Let us ponder on these 7th years before us. Three weeks in and they’re still a delight, bonny and bright as the late summer sun bouncing off their pretty bonces. Wonder seems to rule. Curiosity also.
They sit at their desks in their daft new uniforms, eyes like gobstoppers, hands up, pens out, books covered, titles underlined, homework done, sometimes in their best Marion Richardson style. How charming! All gods’ children present and buzzing – Dragana, Aisha, Almuna, Khalif, Charlie, Polly, Sylvie with her curls and Timothy Winters with his smile. Home grown or war zone, native or the latest seeker of asylum, it works.
“Please sir! Please, sir!” they chirp as they offer to read – even when they really can’t. They tell their stories and the class is rapt and claps. Sylvie tells us about riding her horses under Westway. Charlie tells us about fishing in Little Venice. They even like your yarns and groan at your silly jokes. “Thank you for the lesson,” says Polly on her way out. Blimey. This might be the best job in the world.
Can’t we just stay here?
Of course we can’t.
Something happens, gradually, incrementally – certainly in my classes. Let’s call it the Fall, the Big School Fall.
They get less bright, boredom sets in, behaviour gets worse. No? Research shows that 8th and 9th year pupils don’t progress much, they plateau or plummet. Why? The obvious reasons – dull lessons, original sin, raging hormones, oppressive peer groups and the wretched curriculum. But also, surely, a culture, which teaches them to fail, until by the 11th year it might go thus…
Sept 17, 2020. Let us zoom in on the 11th years before us, no longer so bonny and bright. Wonder seems to have faded. Incuriosity – and anxiety – rule. They toil at silly targets in mostly fear and dread. They slouch sullen at their desks, their eyes so tired, copying anything on any board for any exam, this time the International Baccalaureate.
See how they’ve lost their bloom. Dragana’s worried that she’s pregnant, Ashraf’s that he’s on a D for life, Timothy’s lost his smile and Sylvie’s lost her curls. Some have gone daft and some have just gone. Charlie to a Pupil Referral, until they closed it down. Polly just truants. And Aisha? Khalif? Sent back to the war zones they fled.
There’s no place for the disenfranchised. We seem to have adopted the Singapore Model. No-one smiles. Certainly not Prime Minister Osborne, whose portrait is perched above a flash whiteboard…
A silly vision? Let’s hope so. Let’s stay here with these 7th years with their learning and their laughter.
- Ian Whitwham is a former inner city London teacher.