Teenagers on a housing estate. Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty
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This week, children across the country will be heading back to school; we asked our contributors to do the same. In this series, our writers share some lessons they learned at school – and how it shaped the way they think about education today.
My secondary school didn’t so much serve its pupils, but rather humiliated, discouraged and neglected them. As far as most of the teachers there were concerned, it was more a holding pen for the dregs of society than a place of education and improvement. I was once invited back to open a new wing of the school – given that I have a public profile and media career. I told the person on the other end of the phone to shove their invitation right into detention.
Branksome Comprehensive served the 1,200 children on the council estate where I lived in Darlington. Though ‘served’ is perhaps an overstatement. Finding themselves teaching in a sink school, the teachers there subjected my schoolfellows and I to humiliation and violence at worst, and prejudice and indifference at best. Essentially, we were set up to fail.
In 2007, I wrote an article about someone whom I had known at Branksome; he ended up homeless and later in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend. It prompted me to look into what happened to some of the other kids who had been there with me. I discovered that a number of them were serving life sentences for serious crime. Others had experienced different kinds of hardship. A mere handful had gone on to further education.
I started in Branksome in 1973, aged 11. My older brother Paul had already been there for a year, and, being a bit of a naughty child, had earned a reputation as a ‘troublemaker’. He didn’t do anything terrible, he just refused to be shoved around by a group of teachers who could not care less about his past, present or future. He did tell me he was caned 18 times one day as the teachers were ‘testing out’ three new canes recently acquired. Often, they would run at the kids to ensure they could lash them harder.
I remember my first day there, feeling shy and self-conscious, sitting in the school assembly as the Head Teacher addressed us all. I wasn’t particularly listening to him waxing lyrical, until I heard my name. He was pointing at me, shouting, “There we have one pupil to look out for. Julie, stand up.” He then began to tell the entire school that I would very likely be disruptive, because my brother was. It was an appalling start.
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Subscribeexcellent article – I wish politicians had Julie’s grasp on the subject – it’s not rocket science after all!!
Strange really. I went to the same school around the same time as Ms Bindel, and I had an utterly contrasting experience. I found the teachers, in the main, to be motivated and inspiring. My fellow pupils (forms 1-2A and 3-5XP) were brighter than me and dedicated to doing well. Most if not all went on to college and probably university, even those who lived on the Branksome estate.