I think it currently runs at approx 20% of all school leavers - that has a massive economic and social cost to the country.

The saddest thing of all is that whereas night school adult education classes used to be the traditional way many late developers and school failures managed to climb the aspirational ladder, increased fees & an overly rigid benefit system have made this much harder in recent years. There are far fewer community education courses around than there were in the 1970's - 80's, fewer apprenticeships, less unskilled job vacancies etc, etc.