Speech Day

Today

This morning I was honoured to support Joan while she presented a new award to the local primary school. This was the David Dixon award for improvement in writing and it was given to a small girl who, with much effort,  had discovered how to get her ideas into written form.

The event was held at St Peter and Paul's church in Shepton Mallet  and was a happy affair. The teachers of the year six leaving class had put together an amusing description of notable events during the year and children presented a leaving teacher with beautiful handmade cards. Gifts of Bibles (it is a C of E school), alarm clocks and hoodies with the year and pupils' names on the back were given to each child in the leaving year.

Later, talking to Joan, I said "do you remember speech days?"

In My Day

At my school and, I am sure, at countless other throughout the country, we had an annual "speech day". We all gathered in the hall, teachers were flossied up in full cap and gown and we were harangued for quite a long time by various people whom we never otherwise saw. Governors were a fearsome bunch in those days, not at all like the ever visible and very local head of governors who spoke today.

We sang the school hymn - "The Skye Boat Song", and, predictably, saw the same high-flyers receive prizes each year. There were no prizes for students for effort, improvement, politeness nor for any other indications that some of us were struggling against the odds.

Prizes all seemed to be improving books, such as volumes of Tennyson, so they weren't exactly things to envy. It was more that, for most of us, it was an event to observe, rather than participate in. And, unless you were already very good at music, sport or classics, you could do nothing to change the outcome. 

And as for giving each child a reward or the teachers doing a bit of karaoke satirising the year's events and making light-hearted digs at pupils' and teachers' foibles, heaven forfend.

It's all part, it seems to me, of modern education being an experience shared between parents, pupils and teachers, rather than simply being handed down from high. 

I was glad to be part of this event and very much hope that the children will remember and treasure today.