Greetings Noble Sir

by Nigel Flaxton

  The problem of planning is the impossibility of forecasting human activity and occasional sudden changes. For all of my teaching career schools had catchment areas from which intakes were drawn and not much notice was taken of individual anomalies. However as comprehensive education spread, far more active and politically astute parents had their children at such schools and these were keen to ensure the best for their youngsters. Choice of schools became a key requirement which elicited various changes of policy over the years as the main parties responded one way or another. I saw the beginnings of this process when, occasionally, I received a visitor who informed me that he or she lived outside my catchment area, even in a different county, but that they were determined to send their child to my School, so would I explain how they could do so? Of course I couldn’t; I simply explained that I was only allowed to accept a child whose address was in the area. I confess to emphasizing the word address. Most got the message and in due course parents’ cars made longer journeys than one would expect. My immediate successor enjoyed the removal of catchment areas as well as having school based management control. Soon intake numbers rose rapidly again. But none of this could have been built into wider planning procedures, the only arbiter was the School itself.

  It is situated on a lovely site on the edge of a village which itself is centre to an extensive rural area. There is a large Research Establishment nearby and the Science Department enjoyed many useful links with it. One governor undertook some population research and came to the conclusion that the village had the greatest density of graduates in the Country. There was competition for students, however, because there were four very well established independent schools which could cream off the most able children at age eleven because many parents could afford private education. Developing a successful alternative, therefore, was certainly a challenge and as we appointed the first members of staff I ensured we had a good cross section including some with grammar school experience and Oxbridge degrees. We also had excellent teachers of practical subjects and in many ways our leavers were welcomed in local industry.

  Its location meant that the great majority of students travelled to it by coach. There is a long narrow drive up to and across the front of the building, at the end of which is an island. At the conclusion of the school day the coaches perforce have to line up, collect their passengers and then, when the first moves all have to follow along, round the island and away. There is no time to waste; anyone left behind has to be taken home or collected. The downside to this is the difficulty of organising after-school activities. Occasionally I used to amuse visitors in my room as the end of session bell sounded and we stood by the window to witness the disappearance of nearly a thousand students in ten minutes flat. By the time I left there were about eighteen coaches. A friend has told me that this year there are thirty-six! Some are privately contracted by parents’ groups. No doubt there is no formula which could have predicted that.

  I mentioned the narrow drive. The architect informed me this was deliberately so to prevent access being made part way along it to fields on either side which could have been targets for housing development. Later someone, somewhere, altered the appropriate regulations and the fields are now covered with houses. Another example of planning going awry.

  The phased development of the School meant appointing a significant number of new teachers each year, so I spent many hours reading application forms and interviewing. I well remember my own interview, or rather interviews, for the Village College. Some of the applicants were called to have individual interviews with three senior LEA officers, including the Chief. Then we were taken to view the partly completed buildings. Three weeks later a smaller number were called and again interviewed individually by officers. We were told that in the afternoon we would be interviewed by them sitting with the full governing body, which had declined to appoint representatives for the purpose. Left to our own devices at lunchtime we candidates walked into central Cambridge, found the well-known Blue Boar, and enjoyed a good lunch with a decent red wine. This was not on expenses, however. It must have put me on good form when facing the twenty-six interviewers ranged around a very large oval table. Later, after some deliberation I was called back and offered the post.

  I tried to make the process as stress free as possible for our candidates. As they arrived I took them to the staff room and gave them coffee or tea. I was well used to this process because I had long since decided that I would not have such items brought to me in my room - I would make my coffee, etc., in the small adjunct to the staffroom amusingly referred to as the kitchen. It had a sink, a refrigerator and an electric socket and plenty of cupboard space for everyone’s mugs and cups for guests. I would then take the group on a tour of the school during which, when lessons changed, they could see and judge the students at close quarters. If, as was usually the case, the post they were applying for was in a department I left them with the Head of Department so he or she and the other staff could assess how well individuals might fit in - and vice versa.

  I always said, and meant it, that the interview was a two-way process; it was as much a matter of applicants assessing whether they really wanted to join our staff as us choosing one of them. Not everyone liked my style, which they could readily see as the day progressed. I assured them that if anyone wanted to drop out at any point they were free to do so without loss of expenses. At lunchtime they were taken to the dining hall where staff always ate and sat with the students at tables each with eight places. I did reserve a table for the candidates so they could talk together. The one privilege I always reserved for staff was as and when they went for lunch they went to the top of the queue to be served - they had work to do or needed some leisure time during the lunch break, and we were not in Sweden!

  In the afternoon individual interviews took place with the Chair of Governors, the appropriate County Inspector or the Area Education Officer, the Head of the appropriate department, and me. When it came to the point of making a decision it was most usual that a unanimous decision came easily. Occasionally, of course, there were two first rate candidates and I would have welcomed an opportunity to select both. For me the worst part of the day always came when the post had been offered and accepted and I returned to the staffroom to thank the other candidates for their applications and wish them success in other applications. Often there was sincere regret on both sides.

  Probably the occasion when this process was quite a bore was after the 1981 imposed 10% reduction in staffing. Suddenly application numbers shot up as more teachers chased fewer jobs. We had advertised for two basic posts, suitable for candidates who had just qualified by taking PGCEs after gaining their degrees. One was for Geography, the other for History. I received just over three hundred for the first and just under two hundred and fifty for the second. Reducing those to two lists of six took a very long time.

  The phased growth of the School affected both parents and students. The former faced the problem of committing their youngsters to a completely unknown future or, if they could afford to do so and their children were bright enough, sending them to one of the independent schools at age eleven. For the students the majority knew they were special because they had been told so since they were in the lower schools; then they transferred to the middle schools knowing their stay would be just two years. At the various meetings I had with parent groups before the opening they listened intently as I described the curriculum, the intended staffing and the buildings together with the ethos I hoped to develop.

  The children finally arrived, dressed in their new uniforms - the second such outfit parents had bought in two years. I stress finally. Upper schools in the previous phases had been accommodated temporarily on middle school sites awaiting building completion. In our case, I was informed, building was well advanced and we could open properly housed. As the intended opening day approached it was obvious the building would not be safe so local radio was invoked to annou
nce the children would have an extra week’s holiday. Then at 9.00pm on the day before they were to arrive the builders cut through the main electricity supply cable! They assured me they would have a generator and temporary lights in the hall well before opening time. This was essential because the hall-cum-theatre had no windows. Of course the students arrived first, so we had to usher them into the tiered seating with only reflected light from the open door. The upside of this was that they were absolutely silent, though I don’t recommend it as a method of class control. I began by welcoming them and assuring everyone that none of us would forget the School’s opening. Suddenly I was interrupted by the noise of a generator starting close at hand and a harsh yellow light illuminating the hall by shining directly into the students’ eyes.

  When I had introduced the form tutors - or class teachers if you prefer - each read out the list of names of his or her charges and then led them away to their classroom. This entailed a neat balancing act as everyone walked in single file across raised planks as the builders continued to lay floor tiles. As the days passed the building was brought into full readiness, though a hidden problem wasn’t revealed immediately and had yet to manifest itself.

  In the surrounding area was a large airfield used to train pilots of large airliners. It had long been a possible venue for London’s third airport. The architect’s brief, therefore, was to provide as much sound reduction as possible. He achieved this by having no opening windows in most rooms but with an air conditioning-cum-heating system throughout the building - even with humidity control in the Music rooms. The roof space above all the blocks was generous and the equipment impressive, with trunking snaking for many metres. During the first warm September days there were some complaints that rooms were rather warm and I asked for thermometers to be available and read regularly. Then the weather turned colder and I received the opposite complaint. Matters got worse as the term proceeded and temperature graphs showed many classrooms below the required 64 degrees Fahrenheit at the beginning of each day. I persuaded the Caretaker to start the heating boilers even earlier than his official instructions, but the problem remained. Without full control I could only keep passing on my concern to the LEA. Finally, as the weather turned really cold, I said I would have to send the students home if the minimum required temperature could not be achieved. It was a hollow threat because as they and I knew I had no control over the provision of coaches, but, of course, someone might mention the problem to local radio or television....!

  Finally a full investigation was undertaken and the air conditioning trunking was opened. The problem was immediately apparent. All internal equipment lay in pieces, never having been fitted. Subsequent enquiries revealed there had been a dispute between the builders and the air conditioning specialists, so their workers had simply put down their equipment and left. No one had checked inside the trunking afterwards! In a short time we enjoyed well conditioned air, cooler in summer and warmer in winter - not the reverse.

  In stark contrast to the readiness of my first School work on the sports field of the Upper School was not begun for some months after it opened. Suddenly the contractors brought some impressive heavy machinery on site and appeared to be undertaking levelling. Having no reponsibility for this work neither I nor any Games staff took close interest. Then someone pointed out that piles of soil were stacked into mini-hills well away from the buildings alongside an isolated lane that skirted the site. On the field surface many stones were revealed and we were asked to organise lines of students to pick these up. This we did, thinking how sensible it was to ensure no stones could surface through the soil when it was redistributed. However it gradually disappeared from the site. Stones having been removed by unpaid labour the field was then sown with grass seed. Many more months passed before it was ready for use. Even then it required plenty of fertilizer.

  We were able to appoint an excellent Head of Environmental Studies, Tom M. The site had a small copse which had been untouched for many years so this provided opportunities for studying both flora and fauna - the latter being mainly birds. Tom was very knowledgeable about both, as well as a number of rare breeds, so when he developed a small farm such rarities as Soay and Jacob sheep and Silky chickens were bred. Tom also ensured students had experience of the financial side of small holding as well as using all necessary skills, such as sheep shearing.

  On some land intended for the farm a small building appeared on the plans. After the School had been open for some weeks bricklayers arrived and started laying courses of bricks. They did so most enthusiastically and the walls rose...and rose...and rose. Soon it took on the appearance of a mini-skyscraper devoid of windows. Many eyebrows were raised as well, so I called the Adviser for Environmental Studies. He arrived to see for himself; immediately he contacted the building firm. In their turn they contacted the bricklayers and told them to look closely at the plans. Very shortly the height of the walls was reduced by half. We crossed giraffes off the list of potential rare breeds.

  The first year group thoroughly enjoyed their special status. With a comparatively small number of teachers close relations soon developed and we enjoyed the good points of a small school, as I knew from the experience of my first headship. The buddy feeling has remained within the group over the years as I discovered on two much later occasions. When a purpose built Sixth Form Centre was commissioned by my successor, previous students were invited to the opening. The first year group, who obviously were the first Sixth Formers, decided to have their own celebration and so booked the building for a party a few days before the official event. With some of the original staff I was invited - and on arrival found myself kissed by a large number of beautiful young ladies!

  Years later when I queued in the local surgery for the annual flu jab, I glanced at the notice board and saw a note headed, ‘Were you in the first group at the Upper School in 1975?’ There followed details of a get-together at a nearby restaurant. I sent an email saying I was around on the first day and received a delighted reply inviting me to join them. The organiser, I remembered, had leftl to join an airline; later she told me she had spent twenty years as cabin crew with another one. Again I was welcomed with many kisses, this time by ladies I knew were forty-six years old. I had privileged information!

  Before the opening, when I spoke to groups of parents at various meetings, I carried around a site model made by the architect to establish site lines from various angles. All the blocks were fixed in place except one - a projected swimming pool. With full financial control my successor invited me to join a committee investigating additions to the building. So we looked at swimming pools. There is no doubt one would have been a very popular facility for the School and the area. We visited a number, but enquiries about finance revealed that each operated at a loss. It would have been rash to recommend such a situation. What was built later was an excellent addition to the Sports Hall with fully equipped exercise rooms. It was opened by a well-known athlete who was a former student and often appears on television as a commentator of athletic events. Now it carries her name.

  The cosy relationship between staff and students was cemented at the end of the first autumn term with a ‘concert’ at which both engaged in plenty of leg pulling. I dressed as a zombie cleric and sang epitaphs revealing greater knowledge of their activities than they might have imagined. Some students produced an excellent spoof of Play School in which the staff were obviously children. So, when the next academic year began the first year group were shocked to find a large number of new students thoroughly enjoying their new surroundings with a new cohort of teachers they didn’t know. Naturally they felt ostracized. It was some time before they adjusted fully to the changes and relationships. The one strange feature they experienced which could never be altered was the fact that they had no senior, more mature, students above them. In due course they assumed that mantle which they did very well, but their experience in the School was unique.

&nb
sp; There is no doubt that some bright students from the age group in the locality went to independent schools, so when the first Sixth Formers left there was only a modest number that went on to university. However one student went to Cambridge, an event which I know greatly bolstered the School’s image. In a couple of years university entrance was twice the national rate. Following one girl who insisted on leaving an independent school to enter our Sixth Form a steady stream followed and continued annually - without any loss of prospects for the individuals. As Convenor of the area branch of the then Secondary Heads’ Association I knew my independent colleagues well because all were members. My Chair of Governors was also an independent school governor, so relationships between the schools were friendly. This meant that parental choice of education for their children was perfectly open. The total number of students in the Sixth Form has continued to rise so the change to 18 of the official leaving age may not make a great difference. Perhaps, however, the nomenclature of Years 12 and 13 will at last take over from the ‘Sixth Form’.

  Chapter 42

  A Convenor? Really a Secretary. I seemed to collect jobs like this as a matter of course. Shortly after being appointed to the Village College the group of Wardens appointed me their Secretary, to the surprise of the Chief Education Officer who rang me to enquire what my duties were. He seemed concerned that the newest and youngest Warden should be so quickly elevated to a position of wider responsibility. I assured him I would be just a lowly scribe. Nevertheless I soon found myself organising a conference of all Community College Heads as LEAs slowly accepted that school facilities should be available for use by all people in their localities.