Tagged: old school
Laugh or cry
Talk about a blast from the past. I give you my first boss in the teaching profession. Former Secretary of State for Education, Kenneth Baker.
The now, Lord Baker of Dorking has been in the House of Lords for the past 26 years. Yesterday he got wheeled out onto Newsnight for his opinion on the teachers’ strike and the current batch of Tory ministers who break their own code of behaviour.
What was the Score?
Those that know me will know that I am a soccer nut and love following not only my team (Bristol Rovers), but the game in general. In the days before smart phones there were only a few ways that you could find out how your team had got on on that particular Saturday, unless you were actually at the match.
When I was teacher training in Leeds I would often walk into town and pick up a Sheffield Star Green Un at the Central Station. The last of these match day results newspapers has ceased trading of this season. The Portsmouth Sports Mail “Pink ‘un” is no more.
Another way of finding out how your team had got on was to listen to the results on the radio at 5pm.
Sports Report with its instantly recognisable theme tune was a national institution and still going strong today. Having said that I learn today that the BBC are going to end the Classified Results service on Radio 5
Nothing is sacred when it comes to football in the modern age.
Those were the days Part 31
Maths and the male anatomy
I had forgotten all about this prank. Seeing the daffodils emerging again this spring brought back the memory of a well planned stroke pulled by a fellow reprobate at the West London Comprehensive.
His task was to teach Coordinates. Using a grid marked out as below, the point A on the grid has the coordinates (-2,3) for example.
The Maths department was in the main school building, on the floor above the reception area and Head’s Office.
Classrooms in the “maths corridor” looked out over the driveway into the school. There was a great view of the main school gates and a neat and tidily kept lawn, which lead to the reception area.
Deciding to break with convention and jazz up the lesson the teacher used the lawn at the front of the school as the class grid. He had pre-marked out the grid lines with pegs and garden string. Daffodil bulbs were used to mark the coordinates.
A list of coordinates was given to his class and it did not take long for the group of students to go outside and plot the points by burying a bulb in the correct location.
The bulbs took till the spring to sprout and reveal the pattern that they made. The view at ground level of the flowers appeared random. It was only when you looked from the classroom that the crude, cartoon like, diagram of the male anatomy became clearer.
Dave Prowse. A Bristol legend
Dave Prowse sadly passed away today. A true giant at 6 foot 6 inches tall, the man who famously played Darth Vader in the Star Wars Films.
As a young kid I remember him as the Green Cross Code Man. He taught us how to cross the road at a safe spot, and to stop, look and listen before we stepped off the kerb.
Another claim to fame was recorded at The Fleece and Firkin brew-pub in Bristol in the mid 1980’s.
The brew-pub concept was a novelty in those days. Real ale was a niche product and the majority of drinkers chose lager over anything else. However The Firkin chain had a unique selling point and that was the head splitting brew called “Dog Bolter”.
The Fleece was always a lively place, it had a big open bar and was part of the circuit of boozers you would stop in on a night out with the lads.
Today the pub has evolved into an excellent music venue and the walls are decorated with tour posters of the bands that have played there.
Back in the day the walls were hung with honours boards displaying names of those people who had drunk a gallon of Dog Bolter. It seems crazy now drinking 8 pints of high strength ale in a session, just to get your name written up on a wooden board.
There were not many names up there. A list of people where one name stood out, as it was the only one with the successful completion time written next to it.
I cannot remember the time written up there, but it must have been a record breaker. The person who drank the quickest gallon of Dog Bolter was, you guessed it, Dave Prowse.
Classic one liners……7
Dennis Skinner was at it yet again today. Unfortunately the State Opening of Parliament clashes with Day 2 of the Royal Ascot Race meeting and it is no secret as to where the Queen would rather be. It is a perfect opportunity for Dennis to just do what he does best.
Even in what was a shortened ceremony Black Rod still came knocking on the door of the House of Commons to summon MPs through to the so called Upper Chamber in order to hear the Queen’s Speech. This is the way things work in our Parliamentary Democracy. The Queen sits in the House of Lords and tells someone to fetch the Commoners to hear what she has to say.
Not for the first time and hopefully not the last Dennis Skinner delivered yet another classic one liner.
Maybe we will not have to wait 2 years to hear the next one.
Even at the start of the clip you can see the thumbs up greeting from the MP for Bolsover to the man sent down from the Lords, so we could all see it coming.
Different gravy.
When people hanker after the good ol’ days I am with them on this one.
Reasons?
1. The clothes in 1959 were classic. Plaid, Brogues, tie pins, cigarette cases and pork pie hats all things of the past.
2 Black and White – has its merits and Film noir will live longer than 3D movies in the annuals of time.
3. One take live recordings – name any band who would even have the bottle, OR even be proficient enough to do a live broadcast of 9 minutes plus like that?
4. Jazz is and always will be cool and if done well is a different gravy.
I am not suggesting we bring it all back, but some things the World should still mourn are these two Stars of Jazz.
ps. Thanks Colston for reminding me
Those were the days Part 30
The Hod carrier in flip-flops
After completing my teacher training I got a placed in the pool of recruits in the London Borough of Hillingdon. When I pitched up in July 1991 on my first day as a “probationary” teacher I in my newly assigned school was joined by a 35 year old ex- hod carrier, who had also just retrained and joined the profession.
William Davids was a huge bloke who had switched codes from a blue collar trade to a white collar profession so to speak. He had done a few things since studying Maths at Bristol University and the last job he had was in the building trade. We both had the Bristol connection – he knew about Natch cider and Clarks pies, so we hit it off immediately.
As an individual he was very strong willed with an inherent sense of right and wrong. If a system was flawed or unfair in his eyes he would always question and rebel against it. He kicked against the system. Management did not like him much because of this.
He was a generous man with his time and energy. He loved working with students who were willing to learn, but could not stand the odd one who would not bother at all. Kids loved him. One year he did a great version of Right Said Fred’s “Deeply Dippy” that brought the house down at the Staff Talent Show in Charities Week.
Despite being teachers in different faculties our paths crossed a lot during the working day. We both started as Year 7 form tutors and followed our pastoral groups right the way up to the 6th form. We both had long commutes to work and so got in early. We always met at the local greasy spoon before school on Fridays for a fry up before the weekly staff briefing. I remember that we also used to jump in the car and buzz down to Southall for a curry before a parents evening as there was little time to get home and back in the interval between the end of school and the start of proceedings.
We even did break duties together on the playground. Which had its ups and downs. At least we saw the kaleidoscope of outdoor conditions that the British weather can bring.
Not one to turn down a challenge. He would be up for anything slightly rebellious.
William and I used to sit together at the back of the Friday morning briefing – it is strange how schools survived on calling together staff once a week to discuss and inform the staff of major issues within the school.
Now briefings are called daily in most schools. It means that this meeting is no longer a milestone event that it once was.
After one meeting William and I got talking about dress down days that were a regular Friday occurrence in the private sector. We could not agree on what a dress down day meant in our workplace in terms of what would be acceptable attire. There was an unwritten rule that you could wear pretty much what you liked on a normal day, so if we dressed down, how far should we go?
Through further discussions William and I decided to push the dress code boundaries each Friday and see what reaction we got. It was a good day to try it as we would be seen by all staff and may cause the desired reaction.
We did our experiment in stages we started by not wearing a tie on the Friday of week 1. Then it went to no tie and no morning shave in week 2. A polo shirt replaced the more formal shirt the following week and still nobody batted an eyelid, so we pressed on with our quest. It continued for weeks and we had progressed to a t shirt, shorts and trainers accompanied by an unshaven face, but I called a halt when William suggested ditching the trainers for flip flops for the following week. Teaching whilst looking like a beach bum was fine with me but it was not a sensible thing to be doing science practicals “open –toed.”
William carried on the baton for one more week, and I think we took a photo of him sat in briefing in his beach ware as well as his flip flops! He always pushed the boundaries.
Those were the days Part 29
The World Patented Roy Bollard filing method ©
When I got my first job in a West London comprehensive there was only one other Chemistry teacher in the school – Roy Bollard. He was a well organised bloke who was a pioneer of the use of audio visual equipment. He moonlighted as the school’s sound and light technician and as a consequence was involved in drama and musical productions as well as some legendary discos. He was the bloke who also did so much to underpin the well-oiled machine that was “Charities Week”. He operated the lights and microphones for the shows, auctions and other events that took place in the hall.
Roy was dynamic enough to use an OHP in his lessons, which was cutting edge in those days. Pre prepared acetate slides were the equivalent of a modern day Power Point presentation. Roy had his own take on using the OHP. He had a huge roll of acetate mounted on his projector which became an organic scheme of work. He started writing in September on the top of the plastic scroll and worked downwards till the end of the academic year. So it became a huge time line that essentially grew into being the scheme of work. After a few years of doing the same thing he instinctively knew where a lesson was on the scroll and could wizz the whole roll of clear plastic to where it was written.
Now the cleverest thing that Roy did was adopt the simplest filing method I have ever seen. In those days you did not have e-mails, SIMS and all that jazz. You got memos on paper, in fact everything was paper based. Roy had one single pile that he put all his paper work on which sat right next to his OHP. It soon piled up, but made sense as he knew where everything was, he just had to sift through the pile to find it. The filing system had three rules:
- Anything you get given on paper you read and put on the top of the pile
- Anything you need later you find in the pile and deal with it but put the memo back on top (see rule 1). As a result the new and important stuff would be at the top and all the rubbish sank to the bottom
- When the pile reached the same level as the top of the OHP ie a about the height of a 30cm ruler, he would get a bin, lift up the top half of the pile and sweep the bottom half of the stack of paper from the desk and into the bin. Sorted!
I was thinking about how times have changed so looked back at this
I started my professional career in teaching on 8th July 1991 at a West London comprehensive school and I was thinking….
When I started teaching:
- Kids stood up in the Hall when the Head walked in to start an assembly.
- The Headteacher in my first school always taught a GCSE class, turned up to department meetings, wrote reports etc. Just to keep his toe in the water.
- Some staff would go down the pub at lunch every day, without fail. The Clay Pigeon used to take a copy of the TES on a Friday from the news agent as so many staff went there at lunchtime on that day
- Every parents evening you were served a hot meal before the appointments started or alternatively you could claim travel expenses for a return journey to and from home.
- Wine was always served at all INSET day lunches.
- Reports were…
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He is an absolute legend – Dennis Skinner
Dennis Skinner claimed about £5k on average for his annual travel expenses over the past few years and he voted in
91.04% of the debates in Parliament.
You can check it all here:
This web site is a great mine of information on what MPs are up to and if they really are “working for you”. “The Beast of Bolsover” gives full value to his constituents. Meanwhile my MP, the Honourable Member for Amersham (where an Oyster Card still works), regularly claimed well over Dennis’ annual travel expense totals and voted in only 69.65% of debates in the House of Commons.
Amersham Off peak Travelcard to Zone 1 costs £12.10, whilst an off peak return from Chesterfield (5 miles from Bolsover) to London with a Zone 1 travel card costs £113.
Here he is at yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time on top form.
A Legend from the Old School.
I wish Dennis was my MP.
Next goal wins laaaaaaads! 