Part 1 - Surviving in a Non Dyspraxic World at a Girls Secondary Modern School
The Purpose of this blog is to promote The Dyspraxia
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to the Dyspraxia Foundation adult support groups. Available on Amazon for £9.99
This
blog is part 1 of what it was like at Cheadle Kingsway Secondary School for
Girls. Teacher and pupils names have been changed but the name of the
school hasn't.
First year
I did not pass my Eleven-plus and ended up in 1 basic the bottom stream of Kingsway Secondary Modern School for Girls. This was a late 1950s building with a pair of square shaped three story buildings connected by a bridge. There were mobile units to accommodate the population overspill caused by the baby boon of the 1960s. In 1974 a new gym and classrooms were added to the right block; with state of the art open plan class room a very distracting environment for ND pupils, because 3 classes would go on at once.
I Basic
In first year of secondary school I was still considered to be a cry baby. I got frustrated because I found it hard to find my way around school and remember which rooms lessons were in, whereas in primary school most lessons were in the same room.
I found it very frustrating that marks were given for copying the teachers’ work neatly off the blackboard and not for original thought it was difficult to write neatly, copy accurately and spell. My handwriting was full of crossing out and it looked no different when I redid my work because I would make new mistakes and cross them out, or construct the sentence wrongly. In spite of getting top marks in an English test, I was put in the remedial class for a few weeks, due to my poor written presentation but improved enough to join the main English class in 1 Basic. Today’s computers make an enormous difference to my written presentation.
Janet age 12
However I was quite good at history . I was excused from Religious Education except when it was about Judaism and although I was a Cheder (jewish Sunday School) dunce I got the top marks when we covered the Old Testament or Judaism. I did not want to be left out so I chose to attend assembly which was a good place to have a giggle with friends.
Mrs Law a plump, dowdy middle aged teacher who took a dislike to me for crying in 1st year when I couldn’t find her classroom, and thought I was lazy, careless and scatterbrained. I was singled out by her and blamed for misdemeanour's if I was responsible or not. She accused me of pushing other girls and starting a crush in the corridor by pushing people, when all I was doing was trying not to fall over in the chaos.
I was constantly bullied by my peers and was not popular with the boys, because I was hefty from comfort eating, wore spectacles and often looked miserable. I thought I was a fat, stupid and ugly duckling that would never become a swan because of the way both the boys and girls commented about my appearance and made assumptions about my intelligence and this began to be self-fulfilling. I did have some friends of many but not all of them had undiagnosed or diagnosed dyslexia or were considered to be rebels or trouble makers. I got on much better with working class girls than middle class ones once they got used to me and realised that I was a good laugh and got respect for fighting back. Hazel 1 an artistic dyslexic who had luxurious long blond hair and was slim was one of the true friends I had throughout my years at Kingsway School. I was also friends with Hazel 3 who was a very quit but giggly. who bullied for having bad acne
2B
I found that I was not as thick as I thought I was and found the work too easy and I won 3 red badges for getting the top marks in my class. All the things I had struggled with at Lumb Lane School such as subtraction, addition, long division, long multiplication and comprehension seemed to be ridiculously easy. In second year I was moved from 1Basic in first year (the bottom stream) to 2B (Average stream) in Second year, and still managed to win a couple of red badges.
“Get lost Hyman!, we don’t want you in our class” Pat said to me on my first day she was a slim dark haired girl who was embarrassed about wearing glasses, but I did not know it was a secret when I asked her were here specs were at the Parish Disco. My heart sank and I was fully expecting the same treatment that I got at Lumb Head and Cheder .I did began to toughen up and became the class clown which got me more accepted by my peers. I was also quite disruptive in a giggly attention seeking way sort of way. I would not have dreamed of seriously assaulting a teacher like in today’s classrooms. I was put on report and was still in trouble while I was on report. Secretly I enjoyed all the negative attention and this gave me status among my peers. I would come into class with my friend Elaine a real rebel, both wearing thick make-up and our pastoral group tutor Mrs Smith made us take it off every morning. Although I thought I looked the height of sophistication it was just as well as I had no idea how to apply it to my advantage and must have looked like a clown!
Titty Solvite
When I was 12, I was very big for my and was a size 16 and weighed over 10 stone. I was one of the first in my year to have periods and develop busts which seemed to be getting bigger every day but in proportion to the rest of my body. The tight fitting royal blue v-neck jumper did nothing to hide my curves. When I was in my Pastoral group my friends Hazel 2 who also moved up from 1 basic a jovial brown haired girl with Mary an enviously very skinny girl with waist length hair, decided to call me ‘Titty Solvite’. I was very hurt but had learned that pretending that I did not care to avoid further teasing and found that laughing with others about myself would make them laugh more with me than at me. otherwise they would taunt me by saying that boys from Broadway secondary school for boys fancied me . I knew that they saw me as a joke.as they often made fun of me. They wouldn't be seen dead with me.
When the UK was joining the EEC We had European Studies on a Friday afternoon in our pastoral groups. In spite of their being girls from the A groups, I helped my team win a food quiz because I had travelled abroad and was interested in cooking. Assumptions about my intelligence were still made by girls from other years. I found this upsetting because I began to realise how Ignorant they were and that I was more intelligent than them. During Assembly Mr Summerhill the Deputy Head and maths teacher who I had a crush on, played ‘If I Ruled the World’. And asked who sang it and which famous book the musical was from? Elaine who was sitting next to me answered by saying was it Elvis in Jailhouse rock, causing a roar of laughter. No one seemed to know the answer except me. I knew it was Harry Secombe and the book was Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, because my parents regularly listened to this type of music on the radio. In the playground several girls teased me about the answer and thought it was me that had said it was Elvis. This has similarities to one of my favourite films, when she knew who had invented the wheel and a teacher shot her down in flames only it was my peers who did the same to me.
