For a person of my ability and enthusiasm for science anything less than a grade A was a failure as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately it was the combination of two problems with the education system that meant I massively underachieved.
The first was being taught in a mixed ability group so the school would only aim to help those of a median level of ability. As I was above average it was nothing unusual to do everything that was required in class, write up the days experiment etc then sit around bored for the last 15 - 20 minutes of the lesson.
The second was the teachers inability to control those who didn’t want to learn and took great delight in disrupting lessons. Mrs Pugh was absolutely pathetic at this just like Mrs Roe was at Castle Rock. She made dozens of feeble threats for everyone that she actually carried out. She didn’t have the brains to see that someone who gets hours of enjoyment and attention from his friends for messing about is hardly going to be deterred by the low probability of a 15 minute break time detention. If anything she invited people to cause trouble in her class.
It was the combination of the above two problems that meant I often got distracted in class usually out of boredom. As far as I was concerned I always got the class work required done and I was consistently getting around 90 - 95% on my regular modular tests. Nobody could ever argue that my work was suffering as a result.
Unable to deal with the idiots who took great delight in disrupting the class the teacher instead started giving me a hard time. I had been taught from an early age to have respect for authority and was generally polite and well behaved. So the teacher took the easy option of giving me a hard time for being influenced by the class idiots than trying to deal with the class idiots in the first place.
Examples would be along the lines of.....
** Class idiot shouts out stupid comment while teacher is explaining something to the class, I get a lecture off the teacher for laughing at the comment but the teacher says nothing to the person who made the comment in the first place.
** I’m doing the days experiment, class idiot sitting nearby is messing about. I get moved away by the teacher, nothing is said to the class idiot who carries on messing about for the rest of the lesson.
** I do all the work required in class with 15 minutes left to go, bored waiting I get distracted by class idiot who has messed about all lesson and done hardly any work at all. I get kept behind at the end of the lesson and lectured by the teacher for 10 minutes while the class idiot is free to go with everyone else.
I’d had this problem before at Castle Rock most notably with the science teacher Mr Travers. All three science teachers I had at King Edward VII were like this to some degree. Mostly Mrs Pugh and Mr Harris but even Mrs Underhill who was a so called vice principal. I got very sick of this very quickly. The final straw came when I was working quietly in class and one of the class idiots screwed my work up. I shouted something back at him and was instantly sent out the class by Mrs Underhill who said absolutely nothing to the person who screwed my work up in the first place.
Incidents like this I took very personally and felt like I was being victimised by incompetent teachers who didn’t have the guts to deal with the root cause of the problem. My only response was to start giving the teachers a mouthful of abuse back and start messing about in lessons more and more just to annoy them back in return.
So I was in a situation where I loved the subject but hated the teachers. I did however have one lifeline, uncle David had got me the above science encyclopedia for christmas 1991 to help with my school work. It proved to be very useful but not quite in the way that he would have imagined.
With a keen interest I would often flick through the book in my own time and would quickly absorb the information in it. As a result I would often learn topics long before they were going to be taught in class. So I would mess about in class with the idiots, annoy the hell out of the teachers but when the end of module tests came every 6-8 weeks I would score around 90%. The teachers especially Mr Harris absolutely hated me for this, I just seen this as a form of payback.
I didn’t have it all my own way however, some of the topics we did at school weren't covered by the books I had at home and my test results did drop sometimes because of this. Unfortunately the internet was unknown back then, if I had the internet of 15 years later I would have been able to teach myself and pass G.C.S.E science without ever setting foot in a classroom. I did however accumulate enough good marks to get 2 grade Cs which was the minimum requirement to study science further at A-level.
It’s probably worth mentioning again that had I been born a generation earlier I would have missed all the above stupidity. I would have sat the 11th plus exam, been streamed into a higher ability group, the teachers back then wouldn’t have tolerated one percent of the classroom disruption that was a daily occurrence in 1991-1993. I would have pass the old O-Level and gone on to do A-Level science. University and the very real possibility of a degree and a good career in science would have followed.
Instead I was let down by a completely useless education system and massively underachieved as a result. The school of course wouldn’t care in the slightest about this because I still got a grade C, the minimum requirement to study the subject at A-level, the equivalent to an old O-level pass and this is how schools define success.
Hatred of the science teachers at King Edward VII was the deciding factor in choosing not to study the subject further for A-level despite having the grades to be able to do so.
SCIENCE REPORT EXTRACTS
Mrs Underhill - November 1991
Progress has been satisfactory and his grasp of the concepts covered is good. In order to make full use of his capabilities, Matthew must apply himself more fully and complete homework in the next module. In addition he should ask more readily for help and advice when he needs it.
Mrs Pugh - October 1991
Matthew is a quiet member of the group, he has settled quickly and has integrated well with some of his peers. His attendance in lessons is very good and he is punctual. His behaviour in class is cooperative and reliable, which is likely to influence his progress in science.
Mrs Underhill - May 1992
Since Matthew’s last report his attendance has been excellent and he is always punctual. He finds most of the work well within his capabilities but occasionally loses concentration.
Mr Harris - November 1992
Given Matthews performance in module tests and assessments it seems likely he will be entered for a dual award this summer. Matthew could get a grade B or C at the end of the course.
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