Newsletter January 2006

At the end of last year I had agreed to film a TV documentary at my old secondary Grammar School, Robert Clack, in Dagenham. I had not been back there since I left in 1963. Quite frankly I couldn’t wait to leave and get on with my life. School did not seem to have much relevance to my plans or aspirations. I didn’t even bother to turn up for my GCE’s. I had also heard that since then it had become very run down and its reputation was so bad that parents tried to keep their children away, especially the girls. It was now surrounded by a large housing estate and there was rumour of gang warfare and kids running rampage around the estate, terrifying all the residents.

When I attended Robert Clack it was a spanking new Sixties Grammar School, set in an open green space overlooking the Civic Centre and parkland, with kids awkwardly wearing smart new uniforms. It was part of a Government incentive to create an elite white-collar work force from the brightest working class youngsters to replenish the middle classes. This was not my idea of fun. As an ordinary working class girl I could not get enthused at the prospect of being a teacher, office manager, academic or whatever it was they were trying to train me into – I wasn’t sure what it was, only that it was alien, dull and boring. As it turned out a whole generation of bright working class kids felt the same and managed to use what education they had to rebel against the system and overturn the establishment of the time. So the social engineering experiment went pear-shaped. Pink Floyd’s – "We Don’t Want No Education", neatly summed this up. Oh those were the heady days of rebels and revolution – The Sixties.

It was not until I was in my early forties that I realized there were more constructive ways of approaching education, when I enrolled as a mature student at Birkbeck College, London University. So I suppose you could say I was confused or in psychobabble speak – ambivalent, or in Buddhist terms - had unpurified karma concerning Robert Clack. As the filming day approached I felt more and more trepidation about going back to that place and time. What’s more my call time was 7.00 in the morning. Aarghhh! I hate early starts. TV documentaries are low budget affairs and they don’t run to make-up artists. So I crawled out of bed at the crack of dawn to put my own paint on my face. I was hoping my hair would do as it was told. Armed with his sat nav, the driver seemed happy enough to go to where he obviously thought of as the back of beyond. The dark early morning sky turned into a dark grey morning sky as we cruised through the wealth of the City skyscrapers, into the grime of the east end and then into factory land as we approached the outskirts of Essex, it was so resonant of the gloomy feeling I experienced on my way to school all those years ago. Even the sat nav went AWOL as we entered the urban industrial Dagenham freeway.

Suddenly it all came rushing back, "Turn left," I instructed as I took over directions. To my surprise we passed the back entrance to my primary school. I could picture myself standing alone at the gates waiting. This day was different. I had just finished an exam that had taken place in the school canteen. It was quite fun to do and very easy. It was my 11 plus. I nearly didn’t take it. The school did not think I was very clever. I was both really shy and quiet or I mucked around a lot, doing impressions of the teachers and Fifties entertainers, and causing class mayhem. However the 11 plus and the prospect of "bettering" myself was very important to my parents and after my mum had burst into the Headmaster’s office and lambasted him they agreed to allow me to set the exam.

I usually walked home through the park alone to an empty house as my mum and dad were working but as the day of the exam was so special to my parents they had arranged to pick me up afterwards. I waited and waited, all alone at those gates but they didn’t show. The caretaker locked up. Everyone had gone. I began to worry that I had got something terribly wrong. I felt a kind of anxious dread. Then a strange thing happened. My uncle arrived to pick me up. What was going on? He explained that my grandfather had died, that my family had decided not to tell me before such an important event as my exam, and that the funeral had been that afternoon. He would take me home. I realized that I had always at some level of my being associated this loss and subsequent isolation with my "winning", bettering myself, by passing my 11 plus. It was a pattern that would recur throughout my life. Suddenly sitting in the car driving back to Robert Clack it all started to make sense. I had had an "Ah-hah!", Gestalt, or enlightened moment.

By the time we arrived I was ready for anything. But I had imagined nothing like the experience that lay ahead. Firstly the school had completely turned around the negative state it had fallen into. So much so that it is in the list of UK’s most improved schools and has won the Governments prestigious "School Achievement Award". With a change of Head to the indomitable Paul Grant who has worked together optimistically and diligently with the local parents, teachers and students, It has become Robert Clack School of Science, a Comprehensive school that is so popular that they now had a long waiting list of kids desperate to learn there. A new egalitarian ethos of valuing and rewarding each person’s efforts was well in place and they could not wait to show the TV crew and me the results.

We kicked off with assembly. I sat on the stage with the Head, Deputy a former pupil who had become a teacher and the Lady Mayor. It was the same hall, the same seating and the same uniform but although smaller to my adult eyes it was all lighter and brighter somehow. The boys choir serenaded me with a version of Puppet On A String, a really groovy girl trio treated me to an updated slant on "Always Something There To Remind Me" and I gave prizes and shook hands and chatted informally from the stage with everyone. Then the Head announced we would be doing it all over again for the other half of he school. He was insistent that ALL the kids were able to take part in what I realized was their way of honouring a former pupil and welcoming me back.

By this time I was experiencing a Magimix of feelings – all bitter sweet but very nice. Call me old fashioned but I had no idea how good it could feel to be at school and be part of everything. When assemblies one and two were over they all filed neatly out after packing all the chairs up themselves. The boys choir finally broke their cool and piled around me to ask wide-eyed questions: Do you live in a mansion? A castle? A loft apartment? What country? Until the producer broke it up for the filming schedule.

Wasting no time I was whizzed off for a whirlwind tour of the school and classes. Paul Grant, The Headmaster, was the real hero of the day as he guided me skillfully and enthusiastically around the school of which he is rightfully proud. I did my best to help everyone relax and eventually we all forgot about the camera and enjoyed ourselves.

I visited a drama class where the work with masks was really imaginative and funny and the kids were really cool, spontaneous and unselfconscious. They are shortly putting on a musical show of Grease, produced for the whole school by their visionary Drama teacher.

Then I went to a music class which was being run by a really hip teacher with a trumpet who was asking the different sections of the orchestra to do calls, repeating the jazzy riffs and rhythms he played, back to him. "Forget the sheets. Just listen". He told them. We used to doze at the back of the class while we were played scratchy old records of Beethoven. At the end of this session the children burst out of the classroom, grinning, and chatting animatedly.

I stopped off at the Domestic Science room, now "Food Technology" (is that to give it boy appeal?) Here I told them the first recipe I had learned there, Cheesy Stuffed Jackets, and how I passed it on to my own children. Then I went to the French class where we chatted in French about France, my French lyrics, and the teacher’s highly individual taste in fashion. When I attended Robert Clack everyone took the piss out of you if tried to speak French in class.

Having won a City Learning Centre award, the school has state of the art IT facilities and a new Science and Technology building. My mind used to glaze over at the thought of Science but the sight of the young, dynamic, incredibly handsome and frightfully clever science teacher left me reaching enthusiastically for the nearest Bunsen burner! He tells the girls his girlfriend is a wrestler to keep their minds on their work.

This was followed by a visit to their Sports Centre, which had more equipment per square metre than an up market gym chain. Indoor ball sports had replaced those dreadful outdoor netball matches in the constant drizzle that always surrounded Fords factories. And hockey? I have never understood why girls wearing baggy knickers and armed with heavy sticks would want to chase each other around a field beating each other about the legs. Nope, the karate and aerobics they were offering here was much more up my bowling alley. They even had a lighted astro turf football pitch - my son Jack would have loved this! Apparently all this is shared with the local community when school’s over. Wow!

This was such an amazing trip for me but the highlight was still to come. A group of sixth formers were invited to meet me in the head’s office for a round table discussion on their ideals and aspirations. They oozed optimism and confidence and though the fulfillment of their dreams would take them out of their current circumstances they still thought of themselves as "working class". Amy, Adam, Maame, Liam, Jolene, Ashleigh, Martin, Alison and Alex were bright, funny, highly individual and really likeable. They have sent me their Mission Statements and I hope to follow their progress in life. Alison has already been offered a place at Cambridge University.

Looking back I do not know what impressed me most about Robert Clack School of Science. I suppose it was the spirit imbued in everything. This mixture of aching self-confidence in the kids, enterprising attitude of the staff, single-minded determination of the Head and complete support from the parents. It demonstrated that a holistic approach to education where the Community is involved and takes responsibility for their kid’s future really works. The clear structure and boundaries where rules are made and kept for the benefit of everyone makes a safe environment for the kids to learn in. They seem to like this; it gives them a solid sense of security in which to explore the unknown that goes with the learning experience. I realized that both internal and external discipline is really important. Everyone knows where he or she stands. It shows them the consequences of behaviour, both good and bad.

But what stands out most is the atmosphere of warm encouragement where achievement of all kinds is recognized and rewarded. At one point a boy chased me down the corridor to show me a photo of the "whopper" fish he had caught at the weekend. It was all these things and more. As I left to go back to London I felt completely exhausted and completely uplifted. One thing is certain. Though my schooldays were not the best years of my life, THIS school visit will probably rank as one of The Best Days In My Life.