In the United Kingdom, schools are either provided by the local government authority (state schools) and are free for all pupils, or they are independent schools and charge fees to the parents of the pupils.
Almost all the schools taking part in the HMC Projects Scholarship Scheme are independent schools.
In the United Kingdom independent schools have an excellent reputation for high standards of teaching and learning and almost all pupils go on to prestigious universities when they leave. There are also many excellent state schools, three of which award scholarships through HMC Projects.
The British Education System over the years for me has not been a very good experience. My childhood usually involved fighting with other children and always being secluded from others.
I remember being forced to do a lot of handwriting, writing lines of “I will not do this”, and “I will learn” over and over again till my whole hands ached and cramped, it was physical abuse.
Our education system has never delivered, I found I had more fun playing chess, or using the computer, than learning out of any books the teachers forced upon us. At an early age I was very intelligent, I done well on my exams and enjoyed the pantomimes, Christmas plays and extracurricular activities, I think I enjoyed them more than I enjoyed the National Curriculum.
I can’t remember much about my early life, I do remember my time in the educational system from about eight years onwards, I was adopted at the age of eight and moved from my birthplace of Manchester, to over 145 miles away further North in Newcastle.
I attended a small primary school, in a small village in Newcastle, The first teacher decided to dedicate her life to me, she was acutely aware of the schools policy on working in partnership with parents.
My next teacher knew everything about behaviour management. He knew nothing about me. I knew everything about him, people who live up their own backside shouldn’t teach children.
My last teacher at primary school was a man of many words. I could not understand most of them. I had problems with his speech, he tried hard to communicate effectively with me and he was richly rewarded. I told my teacher to “Fuck off”.
I spent the rest of the year sitting outside the staff room, we both loved it.
My first comprehensive school was the nearest that one will get to a debtors prison. My initial visit confirmed that it was full of sex and drugs. The toilets were dirty. There was an inner sanctum where the head teacher lived, from the round window she surveyed all that was in her power. She was a chubby women dressed in a tight black top and a red skirt, with matching nail varnish and lipstick. She called herself “Rachael”.
I called her a tart and was suspended for two days.
I have traveled along the skid row of education, I have encountered teachers good and bad, ones who cared and ones who did not and ones who did not know how to. I have seen their enthusiasm change to despair and their support change to blame. I have even seen one who needed a good wash. I have never seen one who understood.
Except, perhaps, one, the head of the local “sin-bin”. I ended up there, I knew that I would, I had been told often enough, at the first meeting they were given the grand tour around my past, when the teacher looked and said “has he settled in yet?”.