AIBU To Think Joey Maynard (Of Chalet School Fame) Was Insufferable

[TheShellBeach]

.............with her eleven children, infuriating husband and bizarre tendency to move house (and country) to live next door to the school her sister inexplicably started when Joey was a child.

She also managed to write (at least) two books a year, have a series of multiple pregnancies and poke her nose into the Chalet School's business on a daily basis.

I also remember in one of the books one of the girls getting in dreadful trouble for checking her answers in the back of a book or something.
Was this really so bad? Or did Chalet girls not have to show their working out?

If it's the episode I'm thinking of, she was used to studying with a governess by the method of reworking her maths by herself until she came to the right answer (checking answers in the back of her book).

By an unfortunate coincidence at the CS she was mistakenly given a book including answers, so used the same method of checking and reworking until she got it right. But in the CS they were marked (for form position purposes) on how many answers they got right, so this appeared to be cheating, although unintentional.

I was just thinking it would have been quite a different series if Matey had been obsessed with everyone’s bowel movements, rather than their chests and drinking all that rich creamy milk!

Oh I think I understand. I'm so used to more weight being given to the method/workings out rather than just the answer. Also, no school I went to had form positions- I don't even know if they do that anymore anywhere! But I see that if it's for placements, it might matter more than just for understanding/learning purposes!

Yes they used to decide who was going up a form by where they placed in their current form.

I doubt any school does it now, it's not very inclusive!

Or sensible!
If you got moved up into the next form, you'd surely be behind, having missed work from the previous form?

Hence Len and Con being with girls 3 years older than them, and Margot being in trouble for being with girls her own age.

I think that Matey was obsessed with bowels, but that EBD thought that bowels were too indelicate a subject to mention.

I remember Eustacia was put to work with a higher form for certain lessons only (Classics and maths?) so there does appear to have been some flexibility in how this was applied.

I assume people who were moved up were deemed capable of working at a higher level in subjects such as maths and languages, and had extra coaching/prep to pick up anything where learning facts mattered, such as history.

I don't think there's a mention of streaming in CS (but correct me if I'm wrong). In AF's Kingscote, there's lots of shuffling between the A & B forms, plus 'Removes' for people who need extra coaching, and 'Tutorial Fifth' for people who failed their O-Levels first time round - that seems more sensible than bumping people up from their peer group.

I've never understood the logistics of going to a different class for some subjects... surely then you will miss another subject while there, and have nothing to do while your class had the original subject?

In some of the earlier books they get given Gregory's powder which suggests Matey was all over the bowels. Did she also use Castor oil?

Unless the lessons in the same subjects were at the same time, but I don't know how that would work with a small teaching staff!

Didn't the triplets end up having to do 3 years in upper sixth? not much point in putting them up - expect for plot purposes, the forms all got a bit confusing to me there seemed to be upper and lower for each year, plus A and B division, and then they introduced inter v.

I think it's one of those things that works beautifully in stories (like being trilingual) but wouldn't actually work in real life!

This is what happens when adults over analyse children's fiction! 😂

(I mean... would teenage Joey really not notice her slim sister was pregnant?)

Nice girls didn’t notice anything, according to EBD — Joey hasn’t a flicker of romantic or sexual feeling towards Jack because she’s too busy being a jolly schoolgirl despite having long since left school, and only falls into his arms in a crisis because he’s a ‘solid lump of comfort’. Juliet is all about Kay O’Hara’s kindness, not her drippy brother’s halfhearted attentions. Jessica Wayne’s widowed mother marries her bank manager to look after his disabled daughter. Phoebe Wychcote gets married off by committee to her doctor because his mother died of the same illness she has.

NO SEX. Until they all pump out a billion babies.

modern year 7 is upper third
year 8 is lower fourth
year 9 is upper fourth
year 10 is lower fifth
year 11 is upper fifth
year 12 is lower 6th
year 13 is upper 6th

that’s why there’re 6th forms…. They are left over from the old numbering system.

I think Inter V was invented because EBD basically realised that the Trips had rushed too fast through the lower forms and had to hold them somewhere!

School year groups didn't used to be as regimented as they are these days, and going up/down a year does seem to have been more normal. It does seem vastly confusing and a nightmare for timetabling though!

I am just re-reading Head Girl and realised that Madge was hiking up and down to/from the Sonnalpe in the winter, which they describe as at least 4 hours and hard going, at what must have been well into the 2nd trimester! She's doing it all through the Spring term, and David is born sometime during the summer.

modern year 7 is upper third
year 8 is lower fourth

year 9 is upper fourth
year 10 is lower fifth
year 11 is upper fifth
year 12 is lower 6th
year 13 is upper 6th

There aren't enough forms/years below modern Y7 to have 1st, second (even if you count uppers and lowers) and lower third, is there? They must have started numbering in year 3, at 7? Were the lower forms called kindergarten or similar?

Aside, but for really bonkers form arrangements, St. Clares has them all beaten. The twins were 14 in the first form (as were their peers), and the school went to the sixth form! They must have been around 20 when they left...

Thats what they must have been busy doing all the time- mountaineering around!

Infants or kindergarten
juniors are age 8 to 13
then middle school 13 to 16
then seniors

Thank you @RobinHumphries although I'm still slightly mind blown, in my day what is now year 7 used to be first year in seniors and we never had any concept of juniors (outside of years 3-6 in primary) and never heard of middles.

I do remember the class position being a thing in my convent though although it was only done at the end of the year after exams and didn't impact on anyone moving up or down.

In The school at the chalet Madge is planning on charging £120 a year for fees which Dick thinks is rather a lot, in 2023 terms that's £10,034 a year - which compared to todays prices is a bit of a bargain, I'd be tempted to send DD there 😂

@Elle54321
They’d only come back for one holiday a year and you’d probably not have to feed them they get fed that much, you’d save a fortune.

I’ve just remembered that all the PE teachers seemed to be qualified physios, always giving remedial massage and exercises to the more stunted girls.