— Get at your work, all of you, cried the prefect of studies from the door. Father Dolan will be in every day to see if any boy, any lazy idle little loafer wants flogging. Every day. Every day.
The door closed behind him. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Maudlin Street. Carry on Teacher 1962 starring Kenneth Connor & Charles Hawtrey & Leslie Phillips & Joan Sims & Kenneth Williams & Hattie Jacques & Rosalind Knight & Cyril Chamberlain & Ted Ray & Roy Hines & Carol White & George Gowell & Richard O'Sullivan et al, director Gerald Thomas, sign on gate opening scene
Free expression – you know what that means – sex in the bicycle sheds. ibid. Hawtrey
Phillips: Who’s that?
Acting Headmaster: Miss Alcock. ibid.
The majority of us forget in a year or two all that we learnt at school because the conditions of our lives are such as to destroy all inclination for culture or refinement. We must see that the children are properly clothed and fed and that they are not made to get up in the middle of the night to go to work for several hours before they go to school. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
And is it true that the students left behind in neighbourhood schools suffered? No: they continued to test at about the same levels as before the supposed brain drain. Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
In the late 1990s, the US Department of Education undertook a monumental project called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study … The result is an incredibly rich set of data … Even when the parents’ income and education are controlled for, the black-white gap reappears within just two years of a child’s entering school. ibid.
A child who had a low birthweight tends to do poorly in school. ibid.
Books in the home equal higher test scores. ibid.
For Oscar, high school was the equivalent of a medieval spectacle, like being put in the stocks and forced to endure the peltings and outrages of a mob of deranged half-wits, an experience from which he supposed he should have emerged a better person, but that’s not really what happened – and if there were any lessons to be gleaned from the ordeal of those years he never quite figured out what they were. He walked into school every day like the fat lonely nerdy kid he was, and all he could think about was the day of his manumission, when he would at last be set free from its unending horror. Hey, Oscar, are there faggots on Mars? – Hey, Kazoo, catch this. The first time he heard the term moronic inferno he knows exactly where it was located and who were its inhabitants. Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
You start off in school and they take your soul away. They take your brains away. You’re not allowed to have an opinion that differs from theirs. John Lydon, interview cited Punk 76
In the two separate bedrooms which they occupied at 45 Oakhurst Avenue the quads were each compiling dossiers for Miss Sprocket which, had he seen them, would definitely have finished Uncle Wally off. Josephine was concentrating on his sexual relations with Maybelle with emphasis on ‘forced, unnatural acts’; Penelope, who had a natural gift for mathematics and statistics, was listing the vastly different rates of pay between white and blacks at Immelmann Enterprises and other industries in Wilma; Samantha was comparing execution numbers in various states and Wally’s expressed preference for public hangings and floggings to be mandatorily shown on prime-time television instead of less humane methods; and finally Emmeline was describing his collection of weapons and their use in language that was calculated to horrify the teachers at the Convent, in particular Wally’s description of flamethrowers and ‘barbecueing Nips’. Tom Sharpe, Wilt in Nowhere
What do you mean you can’t take gym? … We’ll determine whether you take exercise or not. High School, teacher, 1968
We can only judge on the basis of performance. ibid.
I’ll take it [detention] under protest. ibid. pupil
She’s got a weight problem and she knows it. ibid. fashion & design teacher
You’re going to be suspended for throwing the first punch. ibid. teacher
I have seen girls whose hymens were so small I couldn’t pass a finger through them. ibid. male teacher to boys
Faith schools – cultural suicide. Christopher Hitchens v Tim Rutten, debate Los Angeles Public Library 4th June 2007
Between April 2015 and March 2017, 2,579 weapons were seized in British schools. Of these almost 500 were knives. Crimes that Shook Britain s8e2: Ann Maguire, CI 2017
Boarding schools are amongst the most influential institutions in Britain, responsible for educating many of our politicians, judges and business people, even three-quarters of our prime ministers. An estimated million people in the country boarded as children. But it’s only now, decades on, that the true extent of sexual abuse in these school has come to light. Exposure: Boarding School: The Secret Shame, ITV 2018
Were schools really willingly disregarding children’s safety to protect reputations? ibid.
There was a permanent low-level state of fear. ibid.
The schools themselves – how they failed to deal with allegations of abuse, and in some cases allowed it to continue. ibid.
‘We have to make our school financially viable and the standard consistently what it needs to be.’ School I, headmaster’s assembly, BBC 2018
Three very different secondary schools. Their fortunes intertwined in a multi-academy trust. 5,000 students, 400 teachers and 1 man in charge. ibid.
‘I’ve never known such a large proportion of a year group suffer with anxiety. I think it’s gotten worse every year I’ve been in the game.’ ibid. teacher of mock-exam grade young adults
In an education system under the greatest financial pressure for a generation, how much should we expect from our teachers, our children and ourselves? School II
8% of British secondary school are currently classified as inadequate. ibid.
Every exclusion must be recorded as an absence from school worsening the overall attendance figures. ibid.
Marlwood School is classified as inadequate by OFSTED government inspectors. They will soon return to carry out two follow-up assessments. School III
He [headteacher] must also plan for a 28% drop in the school’s income in the 2018/2019 academic year. ibid.
‘The default reaction is to find fault with things.’ ibid. teacher
The trust is continuing to look for ways to cut spending across its schools. ibid.
‘It’s the total lack of value for us. We’re just spreadsheets.’ ibid. teacher
‘It [robot] can’t do my job under these circumstances.’ ibid. teacher
‘I’ve felt vulnerable all year long.’ ibid. headteacher
‘The toll it takes on people is unbelievable.’ ibid. deputy head
With 1,600 students Castle is the largest school in the Trust. It’s rated Good by OFSTED, and in 2017 it achieved some of the best GCSE results in south Gloucester. School IV
Mangotsfield School: ‘Most of you do the right things, and that’s fantastic …’ School V, headmaster’s assembly
1Mangotsfield is the second largest school run by CSET, the Castle School Education Trust. Each day it’s attended by 1,100 students and 130 staff. ibid.
August 2017: It’s the summer holidays at Mangotsfield School on the outskirts of Bristol. This morning GCSE results have been released to schools across the country the day before the students get them. This is the first year of the new GCSE system with grades of 1-9. School VI
This year Mangotsfield is due its first government inspection in almost three years. ibid.
Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for governor of New York … He advocates against the teachers’ union and promotes charter schools. People of colour make up 80% of Buffalo’s public school population. Field of Vision: Adversary, short 17m
Carl Paladino Not Suitable for Children. ibid. billboard along the 33
Following a formal hearing, the State Education Commission removed Paladino from the school board in August 2017. Paladino is now suing the six women on the board who opposed him, claiming his removal was a retaliatory violation of his First Amendment rights. Five of the six women are people of colour. ibid.