Shades of Grey

Last night, we visited Morley High School. This is officially David’s closest school and the one he will certainly be given a place at provided that we list it on the preference form. As it happens, we are more-or-less equidistant between Morley High and Woodkirk High, one of David’s friends who lives not too far away from us has their nearest school as Woodkirk.

So, first impressions? Very much how the head described it to me a few years back, “earthy“. It doesn’t have pretensions but it is proud of how well it does.

Since John Townsley was reputedly parachuted in as a “Superhead” in 2003, he has turned the school around, from borderline failing to excelling in its results, particularly by getting rid of dead wood staff. Well, this is what he told us, although the 1999 and 2006 Ofsted reports don’t paint that extreme a contrast. Similar to the Woodkirk inspection reports, much is satisfactory with some areas down as good. The trouble is that Ofsted school reports are full of arcane educational language that lacks clarity for the typical parent and even as a former school Governor, I’ve had to ask teachers to translate some what they say to what they actually mean.

So, how does a parent judge? So far, we can only compare Morley High with Heckmondwike (a Grammar school with something of a different ethos) and my old school, Kenton School, although this was a closing day rather than an open evening so it wasn’t full of teachers extolling the benefits of the school in quite the same way. We will be visiting Woodkirk next week for their open evening before expressing our preferences on the all important form (or in our case, electronically online).

The biggest contrast between Hecky and Morley High is in the vocational aspects: most Grammar School children are more likely to go on into higher education, whereas in a non-selective school, many will leave at 16 or 18 going into jobs or further education instead. Consequently, there is also the feel of a vocational college here, much like I recall of Coventry Technical College in the 70s. There is a hairdressing salon, there are rooms for particular trades and there was even a public service room, for Police, Fire Brigade and Forces.

(For overseas readers, Our Government has a target of 50% of pupils to go to University and by the time David wants to leave school, he will more-or-less have to stay on until 18 anyway, something us libertarian types refer to as educational conscription. The Government has never actually explained where the 50% figure comes from or attempted to justify it beyond woolly stuff about us needing high calibre graduates for the 21st century digital networked economy. 

Personally, I regard this as a mixture of smoke & mirrors and all shall have prizes, (or at least 50% of them shall). The reality in my opinion, is that there aren’t too many jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled young people as our white heat of british industry is now the hot air of the service industry. We hardly make anything any more as a post-industrial Nation and our all-stifling compliance costs throttle the faint gasps of entrepreneurship for anyone with a bright idea wanting to start a business. Instead, what we have is a medioracy of easy credit, easy benefits and easy escapisim, a dependency culture that suits our leaders well. Forcing children to stay on at school doesn’t really help that situation very much, let alone going to University and being saddled with massive debt).

Back to high schools, the other noticable difference between the two schools is the Campus. Heckmondwike site is a collection of mostly older buildings all on top of each other, with a modern sports hall. Morley site is a collection of buildings spanning the last fourty years (along with the original Victorian block in the middle), with a modern assembly hall and dining room. The modern hall is due to the old (late 60s) one being burnt down by arsonists a number of years back. Morley feels mostly surrounded by playing fields, whilst Hecky’s are a short walk away as the school is in the main Street.

On the open evening, Heckmondwike provided maps of the school layout, along with willing guides to show us around. At Morley, we were left more to ourselves (without maps), although a couple of girls from the School Council did offer to show us round some of the areas we hadn’t been to yet. (They were year 8, remembered David from Primary school and were shocked to see that David towered over them).

In the science labs, there were numerous practical experiments going on. There was a subtle difference though- at Heckmondwike it was the pupils doing the demonstrations, whilst at Morley, it was mostly the teachers. We did ask the children whether they got to do practicals though, and they said yes, it was rather hands on (Karen had heard stories of pupils at open days lamenting they never got to do any of this stuff normally). Heckmondwike staff had told us that whilst they still had to do risk assessments on everything practical, the nature of the top 25% academic streaming was that the pupils were a lot less likely to mess about in lessons, putting themselves or others at risk.

John Townsley had previously told me that the original Grammar School Block was not fit for purpose and he would love to knock it down. On seeing inside, I realised what he meant- cramped corridors and narrow staircases, even to the point that there was a one way system for up and down. It also had a curious cast iron construction to the stairs and supporting columns reminiscent of a Victorian correctional facility. (The classrooms seemed fine though).

Another contrast was in the children themselves- Heckmondwike uniform is slightly old fashioned with a blazer/tie combination and the pupils looked smart, well turned out and attentive. The Morley uniform, by contrast, is a jumper/tie and the kids were generally more interested in each other than the visitors. Even the smart looking children are able to end up looking like Catherine Tate with huge tie knots more reminiscent of a cravat. On asking two girls about lunch times, at Heckmondwike we received a complex explanation of how the various year boys and girls go at their appointed time indicated by various bells. At Morley, she spent more time explaining the subtleties of the fingerprint based cashless system then saying you just go and join the queue.

Something a bit more subtle was the rules system. There was very little signage about behavioural stuff at Heckmondwike, although I did clock a couple of posters about bullying. By contrast, at Morley, practically every room had three laminated colour A4 posters showing truncated pyramid diagrams. These explained the rewards and discipline process, including the various sanctions for various types of infractions. They called this the positive discipline and behaviour scheme and it features heavily on their website

Parents and carers have the right to know that their child is safe, happy and enjoying school. Children who are happy do well in school. At Morley High School enormous emphasis is placed on promoting positive behaviour and attitudes to learning. Such is the success of our Positive Discipline system with its heavy emphasis on clarity, consistency and the persistent rewarding of excellence, over twenty high schools have now been trained by is in Positive Discipline. Parents and carers play a key role in supporting the school in this most important area of our work.

It is a sad reflection of our times that it is necessary to reinforce what to me is the blindingly obvious in such a blunt fashion. Having said that, I can recall numerous lads in my own school who would “try to bend not break the rules”.

I want to digress slightly now, and that is about the toilets. School toilets have a bad reputation, as places where new boys get shown the “Blue Goldfish” and they are generally unpleasant in their state of cleanliness & air quality. Now last night, I had cause to want to use the toilet so I went in a Mens room in one of the blocks. I did wonder if it was a staff or pupils toilet but later on realised that the staff ones had door codes on them. It was clean and free from graffiti and was being used by another father. Whilst we were making use of the facilities (as men do, studiously ignoring each other) we were joined by a third Dad.

Having completed the formalities, I washed my hands and looked round for the drying equipment. At first I thought there wasn’t any as I couldn’t see any paper towel receptacles, then noticed that behind me on the opposite wall was a paper dispenser and a hand dryer. The paper dispenser was of the large roll type, mounted sideways on with an opening at the bottom and more commonly seen as a giant toilet tissue dispenser in actual cubicles. Feeling inside, I couldn’t readily find the edge of the roll, so I simply used the hand dryer instead.

As I finished, another dad came to dry his hands but the dryer wouldn’t start for him so he fiddled about inside the paper dispenser. Suddenly, I made a connection about there being no paper towel bin. What if this was the actual toilet tissue dispenser? I wandered over to the three cublicles and glanced in. None of them had any toilet roll, or even a cardboard tube, just empty roll hooks.

So, I wonder what the story is here? Was it simply a hygiene malfunction where the toilet had not been replenished with rolls by the cleaners, or is this a response to an ongoing problem of children deliberately blocking toilets with yards and yards of loo roll?

If the latter, I’d be rather humiliated as a pupil, having to tear off a suitable length of paper before going to a cubicle.

This has been bothering me slightly as it does suggest a certain amount of indignity involved in going to the toilet and a lack of trust in the children, or at least the boys. Obviously, it is difficult to police a lavatory, although they could always create a “Dob in a blocker” culture. Now it might be that this toilet was a one-off and I am possibly jumping to wrong conclusions on flimsy evidence. What I have done is to contact one of the Governors (who knew nothing of school toilet policy) and they will make enquiries before getting back to me.

In the meantime, I’ll let Madness play us out…