School Daze

Gee and I went to Vee’s parent’s afternoon yesterday. Notice I said parent afternoon and not parent evening. Whatever happened to them? I know nowadays that teachers have a lot on their plates but 4-6pm was a strange window in which to try to talk to 8 of them and there was a lot of rushing about up and downstairs and queuing with other parents and carers for a couple of minutes to discuss 2 years’ work and upcoming exams. She is in 4th year at high school (9th grade for US readers, year 10 for English, I think).
Overall, Vee got a really good report.
In German, which she has been doing now since 2nd year (7th Grade/Year 8) she is doing really well and her teacher hopes that she will continue with the language next year. She is expected to get high marks in her exams and the teacher plans to either take them to a university language department or have someone from one come in to talk to them about further study.
In Music, again Vee is doing very well. In her first choice of instrument – Voice (singing) she is making excellent progress but needs to get as confident in her musical theatre singing as her more contemporary and pop/ rock singing. In her 2nd instrument – Xylophone – again she is doing really well and has been encouraged to practice tunes and look at inventing/ composing on the keyboard that she has at home. Her teacher is really pleased with her – she is in the school choir and was successful in her audition for the talent show. The teacher is giving all students 3 CDs of music they have to be familiar with for the exams including Scottish folk music, jazz and world music. She also suggested a book that Vee could study from and spoke about good courses at college where Vee could study music and drama before going to university.
In History, another a great report. Vee has to remember that exam marks are awarded for points made not wealth of information, which although makes the points and more, could lose her time in an exam and mean she might not finish. They are going to start revising the whole course so far and will be looking at past exam papers to help with this.
In Maths, Vee is doing well but making silly mistakes so her teacher made an appointment for her to meet with her to look at her most recent essay. This young female teacher is very supportive and is also Vee’s Academic Mentor and is keen for her to do well. She offered to download past papers and work with Vee on study sessions. She gives the class an end of topic essay to do and if it is not neat or well presented she has no hesitation n making them do it again.
In Art, Vee is doing really well. This summer 75 students took the Art exam and only 5 got top marks but 4 were with this teacher. He fully expects Vee to be up there next year. He told us about the design unit they have been doing and the work using computer software. He spoke of what the pre-lim (practice exam this winter) will entail – a still-life observational drawing – and also gave us information on which artists (Georgia O’Keeffe and Samuel Peploe) that they have to do their second essay on. He also spoke of how 4th year students have to learn to deconstruct art and what elements they will be marked on.
In Chemistry, the teacher was a bit under pressure with a large queue but in a short space of time managed to convey to me how delighted she was with Vee, how Vee has been interested in Chemistry since they did “CSI” style project in 1st year and that she is very confident that she will do well in exams. She spoke about study support classes she was running in preparation for exams that Vee doesn’t need to come to as she is doing so well but would be welcome at.
Contrast this first with Physics. The teacher couldn’t find Vee’s notes despite her being the only girl in that class and her name being near the top of the register. He didn’t have a mark for her last exam but couldn’t explain why. He only seemed concerned about exam passes and didn’t volunteer any information as to what they had been doing in class. It comes as no surprise that Vee tells me they did very little practical experiments and that most of class time is spent copying down notation. She intends to drop Physics at the end of 4th year and I feel that it has turned out to be a big waste of her time and our efforts last year in fighting for her to be able to do 2 science subjects. I got the distinct feeling that this teacher was counting time until retirement.

And English! Another pen pusher and bean counter who was only interested in getting them pass marks in exams – anyone who has seen season 4 of “The Wire” will understand what I mean! A younger man but all he seemed to care about was his marks and that he looked good for the minimum of effort. This was the one who I argued with over taking Vee to see director Ken Loach give a talk after a showing of the film “Kes” which they studied as a play, only for the teacher to tell me that was “last year” (funny – her History teacher is revising Changing Life In Scotland and WW1 which they also did “last year”!). He made no connection between me commenting on how the 3 texts they had covered (the aforementioned ”Kes”, Louis Sachurs’s “Holes” and “The Lord Of The Flies”) all focussed on teenage boys. I asked which of these texts would be examined in the pre-lim for him to tell me that he had been concentrating on them writing a one-size-fits-all “personal experience” essay to give them a pass. He mentioned that they also had the option of writing a short story but “we don’t really expect that of them” – this is the top stream 4th year English class – and was surprised to learn that Vee writes short stories and “fan-fic” at home. As a would-be writer myself I am utterly horrified at this and also that when asked what texts they might study in 5th year, he could not give me an answer.
Yes, I appreciate that subjects are not taught as they were when I was at high school 25+ years ago but if they still do calculus in Maths and WW1 in History, why not Shakespeare and creative writing in English?
I spoke to Vee’s “Pastoral care Teacher” (what we old ones used to call a Guidance teacher) with my concerns and she has promised to get back to me.
But honestly, I am regretting our decision to have let Vee go to the local “academy” where most young people come out few qualifications with her primary school friends and not pushed instead to get her into a more academic school or one where we could have had help with bursaries or scholarships. She is a very bright kid and I feel she isn’t being stretched. Fortunately we know that at college she can make up for wasted time - she is at the younger end of her year in terms of age and even doing 6th year will still leave at 17 ½ and be able to do one or two years of college before going onto university to do drama, which thanks to the classes she goes to at Platform and with the National Youth Theatre where she can study plays like “Cyrano de Bergerac”.
I’m just glad I have a daughter who has the brains and enthusiasm to do this. I really feel for the young people and parents for whom these years at school are an even bigger waste of time from which they will get no skills to help them go onto further study or work. If this is modern education, heavens help us! x