Sunday comes and goes. Nothing new in that I hear you shout at me like some scolded child forever ignoring their parents good advice. Well, maybe there are two sides to every story, after all "judging a book by it's cover" is fraught with danger if we are to believe all we read.
You may or may not be surprised to know (depending whether you know me very well or not) that I was a walking disaster at school. Oh, don't get me wrong, in my primary school where my mother was deputy head i was a star pupil, but with your mother there everyday it was hardly surprising. No. i mean high school, or in this case Ludlow Grammar School after i passed my 11 plus as it was at the time.
From the very start i struggled. My maths fell into disarray and my science was diabolical, languages became a bore and i was dropped from Latin to do Spanish, the equivalent these days of leaving the Premier League to play for your local youth club. I wasn't lazy, far from it, I just needed pushing, but this was the last intake of Grammar School pupils at Ludlow and dare i say it teachers were putting the time in until retirement, many of whom i recall should have gone 10 years BEFORE I got there !. Hey ho, that was my lot. But... obviously i shone at English and literature. Dickens and Shakespeare left an indelible mark on my soul for which i shall be forever grateful. They opened up a world of culture and life changing views that remain with me to this day, if only my teacher Miss Baldwin could see me now, in fact it would be even better if my music teacher Mr Arney who has now sadly passed away could see me play a Strauss Waltz... I am sure he would near faint !.
I guess, joking aside, my message is that the fact i was a complete and utter failure at High School should not be a deterrent to those of you who are unsure of their own ability when traversing the avenues of your High School life and this so called "growing up" that adults keep forcing upon you. I am much more in tune with who I am now than I ever was at school and i firmly believe if you have a spark it will take more than a few hopeless years at a last gasp Grammar school to dampen it to a glow. I managed English and Art "O" levels before i left. I was seconded to work on a farm at 15 and there you have it, David's school day's. I firmly believe that if i was in a class today I would never be allowed to slip through the net as i did in the 80's, it couldn't happen in today's climate of Stats and OFSTED inspections which in many ways is supremely comforting, but I do find all these inspections and tests a little too intrusive on a child's ability to enjoy their time facing the chalk and board, or lap top screen as it's now well known.
So, therein lies a tale, hopefully you can see i am living proof that you do not need school to be a success to make it in life, granted its an awful lot easier but I now find the level of experience i have obtained in my endeavours easily outweighs any paperwork i may have received from an exam judge, I have graduated with full honours from the school of life and there really is none better.
Have a great week.
You may or may not be surprised to know (depending whether you know me very well or not) that I was a walking disaster at school. Oh, don't get me wrong, in my primary school where my mother was deputy head i was a star pupil, but with your mother there everyday it was hardly surprising. No. i mean high school, or in this case Ludlow Grammar School after i passed my 11 plus as it was at the time.
From the very start i struggled. My maths fell into disarray and my science was diabolical, languages became a bore and i was dropped from Latin to do Spanish, the equivalent these days of leaving the Premier League to play for your local youth club. I wasn't lazy, far from it, I just needed pushing, but this was the last intake of Grammar School pupils at Ludlow and dare i say it teachers were putting the time in until retirement, many of whom i recall should have gone 10 years BEFORE I got there !. Hey ho, that was my lot. But... obviously i shone at English and literature. Dickens and Shakespeare left an indelible mark on my soul for which i shall be forever grateful. They opened up a world of culture and life changing views that remain with me to this day, if only my teacher Miss Baldwin could see me now, in fact it would be even better if my music teacher Mr Arney who has now sadly passed away could see me play a Strauss Waltz... I am sure he would near faint !.
I guess, joking aside, my message is that the fact i was a complete and utter failure at High School should not be a deterrent to those of you who are unsure of their own ability when traversing the avenues of your High School life and this so called "growing up" that adults keep forcing upon you. I am much more in tune with who I am now than I ever was at school and i firmly believe if you have a spark it will take more than a few hopeless years at a last gasp Grammar school to dampen it to a glow. I managed English and Art "O" levels before i left. I was seconded to work on a farm at 15 and there you have it, David's school day's. I firmly believe that if i was in a class today I would never be allowed to slip through the net as i did in the 80's, it couldn't happen in today's climate of Stats and OFSTED inspections which in many ways is supremely comforting, but I do find all these inspections and tests a little too intrusive on a child's ability to enjoy their time facing the chalk and board, or lap top screen as it's now well known.
So, therein lies a tale, hopefully you can see i am living proof that you do not need school to be a success to make it in life, granted its an awful lot easier but I now find the level of experience i have obtained in my endeavours easily outweighs any paperwork i may have received from an exam judge, I have graduated with full honours from the school of life and there really is none better.
Have a great week.
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