Thoughts on my English school

These are the words I had for the school I attended in Chile: "A school ran by disgusting bureaucrats, taught by disgusting teachers, attended by disgusting students, brought up by disgusting parents - in short, a school of disgusting cunts."

Gee, that's harsh... I have actually fairly fond recollections of my Chilean school. Even though the above is true, I don't think the rancour was necessary... My Chilean school may have been 'disgusting', but my school in England was much worse.

Whilst my school there was run by a disgusting head teacher who rightfully got fired, and for the most part consisted of absolutely vile students, I have fond memories of my circle of friends. Some of the teachers were also ok....

In England it was only in Year 11, after spending a prior five years there, that I had a circle of friends I appreciated. Perhaps it's because I started getting more rebellious in England, but most of the students in (fuck legal reasons, I'm going to write the name of my English school here) 'The Dronfield School' I found to be conformist unquestioning little nit-wits.

What was more atrocious was the way the syllabuses were taught... All 'overachieving' students were given special attention whilst the underachievers were left alone in the wilderness.

Dronfield is a bourgeois middle-class town, which means that its local school will inevitably receive more educated and academic students. That's the sole reason why it is one of the schools with best results at GCSE.

But were these 'overachievers' intelligent? I wouldn't say so. Most of the time (not always) they were taught arithmetic and science by their parents at the age of five in the hope that their boring bland child would eventually go onto become a precocious prodigy.... School work was second-nature to them, but school work aside, did they have any academic curiosity for anything? No.

So, when I was there, I found the work painfully tedious... I decided that I simply wouldn't do it - I would either truant or attend classes and doze in the corner.

So I was classed as an 'underachiever,' but believe me, I didn't receive any sympathy. Most of the teachers got infuriated by my reluctance to work. Often, I felt like telling to their faces: why should I work on some dull formulaic meaningless piffle when I could do some real learning by looking at beautiful meadows in the countryside or staying at home listening to some chamber music by Maurice Ravel?

And I've been told several thing from other people who, unlike me, came from working-class backgrounds. One of my sister's friends is dyslexic and she never received any assistance for English and, to this day, still does not have a GCSE degree in the subject. The seating arrangements also worked against her advantage: the overachieving students would sit in the front of the room whilst students with less 'potential' would be sit at the back of the room without any assistance. She wasn't even diagnosed as dyslexic at the time.

I seriously could sue the school. After school I had a psychotic breakdown which was largely induced by memories of many of the school teachers and students...

After I got over my illness I got into a FE education college. My results from my school left me with a 'D' target grade. In the first year I ended up with AAB.

I was awarded a prize for 'Outstanding progress.' I looked at the other awards for other more 'practical/manual' courses and recognised the names of two underachievers who attended my school awarded as 'High Achievers'...

In the last few days I spent in that disgusting fortress they organised a school yearbook collating comments from all the students. I filched a quote from Frank Zappa: "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." In a book laden with stupid inane quotes, my (stolen) contribution was perhaps the only one which was actually saying something. After my head of year read it, every time she saw me she'd sheepishly say "Oh... hello Simon."