My Second Primary School Lumb Lane

The Purpose of this blog is to promote The Dyspraxia Foundation E book' "Dyspraxic Adults Surviving in a Non Dyspraxic World" self help book for dyspraxic adults. All proceeds go to the Dyspraxia Foundation adult support groups. Available on Amazon for £9.99

Today's blog is about my experiences of being a dyspraxic pupil at Audenshawe County Primary School.
After surviving 6 months at Heaton Moor my parents sent Robin to yet another special school and I was sent to Audenshawe County Primary school know as Lumb Lane, a Victorian building with the infant’s school playground separated from the junior school one by a thick brick wall and a  big wooden gate.  I was relieved that there was a class full of children my own age but making friends with them wasn’t easy. Some children bullied me I did have friends but I was so insecure I used to give them half my sweets when I got pocket money.  

I used to daydream a lot and  get into trouble for not paying attention. One day all the class had lined up to go into the classroom next door. I hadn't noticed and suddenly realised that I had been deserted  and while they were all enjoying chocolate fingers and  milk with a straw out of a third of a pint milk bottle an amused teacher came to look for me. I was sat blubbing all on my own and wondered where all my class mates had gone.

I would get smacked for answering the teachers back when I did not intend to be cheeky yet again I hadn't picked up the hidden curriculum that you don’t  give your opinion on a matter once the teacher had said her piece.  Sometimes when I made a comment or answered a teachers question the whole class would roar with laughter even when I was being serious. I used to fall over a lot and cut my knees usually crying when I did this until I realised that it did not hurt that much and I would be more popular if I did not make a fuss if I did not cry every time I fell over.

I was a very sensitive child who wept out of sheer frustration. I found P.E. Maths and Spelling a very difficult. I knew I was different from other children and considered to be inferior by both teachers and pupils. It did not help that when I was about 7 Mrs Herbert a kindly older woman who loved playing the grand piano noticed that I had trouble seeing the blackboard and I had to wear a horrible pink framed unflattering pair of glasses, which did not enhance my portly appearance. ‘specky for eyes was added to my increasing list of insults by my peers. I have memories of trying to do a daisy pattern  and having a tantrum because my my pencil would not do what I wanted it to do and all the other kids did. My work rarely went on the wall. I did not establish a dominant hand until I was about 8 and thus was because I was encouraged to use my right hand and at the dinner table  I used my knife and fork the wrong way round and a lunch time supervisor kept correcting me. I still sometimes set the table the wrong way round  and wonder if no-one had interfered   would I have been left handed like most creative people?

 By the time I was 8, I could master the daisy pattern  and my peers had moved onto harder patterns. I never got my art work displayed at all. I didn’t get specialist support but get extra help from student teachers on placement for maths and English. I found long division the hardest task to master. When the headmaster ‘Bumble Bee’ (who admitted his singing voice droned like a bee) covered for a few months for a teacher who was off sick, during art the only subject I was any good at and really enjoyed, he made me copy out all the spellings I had got wrong in a previous spelling test. His attempt to teach me how to spell failed.

I remember once being afraid to go home as I had received a really poor report and ‘ran away’ to my friend’s house. My reports usually said “could do better”. I was bottom of the class in maths and English, I was good at creative writing and when I read my compositions out other children enjoyed them, but this quality was not encouraged by some teachers.

I overheard my Mum discussing yet another bad school report, which consisted of 5Ds and a C for art including English in spite of me being good at creative writing. My mother suspected she had another child with ‘minimal Brain Damage’. I was taken for tests at the Duchess of York children’s hospital for assessment. Tests included drawing what a square would look like if only half was shown, when folded open, which was easy. I don’t know what type of test I was given but it did not resemble anything like the neurological tests I was given for dyspraxia or the Educational psychologist tests I was given for dyslexia. At the end of the tests I was told that I was very clever by my mum and that I had the ability of a child a year older than me. My mum admitted years later that she was told that I was an intelligent child but an under achiever. My parents did not investigate why I was underachieving and their denial that I had a disability made them assume I was being lazy, From then on I got into trouble for not doing well at school I was a constant disappointment to my parents who expected me to compensate for my brothers difficulties. They were told I did not have the same condition as Robin.

Although I could get by in French skipping but was not that good at it a craze of the late 60s and early 70s where two girls stood with a loop of elastic at progressively higher points of their bodies while a third girl jumped in and out of the elastic, I could not do the hand clapping games to save my life. Even though I was a tomboy I was useless at football, they assumed my ineptitude was because I was a girl. I would fight with the boys and would win if it was a weedy boy just by sitting on him because I was getting fatter every day and was one of the tallest ones in my class until they all over took me.  Then we moved to Gatley and I was looking forwards to going to Lumb Head my new school. Now that’s another story.