1970s PRIVATE LIFE
0144 Hurst Park School
The reason for choosing our particular house, on the Hurst Park estate, was that it guaranteed places for our children at Hurst Park primary school. This school was acknowledged to be the best in the district, and it proved indeed to be an excellent school. Sarah and Miles started there one year apart, despite the two year gap in their ages; a feature of the education system that aided Sarah and impeded Miles throughout their education. The only slight hiccup was the way that they were taught arithmetic. The school used the Cusenier method (using different length blocks of wood), and - whilst this was not a problem for Miles since he had not done arithmetic before - it confused Sarah who had been taught the traditional way. Accordingly they set up a special programme for Sarah. It really was an excellent school with, in particular, an excellent headmistress. It is often is said, with considerable justification, that it is the teachers who make a school; and it was they, especially the headmistress, who made this particular school.
Both children very rapidly merged into the group of schoolchildren, and made friends. Very soon our garden was full of children playing together.
It was probably a year or so later that we got a big shock. We attended one of the open days at the school and, as we were wandering around Sarah's classroom -- looking at the art pinned to the wall, we came upon one set of pictures which stood out head and shoulders above the rest. We were amazed, for the child had real talent. We asked the teacher who the artist was and were astounded to be told that it was Sarah! It was at this stage we began to suspect that Sarah, at least, had higher level of intelligence than we had been allowing for.
I am sorry to say that Miles' equivalent was a scrawled mess. I don't think he ever developed artistic skills in his life; but, to be fair, he probably he inherited his lack of such skills from me! Just as important, though, it was a happy school for both of them. Even Miles made considerable progress.
At the age of nine they switched to Church Farm School, just across the road. Church Farm School was a much greater problem. For one thing, the staff and headmaster were not of the same calibre. But, more important, the county council was set on playing political games with the future of the school. Not least, they eventually decided to shut down the school; so that it could be used as a special needs school – and, more cynically, its playing field could be sold off for housing.
This brought me into the spotlight, as I was by then a councillor, and I started to help the parents with their campaign. I've always enjoyed campaigns of protest, which will be remembered from my time in the anti-apartheid movement. But this was a much more gentle operation. Thus, for the first week, the children's parents went -- under my direction -- to County Hall in Kingston where (complete with a big selection of placards) they noisily demonstrated outside the County Hall while the education committee was meeting. Under a considerable amount of persuasion from me, the local press were there in numbers; and it was headline news in all the local papers.
The next demonstration, again timed to coincide with one of the education committee meetings, took the form of a motorcade. This was all above-board, cleared by the police, and merely consisted of a dozen or so parents' cars draped with posters; which were to go round the one-way system in central Kingston a couple of times. What the police had not realised, but was part of the plan, was that the cars spread out and moved very slowly. As a result the ordinary traffic through Kingston, which was already slowing to look at all the banners, was slowed down until there was massive traffic jam. Thus, instead of whisking through Kingston in a matter of a few minutes, the demonstration held up traffic on the grand scale for more than an hour. I particularly relished seeing a chief inspector forced to take up traffic duty to try and sort out the mess! Again this made headlines in the local papers.
The greatest coup of all, though, was the following week; when I announced to the papers that, to help deliberations, we would not be demonstrating that week. This again got front page news – all for an announcement that nothing was going to happen!
Despite all of this, the school was still ultimately scheduled by the education committee for closure. You cannot beat city hall all the time, but unless you try you will never succeed.
It was while they were in Church Farm School, however, that we decided to have them tested for their intelligence. This was leading to membership of the society for educationally gifted children. We were not altogether surprised when Sarah rated very highly, with an IQ of around the hundred and fifty, and immediately qualified for membership. We were equally unsurprised when Miles failed to make the grade; only achieving something like 120 points. On the other hand, I was intrigued that, in terms of abstract logic he achieved very high-scores; beyond the hundred and fifty mark. I couldn't quite work out why he was so good on that one score -- though he had been learning chess with the other children at Church Farm under the guidance of Pat. In fact, when he was retested, about the year later, he came in with pretty much the same overall score as Sarah did; something over 150. The reason for this, we realised, was that the first time he been tested by a rather unsympathetic man and the second time by a very sympathetic girl. He responded to her sympathetic treatment. This was always the case with Miles and bedevilled his education for years.
Our experience of education, in this way, confirmed the fact that the middle-classes get more our of the British education system. There is nothing inherently biased in the system itself, it is simply that the middle classes are better at manipulating it to their advantage.
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