1983, September 1st and Abracadabra at number one. My first day at secondary school.

My school like so many other schools in rural Lincolnshire was a Secondary Modern. For what its worth, I have a few reflections on the experience. Grammar schools, hailed as a symbol of aspiration were and still are the destination of choice in the East of England. You won’t hear so much about the other 50%. The shadow cast by the grammar school policy was and still is, the secondary modern system. You won’t hear a government stand up to declare a great commitment to these schools. They are the other side of the coin.

The implication of failing the 11+ didn’t really hit home until a few months before we all set off to secondary school. All I recall is being terrified of a secondary modern that seemed full of mystery and threat. Quite the opposite to the promise of aspiration and success at the grammar school. I am certain that it wasn’t all roses for the those students that made it through the 11 +. The reality was though, that they left with the promise of success. My friend Paul and I had grown up on the same street. Literally, over the road. We both came from families where our parents worked hard. Both of us failed the 11+ and were set to go. We didn’t hear stories of success about our destination. We heard horrifying stories of boys being dragged into the toilets to see the ‘blue goldfish’, a mythological creature that led young first years to stare into the basin, only to find a 5th Year pushing their head into the toilet and pressing flush. As it happened the blue goldfish never materialised, although it didn’t stop me holding the need to visit the toilet for the entire school day for the first few years.

Secondary moderns,  were designed to offer an alternative to academic education. I loved school. I liked learning, I respected teachers, I loved sport and trips and everything that school had to offer and never for a moment felt the ominous presence of the glass ceiling that was there. Make no mistake though, it was there. Subjects like metal work, woodwork, rural studies, and leisure skills typified the approach. We were offered one language, not two like the majority of students in grammar schools. I spent French looking jealously out of the window at the students that weren’t deemed bright enough for French who got the chance to ride the school motor bikes around the playground. What this place lacked was a tradition of aspiration. Talks from the army, the navy, the RAF and the police came as the school did its best to inspire some motivation into the students. The grammar school sixth form was 7 miles away and why would we choose to study at a place that had rejected us. No talk of university, or A levels. In the Summer of my exams I applied for an apprenticeship at a plastics factory and then to do A Levels. I had no idea of what the summer exams would lead to and the choices I made were blind.

What has changed? Sadly not a lot. The secondary modern has rebranded and reinvented. It’s getting about 30% of students though on free school meals and is just managing to match the average for progress 8. The local grammar school is currently providing a ‘high quality’ education for students of whom roughly 3% are on free school meals. So much for Theresa May’s statement that grammar schools ‘make poorer students do better’. Pretty difficult if they can’t get in. To rub salt in the wounds this grammar school currently has a very similar progress 8 score to the secondary modern school. The difference is in the make up of the children, not in the quality of the education. 

There, were and still are, staff at these schools that inspire their students to succeed. I think there is something special about teachers that go to work in schools like these. Real heroes for young people that need every chance they can get.

The fact remains that working in schools like this requires a certain amount of moral purpose. It remains harder to recruit adn these are the very children that need the best teachers.