What would your old teachers say if they could see you now?

Annsixty - you've said it all!

The problem is that a lot of children (my own DGC included) haven't got a snowball in hell's chance of getting into the school right on their doorsteps.

Fioretina51, you're made laugh out loud,i just didn't apply myself at school, in fact i found it all a waste of my time and effort but i too ended up in Education, i often chuckle to myself about it.

I passed 11+ & went to Grammar school alone while all my friends went to the local Sec Mod. I hated every second of it & rebelled quite a lot.
The only teacher who ever gave me a glowing report was Domestic Science & she was lovely to me.
I went on to run my own Celebration cake making business when the children were young & taught Sugarcraft for many years afterwards.
So I doubt they would be surprised but I was very good at English if encouraged & I pick up languages quite easily so with a bit more encouragement I could have done something else.
Very happy with my choices though so Yah Sucks Booey to all those teachers who could not see an unhappy child needing a bit of TLC.

gillybob I hope your children/grandchildren read the last 3 lines of your post!

Another thing that happens, after the line is drawn and people are allocated to certain schools, is that there is a strict rule they follow. That is they have a percentage of boarders (if appropriate) and a percentage of day pupils. Out of those a certain percent come from the local area and the rest from further afield.

So it follows that the school can only take children above the line who tick the boxes.

Children are not 'failures' some are early developers and some are late developers. To tell a child at age 11yrs that they are 'failures' is an awful thing to do.

I might sound as though I do not support grammar schools, you are so wrong. I think parents should have a wide choice of schools be it grammar/high school/comprehensive/academy or private schools. I think you should be able to choose which kind your child would suit best.

I know I've been forgotten as my mother saw my former headteacher about thirty years ago and he didn't remember then so there's no hope now!

Jalima I love your poem! Very funny!

That's nice Yorkshiregel

I totally agree with you about encouraging children to do the best they can and praising their strengths instead of telling them how stupid they are and how they would never achieve anything. I wish someone had told me I was good at something (anything). I have never had a great deal of encouragement in anything whereas I have always tried to encourage my own children and my grandchildren too not that the DGC need much encouragement in anything, they already know they are the cleverest, brightest,most beautiful children in the world

What would my teachers say to me if they met me now? I hope they would say 'Well done!' I would say 'Thanks to you!'

What I noticed reading through all these posts was that so many teachers tell their pupils they should not even aim for the stars because they will never reach them. I think that is wrong, wrong, wrong! Tell a child it is stupid often enough and the child will believe it. Tell it to work hard and it can achieve whatever it wants to achieve is a better way. Lucky for me my teachers were of the latter kind and I achieved what I wanted to achieve. Teachers who say things such as 'Don't even try because you are useless' are cruel imo. They obviously have not heard of Leadership Training (which I ended up teaching) a method that develops the skills that people already have but do not believe they have. It was an honour for me to see all these 'failures' of the school system reaching their goals. People who did not get to grammar school because of the test are not 'failures'. They just didn't realise that only a certain number would get through because that was the number of places available. So the board drew a line according to the number of places available and anyone under that line did not get in. It has NOTHING to do with being a 'failure'!

One word.......'clown'

I used to see my old Domestic Science teacher quite often in Tesco. It was my best subject at school and I'd planned to be a DS teacher but on GCE day I turned up for the exam in the afternoon to discover it had been in the morning! I got a job in a bank and left school in shame. When I asked her if she remembered me she said, "I will go to my grave with your name inscribed on my heart, Dorice Johnson, the girl who forgot!"
Later I went to train as a primary school teacher, a job I loved, and I still see my ex pupils all the time and am heart warmed by their positive recollections of happy days at school.
ps No-one ever calls me by my birth name now if they want to live, be warned!

Oh I really didn't see that one coming MaryXYZ

I was diagnosed Asperger at the age of 51, so any teachers who knew what that meant might realise it explained some things about me. Back then it wasn't known.

The main difficulty would be that teachers who knew me as a boy would have great difficulty recognising me as a woman!

Welcome to heaven.......lol

My needlework teacher used to hold up my work to show the rest of the class how NOT to do it. Much later I became costume maker for a dance school ..... and took a strange and perverse delight in using the wrong colour threads in the bobbin, just to show you, Mrs N. so there! I would love her to have seen my 23 tiny tots' red tutus!

At least they could have let the Jewish girls sit down during the service? we did, cross legged on the floor, except for when we sung!

I hated my top of the range all girls private school where only entry to Oxbridge would do. The horrible headmistress told me I had not been satisfactory.

Since then I have had various wonderful employments including medical admin at the RCP, exporting pigs, many years in the film industry and travelling the world.

To that I have added a few qualifications including a 2:1 BA Hons degree, my tutor wanted me to go on to do a Phd so I would have loved to have gone back to the Abbey and said 'F--k you, just call me Doctor'. Probably met with a tight lipped grimace and disbelief. Now living the dream in France and speaking the lingo pretty fluently which wouldn't have gone down well either.

Looking at the school's alumni publication where they are asking for online mentors I declined when I saw what international high flyers it's now producing - including the youngest female BA captain! Can't cap that.

Tbh I really don't care if they even remember me. I hated grammar school and don't feel I ever learnt much worthwhile. BUT I have had a very happy life, married at 19 after meeting at 13, had 3 wonderful sons and 47yrs later I am still very happy so I really couldn't give a damn

My music teacher would be pleased to know how varied my musical tastes still are, she encouraged us to listen to all sorts, after all, good music is good music, it matters not what genre it is!
My needlework teacher would say, "I knew you'd be a good needlewoman if you applied yourself instead of chatting all through the lesson"!
The rest of them would ask if I was still the worst giggler of the group, and the answer would be "Yes!"

I couldn't care less, what my primary school teacher would say. She was an old bitch, she hated me, and the feeling was mutual. She continually told me, I would finish up in an X-class in the local junior secondary school. When I sat what was called my qualifying exam, in 1944, I was second highest in the whole school. She didn't even have the decency, to congratulate me. All I can say is"I hope she's rotting in hell"

My biology teacher at High School said I didn't have the patience to go to university and study biology (when I told him where I was going and what subject I was doing). Said I didn't have a "snowball chance in hell" of passing....

Well....

Graduated with Honours degree in the subject. Went on to do a Masters and PG Certificate. Am a published scientist having done research for the Health & Safety Executive and Nuclear Industry. Worked on projects for companies such as Rolls Royce, BP and Diageo and am now advisor for an organisation with over 40 offices across Scotland.

So...probably more qualified than him, done more and paid more.

Yep...nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!!!

I had an inspirational teacher for the last 2 years of primary school and corresponded with her for a long time afterwards. She knew about my marriage and the birth of my children, as well as my career in teaching. I'm sure she was pleased at the path I took.
Agree completely about the religious observance in school, thatbags.

There wouldn't be any need to separate children from different family religions if schools didn't have to have "services" or religious "observances". The problem is an outdated and defunct law, which should be changed so that schools teach about religions but don't "observe" any. That would be real multiculturalism instead of the pretend silly stuff we have now.

They'd probably say "the Trappist monk came out of herself"