Wednesday

I picked up my new bike last night - bought it from a X student who is moving to New York on Thursday to take up a job there. It's just a little bit larger in the frame and wheel than the one I already have and it makes a huge difference - much better posture for me and the larger wheels seem more robust - very light frame - I may change the handlebars, they seem a bit too narrow for me - but otherwise, very pleased. Nice leather seat too.

Went to the PV of the show I have a photograph in, I decided not to stay long - I hate PV's anyway so was in and out - but quite a good little show and I was happy with my work.

Watched the final episode of British masters on iPlayer last night, very good piece of work - really well presented and written. They had adapted the start and end to take into account the death of Lucian Freud, there was also a very good section on Keith Vaughn, and one on Graham Sutherland. The bit about Francis Bacon was a bit light and skimmed over his relationship with George Dyer, romanatcising it slightly, but he was bold enough to point out that early Bacon was quite crude and derivative - only the later stuff really came to life. Very good indeed.

Article in yesterday's Guardian about a school where they don't just stream children by ability - they segregate them - with different coloured ties and different physical schools,  - they might as well have them in different locked rooms ). Really terrible idea. Lets just reinforce the unfairness of life and play on people's low self esteem before they even leave school. It's academic streaming, which means it's all about conforming to government laid down standards of achievement. Students in the 'wrong' stream will not have the same choices or opportunities, and friends will be seperated and divided. It's all very well watching harry Potter films and accepting the rivalry between 'houses' - but to be told... and SHOWN from day one that someone is better than you is very cruel.

In my school you were divided into 'houses' -which was a fairly random division and nothing to do with merit - in fact I think it really was random, in a 'name out of the hat' kind of way - and then streamed into 5 groups - two groups at the top where the students were academically strong, and then a mid stream, and a support stream. Obviously you gravitated socially towards the stream you were in - but there was a lot of contact between all groups and many friendships - once you reached year 4 you chose your subjects and that was an open selection - so you could quite often find yourself in a very mixed ability group. There were still problems. I was the strongest reader from day 1 in junior school ( well, my mum was a librarian, we had more books than anything ) and it was clear that I was much brighter than most of the sons and daughters of manual worker - but being dyslexic and stuck on the far fringes of the autistic spectrum before it had been invented didn't do me any favours and I was usually just left to my own devices while the teachers struggled to get kids to put their cigarettes away and colour in a picture of a dog. In high school ( I went to the Catholic school, it had a much higher academic standard - but this had more to do with the parents being professionals ) I was average in the top stream, but then, I was never challenged or encouraged - all I wanted to do was keep my head down and leave. If you made the mistake of drawing attention to yourself - you were ridiculed ( by the staff, not the pupils ). If you were 'favoured' - and this had more to do with your parents than yourself - you did well, because you were supported, if not... you just made a point of keeping quiet. If we had been segregated by ability - it would have been even worse - lets mirror the unfairness of life at school, so they don't get such a shock when they grow up.

One of the problems this school will have is with a student who is gifted at art, music, sport, design and problem solving - not fitting into the profile they need for top tier academic learning. I was constantly abused by my English teacher because I couldn't spell - even though I had read more and had a better vocabulary that he had - and in the end he managed to kick me into a lower group ( I got higher marks in my Language and Lit O levels than anyone in his group, anyway - but that was just out of spite ). Because I was creative I was mostly ignored - the art department was rubbish - essentially, we were left in a room for long periods of time to draw bowls of fruit.

I have real problems with my students, studying at degree level - who have poor literacy and cannot cope with the academic rigours at this level - and most of it is lack of confidence and failures by the school system, I have only ever met one student who couldn't write an essay. Last year - an exceptionally gifted student wrote a terrible term 1 essay that barely scraped through, he's never been pushed before because he was considered 'creative' - and was so embarrassed that for his term 2 essay he made a real effort and was awarded a distinction - admitting later that he actually really enjoyed writing it and actually found it quite easy.

There are enough petty hierarchies, unfairnesses and injustices in the grown up world, we don't need them in school.