Well the trip to South Farnham was uneventful , meeting the two T.V crew in a pub was interesting . The hotel was basic and I had checked the journey to the school.
The school building was just a double for my old Grammar School, King Edwards for girls In Handsworth . They must have had the same architect. I discovered it had been a secondary school so had the advantage of a dance studio, pottery kilns in the art department, a fully equipped huge gym, domestic science rooms and things that no ordinary primary school had access to, notwithstanding a massive playing field with cricket pavilion, football , netball and tennis courts. I was in awe of the green space the school possessed.
The pupils were very privileged and most had professional parents who were extremely well off. The children had ponies and went to every club you can imagine and also had 2 or 3 foreign holidays a year . A very far cry from Kingstanding in Birmingham where a large majority of parents were on benefits and children did not have holidays at all. The week was full of meetings and no teaching at all, very different to my normal week of quite a bit of teaching to give staff time to plan and to keep me up to date with what was happening in every class. My counterpart had a very rude awakening when he had to take my timetable as teaching was not his best attribute!He was a business man more than a teacher and felt the most important part of the job was to get money.
The film went out as one of the series Trading Places, where league tables had been set by the government so it featured the prison service , refuse collection , hospitals as well as schools. I am not sure it ever really achieved what I wanted it to but it did show the stark contrast between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. For me it proved that school league tables would never be a reflection of children and their achievements or how hard our teachers work to improve the lives of our children. Quite an experience.
Carols Blog 