Bad Chalet School Policies
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#1: Bad Chalet School Policies Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:32 am
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In line with the EBDism and overused phrases threads, I thought I'd top it up with

What are Chalet school policies and practicies that would contravene any real school's safey considerations, ethics, or realistic academic policies?



I'd start with the way details of a student's personal life and psychological/behavioral problems are described in detail by a mistress to either a non school staff person who has contact with the girl (aka Joey or later Mary-Lou), or to a fellow student. Some examples are Jessica Wayne, Naomi Elton, Juliet Carrick, Jane Carew, Prunella Davies. Miss Annersley discussing the fitness of various staff to take over the headship with the *triplets* fits in this category too.

A parent or student could get really peeved discovering that the background information provided (in some cases by a third party) was not just being discussed as a staffroom issue, which would be appropriate, but that a classmate of the girl had been given detailed knowledge about what was wrong with her, and told to fix it.


Any others?

#2:  Author: ElbeeLocation: Surrey PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:53 am
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The Prefects always seem to be helping with younger years' games lessons, supervising prep, being sent to St Mildred's with messages from/for the Heads, being told that as they have a free period they can come and help with this or that. When do they actually have their own lessons and do their own studying to pass important exams?! Shocked I always feel sorry for them, especially in the Swiss books.

I think in the current climate of emphasis on exam results they would be worked to the bone and rarely have their own free time Rolling Eyes

#3:  Author: CarolineLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:02 am
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I'd suggest they never have a sufficient staff to student ratio on rambles or expeditions to ensure proper supervision, and there's no formal risk assessment before excursions.

Elbee wrote:
The Prefects always seem to be helping with younger years' games lessons, supervising prep, being sent to St Mildred's with messages from/for the Heads, being told that as they have a free period they can come and help with this or that.


Yes, I reckon In This Day And Age, only the Lower Sixth (with no external exams to worry them) would be allowed to be Prefects. They would all have to resign when they went into the Upper Sixth.

Or, the CS would actually have to employ enough staff to do the job, rather than make up the numbers with Prefects.

#4:  Author: RosieLocation: Land of Three-Quarters Sky PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:24 am
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Caroline wrote:
Yes, I reckon In This Day And Age, only the Lower Sixth (with no external exams to worry them) would be allowed to be Prefects. They would all have to resign when they went into the Upper Sixth.


Sadly Lower Sixth would now have exams too - AS Levels!

#5:  Author: RóisínLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:24 am
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I would say that the Staff have a badly structured working life in that they never seem to have sufficent time off. And how many scenes are there of them actually enjoying a novel and a cigarette only to be interupted and called back to duty? So yes, the CS needed more auxiliary staff so that the teaching staff could have time off in the evenings and weekends.

#6:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:44 am
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The domestic staff never seem to get any time off either.

There are an awful lot of accidents on school trips - some of them can't be helped and some of them are the pupils' fault, but going to places that are at high risk of avalanches might not be a good idea. Not to mention the number of people who run away/go missing (Grizel, Stacie, Gay, Cornelia, Elisaveta, etc) - OK, it's their own decision to go, but the school should be taking better care of them!

Anyone who's an Old Girl of the school seems automatically to get any job there that they apply for!

#7:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:06 pm
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I'm not familiar with the prefect system in reality, but the prefects supervise prep, supervise snack time, generally act as a dormitory prefect, act as additional supervision on walks and while skiing, are expected to help coach tennis and other sports if not in class, and have their special duties (keeping the art room tidy, running the school bank, editing the school magazine), and their additional sixth form special coaching, plus playing on school teams.

I'm surprised they sleep. And some of these girls are only 16.

What would normal prefect duties be at a boarding school?

#8:  Author: Joan the DwarfLocation: Er, where am I? PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:16 pm
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jennifer wrote:
I'm not familiar with the prefect system in reality, but the prefects supervise prep, supervise snack time, generally act as a dormitory prefect, act as additional supervision on walks and while skiing, are expected to help coach tennis and other sports if not in class, and have their special duties (keeping the art room tidy, running the school bank, editing the school magazine), and their additional sixth form special coaching, plus playing on school teams.

I'm surprised they sleep. And some of these girls are only 16.

What would normal prefect duties be at a boarding school?


Duties shared amongst prefects in my school were:
Supervise two one-hour prep sessions a day
Supervise morning and afternoon drink+biscuits (informally, but we were meant to be the supervision).
Supervise lunchtime queuing.
Help out with activities
Supervise weekend cinema trips (but it did mean we got free tickets and the kids had to pay)
Be a part of the boarding house supervision system at evenings and weekends
Clean the house kitchen each evening (and so during the day chase up people who were messy)
Generally help out: for example, I was asked to have first-year (year 7) read to me for a time each evening to help with her reading.

I don't remember this impacting on my work all that much.

#9:  Author: RayLocation: Bristol, England PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:17 pm
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jennifer wrote:
What would normal prefect duties be at a boarding school?


From what my mother's told me (and she was Head Girl, somewhat accidentally [she wasn't supposed to be but the girl who WAS slated to be got caught with a boy in her dormitory!!!]), there *was* a certain amount of supervision required. On one particular occasion, she and some of her colleagues supervised the younger members of the school one Saturday morning, where it pleased them to set the kids an essay on the State Opening of Parliament (which the kids had watched the day before, or a couple of days before).

The subsequent essays were, so I'm told, rather a hoot...

She has also said (having read one or two CS books) that her boarding school career wasn't *markedly* different to the CS - the chief differences being her mountains were in Cumbria, skiing wasn't on the curriculum and it was a mixed, Quaker school - and that would have been during the late '50s and early '60s.

Ray *amused*

#10:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:42 pm
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Caroline wrote:
I'd suggest they never have a sufficient staff to student ratio on rambles or expeditions to ensure proper supervision, and there's no formal risk assessment before excursions.


Good example is the incident in Triplets when Len and Con are left behind in the blizzard with the younger girl whose name I've forgotten. All three could have died. A mistress should have been responsible for ensuring all girls were accounted for.

Mixing girls of different ages in forms to the extent EBD did is something that wouldn't happen. I accept that in a mixed ability independent school, some pushing up or holding back of girls might take place. But to have the triplets at twelve in the same form as Yseult, who was sixteen, was inappropriate, I think.

And all the new girls going to tea with Joey. Wouldn't happen today without parental permission and unless Joey (and presumably the other adults in the household) had been vetted.

#11:  Author: AlexLocation: Cambs, UK PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:26 pm
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All that milk and cream cakes!
Heart attack on a plate anyone?

#12:  Author: LexiLocation: Liverpool PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:44 pm
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Squashing a seemingly impossibly large number of girls into a small car can't be recommended either!

Would all the doctors need CRB checking so that they were "safe" to be on their own with the girls?

#13:  Author: ClareLocation: Liverpool PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:02 pm
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The amount of information about the pupils background is shocking! I never get given any information about the kids (other than standard SEN list and vulnerable pupils, but it's lists and never details) - and chasing it up takes forever!

The doctor-patient confidentiality is always breached and that irritates me so much, but that's not school based.

I'd love to see a CS risk assessment before they take the girls out on a trip. Might try and get a form and do that as a drabble one day...

#14:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:31 pm
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I tried writing a risk assessment as part of CS 2005 but gave up in despair - some of the potential consequences were rather funny though, especially when it came to "any other particular activity based hazards". Do write one, Clare!

I don't think health and safety really meant much at the CS - I never saw anyone wearing goggles in science!

Matron dosing children willy-nilly would have worried me...just a little something in their milk every time something happened probably added up to quite a substantial amount of drugging really.

*shooes the bunny away*

#15:  Author: Mrs RedbootsLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:58 pm
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jennifer wrote:
What would normal prefect duties be at a boarding school?


Very similar - at least, that was the case when I was at school in the 1960s. Not so much the school prefects, who were really only responsible for seeing that people were silent on the way to Prayers and while lining up for lunch, but certainly the house prefects had a great deal of responsibility. Although we didn't go on walks the way the Chalet School people did, and I don't think the prefects, other than the games captains, were expected to coach games, other than team practices for House matches.

But, of course, we behaved in prep, and got on with our work. And we didn't have coursework, so that wasn't an issue. And during the few weeks of public examinations, the Lower Sixth sort of took over, IIRC.

#16:  Author: PadoLocation: Connecticut, USA PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:59 pm
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Cold baths.

#17:  Author: PatLocation: Doncaster PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:24 pm
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francesn wrote:

I don't think health and safety really meant much at the CS - I never saw anyone wearing goggles in science!


I never wore goggles for science, and I was at school in the 60s. I think that's a fairly new thing isn't it? We did have to wear an overall to protect our uniform when I was at boarding school though - mine was yellow nylon!!!

#18:  Author: LottieLocation: Humphrey's Corner PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:33 pm
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We never wore goggles for science either, and we used asbestos mats over our Bunsen burners, and played with mercury, by rolling balls of it round the bench with our hands.

#19:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:54 pm
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Lottie wrote:
We never wore goggles for science either, and we used asbestos mats over our Bunsen burners, and played with mercury, by rolling balls of it round the bench with our hands.


Nope, me neither and I was at school in the nineties.

Jo taking girls off for little "chats" - definitely a no no in every child protection policy I've ever read!

#20:  Author: RayLocation: Bristol, England PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:47 am
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Thing is, though, most of these are bad by *TODAY'S* standards, not necessarily bad by the standards of the time EBD was writing in. Particularly things like squeezing people into cars: It was a lot easier even just twenty years ago, with no rear seat belts. We could (had we wanted to!) have got at least five people in the back of one of my father's cars without even trying - we certainly *DID* get four very muddy boys in there (each one sitting on his own plastic bag!), plus their assorted school bags and kit.

Also, I *STRONGLY* suspect risk assessments are a relatively new concept - I can't imagine any school now permitting their students to do cross country running around the streets surrounding the school buildings, but that's what we used to do for a double games period. If one of the mistresses was feeling kind, she *MIGHT* follow the route with her car. Once. If you fell, you had to at least try and make it back to the school yourself - and this was in the middle 1990s!

I'm sure there is plenty of stuff that happened at the CS that certainly wouldn't happen in any period (like the amount of confidential information handed over to pupils), but there's plenty of stuff that certainly *DID* go on elsewhere because it never occured to anyone (until the last fifteen or so years) that it was a bad idea.

Ray *aware this might be a tad unpopular*

#21:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:17 am
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I agree that ideas of what constitutes appropriate actions has changed drastically. Safety is one area, diet is another - no lactose free meals or vegetarian meals provided. I would guess that background checks for people involved with the school were non existent or minimal, too - all their household staff is hired from locals, and they occasionally randomly hire someone who happens to wander by - Mr Denny, for example.

Unqualified teachers would be another. Madge starts the school and teaches English subjects with only a high school background. Joey substitute teaches on multiple occasions with the same, once while 17 years old. Miss Denny teaches half the courses on the qualification of having spent a few years in Italy.

Matey's doses are still pretty worrying, though.

Psychology is another - homesick or grieving students are told to buck up and not be wusses, and the attitude is that they should be glad to be at the school. Odette Mercier springs to mind as someone who needs psychological evaluation. The school's idea of psychological evaluation and counselling is siccing Joey on the girls.

I love the way *Joey*, who's not even staff, manages to repeatedly break medical and school confidentiality, but laughs it off as funny.

#22:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:09 pm
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I wouldn't have thought Matey's doses were anything stronger than Aspirin, so I wouldn't have a problem with them. EBD does seem to think that Aspirin helps sleep, as she does reference it directly at times. So I don't think Matey is giving out heavy narcotics or anything.

#23:  Author: Lisa A.Location: North Yorkshire PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:41 pm
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I think the CS could have done with a written behaviour policy to make sure miscreants were treated consistently and equally, without a Bettany Family Get out of Jail Free card included.

#24:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:55 pm
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Kate wrote:
I wouldn't have thought Matey's doses were anything stronger than Aspirin.... EBD does seem to think that Aspirin helps sleep, as she does reference it directly at times. So I don't think Matey is giving out heavy narcotics or anything.

I suspect that Matey's doses were sometimes laxatives - from the way she loooks at girls' tongues and asks 'a few searching questions'.

#25:  Author: KatherineLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:29 pm
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We used to shove as many people as we could into the back of the car for birthday trips and remember once being allowed the great treat of riding in the boot with my brother on a short journey. I also had a friend whose dad had a van and we would sit on cushions in the back quite happily. Can’t say I think it’s a terrible sin as a one off, if you did it every day then the risks would mount up. Still not sure I’d do a Joey and throw my baby triplets onto the back seat in just a Moses basket!

As for not doing background checks, I don’t think my dad ever had one in several decades of teaching; it was only when he went to work for another Local Education Authority that they had to check him. To be honest, I can’t say I condemn Joey special chats with the girls. Let’s imagine she had been a child abuser, in such a small community it would have been pretty clear that you couldn’t send kids to her. After all, you can’t put someone on a register until they have actually committed a crime (and someone has reported that crime). The reason we need these checks is that people move between communities and we don’t know their past.
Also, realistically how far can you take checks? Do you run a CRB check on the parents of your child’s friends before you let them visit for tea? When I worked in a shop we would occasionally let a desperate child use our staff loos and I would show them through. If I’d really wanted to I suppose I could have taken them down the back stairs and kidnapped them or whatever and no one ever suggested that they should run CRB checks on the staff there.

#26:  Author: ClareLocation: Liverpool PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:50 pm
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Ray wrote:
Thing is, though, most of these are bad by *TODAY'S* standards, not necessarily bad by the standards of the time EBD was writing in.
Ray *aware this might be a tad unpopular*


No, I do agree with you Ray. We are judging the books by today's standards, and frankly none of us would read them if they included snippets of staff room chats about the risks involved in the half term trip, and whether you would classify it as low/medium/high.

It is interesting to see how times have changed though!

#27:  Author: Lisa A.Location: North Yorkshire PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:26 pm
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Katherine wrote:

realistically how far can you take checks? Do you run a CRB check on the parents of your child’s friends before you let them visit for tea?


I wouldn't be surprised if that's where we're heading. At recent Child Protection training we were made aware of the dangers of being friends with someone whose child is in your school - you could be accused of "grooming" the child for abuse... now try and avoid knowing the parents of your pupils in a small village...

In our small community everyone does know everything about everyone and anyone with a dodgy past is well-known. I suppose it would have been the same in the CS locations - Madge would have been well filled-in on any gossip surrounding anyone she wanted to work for her. Don't think this attitude to checking would pass muster today, even though it is probably much more accurate than the CRB!

I always worry about the school's policy on mountain-walking wear - they are always forced to push on, sweating horribly with their coats buttoned up. When I did a winter mountaineering course we were told that it is very important to keep at an even temperature, adjusting your speed / layers of clothing to make sure you don't overheat, otherwise you will get chilled when you stop and the sweat evaporates. It must have been horrible having lunch encased in wet school uniform with your hair stuck to your face...then getting cold and clammy...ugh. Even if you have bent your knees going uphill.

#28:  Author: JustJenLocation: at a baseball game PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:38 pm
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The staff telling Joey about the confidential problems of every single girl coming to school. I vague remember reading a drabble (before the board was hacked) where a girl's mother was upset that the girls knew about her daughter's medical condition.
I thought the staff to student ratio for field trips was to low. I know when my son's class went on their last field trip, the ratio was one teacher or parent per five children.

Different times I guess.

#29:  Author: Mrs RedbootsLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:06 pm
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jennifer wrote:

Psychology is another - homesick or grieving students are told to buck up and not be wusses, and the attitude is that they should be glad to be at the school. Odette Mercier springs to mind as someone who needs psychological evaluation. The school's idea of psychological evaluation and counselling is siccing Joey on the girls

At least they had Joey, who did at least try to be helpful. At my place, even something as traumatic as someone's mother dying was more or less ignored - we were told about it, told that the girl in question had "had a little weep", and told to treat her as though nothing had happened.

As for ordinary common-or-garden homesickness, you weren't supposed to mention it. And if you didn't feel well, you were asked whether you had your period (I'm quite sure they even asked that if you had an ingrowing toenail), and if you did, that was what was causing the problem, and if you didn't, well, there was nothing the matter with you! You had to be practically throwing up at Matron's feet to be allowed to be ill....

(Isn't it one of Antonia Forest's books where the girls get terribly worried when Matron is actually kind to someone?! Very realistic.).

#30:  Author: DawnLocation: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:25 pm
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jennifer wrote:

Unqualified teachers would be another. Madge starts the school and teaches English subjects with only a high school background. Joey substitute teaches on multiple occasions with the same, once while 17 years old. Miss Denny teaches half the courses on the qualification of having spent a few years in Italy.




But when EBD was running her own school, she used to leave her mother (completely unqualified) to teach classes while she went off and wrote her books Shocked From what I remember reading a while ago, 2 sisters were removed from the school because of this. But EBD obviously didn't see anything too wrong in it.

At school in the 70s we didn't wear goggles in science, we were meant to wear lab coats (but usually "forgot" them) and we used to suck up acids and alkalis in a pipette and were just warned not to suck them right into our mouths Shocked

If one of the birthday parties was something like a swimming or cinema trip it was accepted that a huge number of kids was crammed into the parents cars - I remember after 1 swimming trip both parents crammed about 10 kids into their cars. When we got back to their house, it was discovered much younger brother (age about 6) was missing and had been left behind as both parents thought he was with the other!

I went back to my school (private) in around 1981 to do a survey on school meals as part of my course and the catering manager was horrified when I suggested they should provide a vegetarian choice (Kosher food however was provided and had been so for the last 70+ years)

#31:  Author: Kathy_SLocation: midwestern US PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:21 am
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I'd also agree with Ray that car occupancy and supervision norms were very different not so long ago. We regularly had 7 in a seat that today would be limited to 3, and my parents patted themselves on the back for being so safety conscious that they wouldn't let us ride in the back of a pick-up truck, the norm in their day. It wasn't uncommon for one teacher to supervise 40 children on her own, and there were no background checks on scout leaders and the like, though you were supposed to take the appropriate training and "permission slips" were required for excursions. (I don't think we have anything like the current British system even today.) There was rarely more than the one choice for school lunch, or in the camp dining hall, where you'd be expected to take at least a "Brownie bite" of everything, and allergies were never mentioned. It wasn't that long ago that well-meaning people thought milk the perfect food aid for parts of the world where lactose intolerance is the norm. So, none of these aspects of EBD's world would have struck me as off kilter, even as a young adult and GS leader.

#32:  Author: KarryLocation: Stoke on Trent PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 3:25 pm
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Jennifer wrote
Quote:
Unqualified teachers would be another


but wasn't this usual in a lot of private schools> afaik they did not have the same strict teaching requirements as council schools! In the later books though, weren't the majoroty of the staff graduates - but no mention of PGCEs!

#33:  Author: JayBLocation: SE England PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 3:47 pm
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Even in English state schools in the 1960s you'd find teachers who had degrees but no teaching qualifications. One or the other was required, but it wasn't necessary to have both.

I think a teaching qualification was required for state school teachers without degrees after WW2, but that only applied to new teachers entering the profession; existing unqualified teachers were able to continue.

So the CS, with older teachers such as Miss Denny having no qualifications, and the younger ones having degrees, was pretty much in line with UK practice in the 50s and 60s.

#34:  Author: Mrs RedbootsLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 3:49 pm
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I don't think PGCEs were invented until comparatively recently - you either took a regular degree, or you did a two-year course at a teacher training college. Either qualified you to teach.

Unqualified teachers were very often the norm in private schools even as late as the 1950s and 1960s. Many of them had years of experience and were probably as good a teacher as you could hope to find. Others, undoubtedly, were not!

Don't forget that until the 1960s there was a plethora of small private schools mostly founded by "surplus women" who were left over after 1918 (rather like Katherine Climpson and her cohorts, for whom Lord Peter Wimsey found quite another use, but it's the same principle). And their friends all taught in them.... they died out in the 1960s with the deaths and retirement of these women. The quality was variable, of course, but by and large you got a reasonable education and passed your 11-plus and/or Common Entrance, if such was your parents' wish, in them. I went to a major girls' public school after that, so have no direct experience with private secondary schools!

Mind you, they did have their downside. The so-called "new" maths just missed me, and the way they insisted on maths being taught at my junior school, it's not surprising that, although I passed Maths O Level, I didn't, and still don't, have a real "feel" for numbers, but have to do it by rote and even now have trouble adding 7!

#35:  Author: dorianLocation: Dublin PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:00 pm
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Kathy_S wrote:
I'd also agree with Ray that car occupancy and supervision norms were very different not so long ago. We regularly had 7 in a seat that today would be limited to 3,

Heh, yeah, I remember when I was about 11, my parents arranged a party for me and my brother, which consisted of a trip to see a musical before cake and such back at our house. My father got 12 children into his Renault 12 estate - 5 on cushions in the boot, 5 in the back seat, and 2 in the front passenger seat! I'm mildly horrified in hindsight, but no-one thought anything of it in 1980.

Quote:
It wasn't uncommon for one teacher to supervise 40 children on her own,

I remember that, too - my primary school had 8 classes, 4 classrooms, and 4 teachers. With about 20 kids in each class, each teacher was having to deal with 40 children - teaching one set of 20 while still keeping half an eye on the other 20. ::shudder::

#36:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:03 pm
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dorian wrote:
I remember that, too - my primary school had 8 classes, 4 classrooms, and 4 teachers. With about 20 kids in each class, each teacher was having to deal with 40 children - teaching one set of 20 while still keeping half an eye on the other 20. ::shudder::


I recently subbed in a class of 36 children. In this day and age, it's appalling.

#37:  Author: JennieLocation: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:19 pm
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Herr Laubach would have been given the sack long before, but everyone just excuses his bad temper until 'Trials'. A teacher who regularly loses his temper and throws things?

#38:  Author: DawnLocation: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:07 pm
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Jennie wrote:
A teacher who regularly loses his temper and throws things?


I can remember a teacher who just to chuck the wooden blackboard eraser at people if she didn't think they were paying attention. And we were about 8 or 9 at the time Shocked

#39:  Author: Cath V-PLocation: Newcastle NSW PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:16 pm
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My husband remembers an incident at his grammar school where a teacher threw a student through a plate glass window. The school did intervene at that point!

#40:  Author: alicatLocation: Wiltshire PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:30 am
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some of it is still going on, it just depends on your viewpoint whether you think it is a Bad Idea or whether you think we can over-nanny kids.....two examples I have come across in the last few months:

school athletics club sending a group of girls aged 11-15 out on a cross-country run, unaccompanied by a teacher, who told them the route to follow. it went up roads, over fields, along public footpaths and through woods. three of them at the tail end (no whipper-in!) took a wrong turn and got lost and were lost for about half an hour. by the time they got back the mistress had gone to look for them and was - to quote my daughter who was, fortuntatly, one of the leading group who managed OK -"having litters of kittens".

girls being let loose, on a dark night, in the centre of a busy city, to occupy themselves and get some tea somehwree, in the two hours between a rehersal for a christmas concert and the performance. if you wanted you could collect/supervise them, but there was no school provision for supervision - except for the boarders.

#41:  Author: VikkiLocation: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!! PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:35 pm
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Dawn wrote:
Jennie wrote:
A teacher who regularly loses his temper and throws things?


I can remember a teacher who just to chuck the wooden blackboard eraser at people if she didn't think they were paying attention. And we were about 8 or 9 at the time Shocked


I had a teacher who used to do that, and throw pieces of chalk. This was when I was 12/13, so about 1991....

#42:  Author: KathrynWLocation: London PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:53 pm
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I had a teacher who once threw a chair in our general direction...

#43:  Author: Loryat PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:24 pm
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Apparently (though this might have been a school myth) a teacher at my old school once went mental and threw people's maths books at them (can't remember the reason).

We also had a teacher who mysteriously left. He was in charge of the music department and had to be chastised for writing things like 'so-and-so stares vacantly as though retarded in class'. Same man reduced me to tears for 'looking at him the wrong way'. And I was good at music!

There are seven of us in my family and only five seats in my dad's van. So when we're all on a trip together some of my brothers go in the boot. Still happens today!

And in fairness to EBD, I definitely remember people wearing 'safety glasses' in CS. Think specifically from Island but I could be wrong.

#44:  Author: JustJenLocation: at a baseball game PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:02 pm
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My geography teacher threw a chair into the hallway, a group of students stole the grade 10 math teacher's car, my french teacher brought beer on the last day and at my high school grad ceromony one of the teacher was drunkl when she handed out the dipolmas.

The Chalet school it wasn't!

#45:  Author: AquabirdLocation: North Lanarkshire, Scotland PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:33 pm
    —
Our English teacher used to chuck our books at us - this was in 2001 - and one time he lost his temper and threw a book at the ceiling.
And my dad says he once walked into a woodwork class and saw the teacher holding a boy up against the wall by the neck. The boy's toes were actually dangling off the floor. Shocked He also says he had a teacher who hated a boy so much she just chucked him in the cupboard every lesson.

#46:  Author: RayLocation: Bristol, England PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:50 pm
    —
Another one with teachers who had...unorthadox approaches to classroom discipline. The one I specifically remember was a Greek lady called Mrs Hill who, if you were in trouble, was prone to dragging you out of the class...by you *EAR*. And that was in the middle 80s. She retired not too long after I passed through her class, strangely enough... (And no, she wasn't that old, either!)

I have a feeling the teacher who followed her was a chalk thrower - but after having my ear pulled, everything else teachers might do rather pales in significance!

Ray *only in trouble once* *boy was it ever an incentive to sing very, very, VERY small...*

#47:  Author: Fiona McLocation: Bendigo, Australia PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:41 pm
    —
Ray wrote:
Particularly things like squeezing people into cars: It was a lot easier even just twenty years ago, with no rear seat belts. We could (had we wanted to!) have got at least five people in the back of one of my father's cars without even trying - we certainly *DID* get four very muddy boys in there (each one sitting on his own plastic bag!), plus their assorted school bags and kit.


We mangaed to fit 11 people in our family into a car made for 5. But that was going back to the early 70's. It was a case of the two babies and 5 older boys in the back and my sister and I in the front with Mum. It must have been a bit of a squash but its something we all laugh about now.

There's a very humourous email going around about this very topic. It basically congratulates you for surviving your childhood if you were born pre-80's as there were no such things as seatbelts and kids ran around getting into everything.

The one thing I love about the Chalet School is it is set back when it is and I hate the editing of the paperbacks. The originals do give me an idea of what the time is like and one thing that is clear and speaking with any of that time was it was all so normal to them

I must admit the continual telling of everything to Joey/Mary Lou/Len did get on my nerves a bit when I was a kid reading them but that was never the confidentiality reason but simply because Vi Lucy, Marie Von Eschenau, Frieda Mensche and Con Maynard were more my favourites and I always wished there was more about them. Anyway I digress

#48:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:56 am
    —
Another one

In Jo and the CS, the Middles attempt to adopt the recently orphaned Biddy. They are discovered, and the decision is made to have her be adopted by the CS guide company.

I could never figure that one out, either logistically or legally. Who would have ultimate responsiblity for her? At some point, she's living up at the Sonnalpe with the Russells, and it's said that her school reports go to Miss Wilson, who is the guide leader. I could see one of the mistresses deciding to legally adopt the girl, but that would be separate from the school and guide responsibilities.

And what happened to her when the school closed in Exile? She's not with the Maynard/Russel/Venables/Bettany crowd, and doesn't appear to be with Wilson either.

#49:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:20 am
    —
I think EBD forgot about the issue of who was looking after Biddy! Gillian and Joyce Linton also went to Guernsey, as did Grizel, so she could've stayed with any of them, but it's never actually mentioned. The idea of the Guides adopting her never rings true: surely one of the adults must've had to be named as her legal guardian, presumably Nell Wilson as the Guide Captain.

Later on, Madge and Jem offer to support her if she gets a place at university but doesn't get any sort of scholarship, which suggests that they were responsible for her, but it's never made clear Rolling Eyes .

#50:  Author: Mrs RedbootsLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:44 pm
    —
Fiona Mc wrote:
There's a very humourous email going around about this very topic. It basically congratulates you for surviving your childhood if you were born pre-80's as there were no such things as seatbelts and kids ran around getting into everything.

In fact, seat-belts were fitted in the front seats of cars from the early 1960s onwards. I think the first car we had that had them was my father's Renault 4, which was B registration - 1964, I think. Or did my mother's mini, which was earlier? Can't remember.... anyway, definitely the Renault had them.

What I don't know, and can't now remember, is when rear seat belts were fitted as standard. I'm pretty sure the first car we had when we married - an R-registered Ford Fiesta - didn't have them, as I remember buying children's belts to anchor the daughter's carry-cot (in 1980) and child-seat (the kind of child-seats you use from birth hadn't been invented then). These belts were supposed to last until she was 12, but of course we changed car long before then, and the C-registered Nissan Micra we bought (horrible car, made both the daughter and me very car-sick) definitely had rear seat belts.

As for responsibility for Biddy, I think this was probably deliberately left vague! Certainly we are told her reports went to Miss Wilson, as Captain of Guides, but we are never told who her legal guardian was. Mind you, I think informal arrangements like that were commonplace back then.

#51:  Author: KatherineLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:03 pm
    —
I remember our T-reg Maxi (made about 1978) having no rear seatbelts so my parents fitted them when we were kids. I think the law about wearing seatbelts comes in during one of the early Adrian Moles, so early 1980s. The rear laws I remember coming in around 1989ish.

#52:  Author: LesleyLocation: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:52 pm
    —
Front seat belts may have been fitted from at least the 1960's but it wasn't until it was made a legal requirement that people started wearing them. I can remember having a row with my mum in about 1981 - I'd just got a car (first one) and she wouldn't wear a seat belt. She did eventually as I stopped the car. Laughing

#53:  Author: TiffanyLocation: Is this a duck I see behind me? PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:06 pm
    —
In the 80s my parents had a Morris Minor (it was super and made of WOOD and the back opened with a brass doorknob) and it didn't have rear seatbelts. I understand that it was the law then for new cars to have rear seatbelts, but if you had an older car and it didn't, then there was no obligation to fit them: so it was perfectly all right for me to not wear a seatbelt in our car, but in friends' parents cars that excuse didn't wash.

#54:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:16 pm
    —
I remember as a kid (born '86) not having a back seat-belt in the back of our ancient Renault, and that was fine. But that was before my brother was born, when we got rid of said car.

#55:  Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:19 pm
    —
Sorry to go slightly OT, but I was just wondering how common it was for schools in the 1950s - or even the 1930s/1940s - to provide careers advice. The "careers centre" at our school in the 1980s/1990s (a broom cupboard sized room, staffed by a teacher who told everyone, whatever subjects they were good at and whatever they were interested in, either to do a law degree or to go into hotel management Rolling Eyes Laughing ) wasn't much use to say the least, but I gather that most schools these days try to give people some reasonable guidance!

We never seem to see anyone at the CS discussing their career plans, or even which subjects they should take in the VIth form, with a mistress.

#56:  Author: TiffanyLocation: Is this a duck I see behind me? PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:16 pm
    —
Alison H wrote:
We never seem to see anyone at the CS discussing their career plans, or even which subjects they should take in the VIth form, with a mistress.


That's interesting, and I hadn't thought of it before. You do hear of people dropping subjects they "have no aptitude for" - like Joey and Art, or Frieda and Science - or dropping things to specialise in music (Nina and Margia), so I'd imagined some kind of consultation process behind that. I wonder what was standard at the time?

I get the distinct impression that if you wanted a career, any career, it was sufficient to turn up and say "I am a Chalet girl" and you would instantly be given a training place / university place / job. How much did EBD know about different careers and their requirements?

I've never heard of a school careers advisor being any good. I knew of one who told pupils who wanted to be doctors that they didn't need Chemistry A-level, frinstance. Shocked

#57:  Author: TaraLocation: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:50 pm
    —
Just caught up with this, and I'm amazed at how strongly EBD speaks to people who live in quite a different culture. Her 'bad policies', as lots have said, were just what was completely normal until long after she was dead!

E.g. My babies went in a carry cot on the back seat of the car (no seat belts of any kind), and we used to shove in as many kids as would physically fit.
I was a vegetarian at school, and dinners were a nightmare, with staff and prefects trying to force me to eat what was on my plate. I was a very stubborn child and they never succeeded, but it wasn't a lot of fun.
Risk assessments are really very recent, they were certainly not thought of in EBD's day.
When I went on my first French Exchange as a a teacher, two of us took sixty fourteen year-olds with a (very competent) Sixth Form helper. I think that was probably illegal even then, and it actually scared me so much (not that anything went wrong, but it so could have!) that I refused to do it the following year unless there was better supervision, but I had to make quite a fuss!

As for careers advice, it was totally pants when I was at school (mid 60s), if you were female you were advised to be a secretary, nurse or teacher.
It's much more varied now, and they try hard and are good about further ed etc, but it still doesn't seem quite to meet students' needs, not sure what goes wrong.

#58:  Author: ClareLocation: Liverpool PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:11 pm
    —
Tara wrote:
As for careers advice, it was totally pants when I was at school (mid 60s), if you were female you were advised to be a secretary, nurse or teacher.
It's much more varied now, and they try hard and are good about further ed etc, but it still doesn't seem quite to meet students' needs, not sure what goes wrong.


We did something like aptitude tests (answered a load of questions and it told us what job we were best suited to). The careers advisor came in and made a huge deal over the fact somebody's test said they should become a careers advisor. Then, she hands the sheets back and still buzzing over 'careers advisor' was on the top of someone's sheet (oh it's not you' 'it definitely wans't you!' etc), and shrieks for the whole class "Oh I just knew you were going to be a careers advisor Clare!"

Yeah... 'Cos I make my choice on what a TEST tells me! She deflated when I said that there wasn't enough money in the world to make me do her job.

#59:  Author: KateLocation: Ireland PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:18 pm
    —
My aptitude tests were really funny because I scored the exact same on every section, so the results came back with every career possible. It really confused the careers advisor. Laughing Laughing

#60:  Author: RayLocation: Bristol, England PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:17 pm
    —
Me being me, at 16, when I took the aptitude test, I had a pretty firm idea of what I wanted to do so I answered according to what I wanted to do and...guess what? I was told that was the career for me.

Think that comes under the heading of not really entering into the spirit of things!

Ray *evil*

#61:  Author: RosieLocation: Land of Three-Quarters Sky PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:52 pm
    —
Funnily enough Ray, I did the same thing! I was reported to my group tutor for my lack of co-operation (I refused to consider going to college to do a GNVQ as I wanted to go to university!). Luckily I got on really well with my tutor (I was in his top Chemistry set - jolly useful!) and so he just laughed!

#62:  Author: Mrs RedbootsLocation: London, UK PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:54 pm
    —
Tara wrote:
As for careers advice, it was totally pants when I was at school (mid 60s), if you were female you were advised to be a secretary, nurse or teacher.

In the mid-70s, all Good Little Christian girls were assumed to be one of those, at least until they married!

You and I must be much of an age, Tara. I think my school expected the brainy ones to go to university and then decide - the secretary/nurse/teacher option was for those who didn't (although that's where they usually ended up, anyway).

Certainly the expectation was that, although we would have a career, we would probably give it up on marriage, and certainly when the family came along; the girls who chose something that required more than a couple of years' training, such as accountants or doctors, were the exception rather than the rule.

#63:  Author: PatLocation: Doncaster PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:57 pm
    —
I got the same options down in Cornwall! None of them appealed to me at all! I jumped out of that hoop and became a librarian!

#64:  Author: LexiLocation: Liverpool PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:37 pm
    —
Clare wrote:
We did something like aptitude tests (answered a load of questions and it told us what job we were best suited to). The careers advisor came in and made a huge deal over the fact somebody's test said they should become a careers advisor. Then, she hands the sheets back and still buzzing over 'careers advisor' was on the top of someone's sheet (oh it's not you' 'it definitely wans't you!' etc), and shrieks for the whole class "Oh I just knew you were going to be a careers advisor Clare!"

Yeah... 'Cos I make my choice on what a TEST tells me! She deflated when I said that there wasn't enough money in the world to make me do her job.


We had something similar, but it was a very long, very slow computer program. According to it, my ideal job was bus conductor Shocked

#65:  Author: SquirrelLocation: St-Andrews or Dunfermline PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:21 pm
    —
I remember being almost castigated by the careers advisor for 'making' nursery nurse come out within the top 5 jobs for me once it had been worked out that the lack of routine made it an almost impossible job for me. No question on the package about the importance of routine in the job of course.

I was just impressed that it wasn't the top job to be fair to me. And I was astonished to see that 'minister' also came in in the top 10.

The thing is, possibly I am not going to work in a nursery *shudders at the very idea* but it does look like I shall end up working with children, so that idea is exploded out of the water.

The lady who dealt with those of us with diagnoses was a little odd anyway.

#66:  Author: francesnLocation: away with the faeries PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:34 pm
    —
I remember getting told quite firmly that I was no good at interacting with people so Social Worker, Teacher, Music Therapist and Nursery Nurse were out of the question. Err yes....That's why I trained as a nursery nurse. Of course.

This is why I actually have faith in these career thingys (although social worker doesn't really appeal)

#67:  Author: PadoLocation: Connecticut, USA PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:36 pm
    —
Stagecoach driver was one option that came up in mine.

#68:  Author: ChangnoiLocation: Milwaukee, USA PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:51 pm
    —
"Public relations person". I could have gone to Hollywood and found a celebrity to lie about! Damn doctoring for being more appealing (at one time, anyway)!

Chang

#69:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:39 am
    —
Our high school counselors were ex PE teachers and totally useless. Mine tried to tell me it was okay if I didn't take grade 12 math. This was to someone going to university to major in physics! If I had followed his advice, I would have lost a year of school.

The career tests were pretty daft. Even at the age of about 14 I could work out the scoring system, and they of course only measure stated interest in various things - they make no measurement of actual talent or ability.

Teacher is still used as a default career choice, particularly if someone has done a general arts university degree, 'can't find a job in their field' and needs to decide what to do next. The decision is frequently 'Oh, I'll do teacher's training', even if they don't have any particular desire or talent for being a teacher. I think this explains a lot about the worst of the teachers I had.

#70:  Author: SquirrelLocation: St-Andrews or Dunfermline PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:54 am
    —
The one thing I knew I'd never be was a teacher... So that counts that one out for me!

#71:  Author: TiffanyLocation: Is this a duck I see behind me? PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:43 pm
    —
Lexi wrote:

We had something similar, but it was a very long, very slow computer program. According to it, my ideal job was bus conductor Shocked


I spent ages doing ours in lots of different ways trying to make it come out with train driver. If done honestly, it told me to be an "art therapist", which I assume involves counselling paintings about the traumas of being famous...

#72:  Author: Ruth BLocation: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:21 pm
    —
My careers test told me I should be a psychiatric social worker. Publishing/Social Work, what's the diff?

We all rather lost faith in the programme though when we discovered that everyone who wore glasses had optician in their top 5. Rolling Eyes

#73:  Author: RoseClokeLocation: Camping in my housemate's room. Don't ask. PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:24 am
    —
My careers advice was practically non-existent - it was the sixth form attached to my high school or a vocational college. Accordingly I failed my first year of sixth form and had to resit at a better sixth form that, surprisingly enough, my careers advisor had never mentioned. Her advice did boost the numbers staying on at my high school though...

As for the CS science lessons, I always found it really amazing that they got to play with all the chemicals without proper safety equipment. My high school were sticklers for stuff like that, although my 2nd sixth form had teachers who (unless the material was radioactive) genuinely didn't care - one of them lit a gas tap *at the tap* and then dropped a lump of magnesium into the flame that was shooting across the desk. I'm told the resulting explosion was quite impressive. Unfortunately six months later they had to have an audit of the science dept and the inspectors got rid of all the 'interesting' chemicals.

#74:  Author: RayLocation: Bristol, England PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:32 am
    —
Thing is though, both my parents talk about having chemistry lessons where they 'played' with open beakers of mercury and that would be late 1950s/early 1960s, while my phsyics teacher (in the early/middle 1990s) described several experiments that she used to do (probably going back no more than 15 years) that involved both cigarettes and guns, so it's pretty safe to say that the perception of what is and isn't safe has changed considerably in the last 80 years!

Ray *never liked chemistry but was rather sad that her physics teacher couldn't do a velocity experiment that involved firing a gun...*

#75:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 10:10 am
    —
If you really want a hair-raising experience try listening to stories told by people who were nuclear scientists in the 1950s and 60s. Shocked The ones who haven't died of related illnesses yet, that is.

#76:  Author: MaryRLocation: Cheshire PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:14 pm
    —
Tara wrote:
As for careers advice, it was totally pants when I was at school (mid 60s), if you were female you were advised to be a secretary, nurse or teacher.

Quite right, Judith. Nothing at all, except what came from head or a teacher. It was either nursing or teaching at my school - or entering, of course! My sister, who wanted to be a doctor, was strongly advised to become a nurse instead, as doctoring wasn't for women - and in fact found it very hard to get into medical school and we always wondered if her reference was poor, becuase the school was against it. She did prevail eventually, but not before being asked in interviews if there was a doctor in the family. Because there wasn't, it seemed to tell against her. Crying or Very sad

#77:  Author: pimLocation: Londinium PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:52 pm
    —
The careers aptitude tests always told me I should be a pest controller or a funeral director... Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes

Thing is though, when my father tried the same ones out at the College he teaches at (trialling the software allegedly) they told him exactly the same thing despite trying to put in all the options to get teacher. I've been highly dubious of them ever since. Funny that *g*

#78:  Author: Kathy_SLocation: midwestern US PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 3:00 pm
    —
They were still mouth pipetting solvents and passing mercury from hand to hand in the early 1970s, and yes, I was told in 1979 by my first attempt at a Ph.D. advisor that "Women can't be scientists," though there might be a chance of a lower level position if I avoided marriage.

#79:  Author: Hannah-Lou, Location: Glasgow PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:13 pm
    —
One of the jobs that come up for me from one of these computer careers things was to be the person who works the lights in a theatre! How random is that? Laughing

#80:  Author: Lisa, Location: South Coast of England PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 7:50 pm
    —
Have just seen this thread for the first time and have been nodding along and chuckling at the comments Rolling Eyes

Clare wrote:


I'd love to see a CS risk assessment before they take the girls out on a trip. Might try and get a form and do that as a drabble one day...


Someone wrote a FANTABULOUS drabble many moons ago about a girl who was injured on a CS trip and her parents sued the school ... What was it? Who wrote it? I think the main character was also in the name of the drabble ... (tried to use the word 'eponymous' there to sound impressive and wise but after 1 and a half glasses of wine, I couldn't think of how to make it fit!) Laughing

#81:  Author: Chair, Location: Rochester, Kent PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:14 pm
    —
I can't remember the story we 1st met the characters, but they were the friends of Gabby's in 'Gabby Goes to School'.

ETA: I have just looked the drabble up in the archives - I have too much spare time! The drabble was written by Katarzyna. The drabble you're looking for is called 'The Chalet School Goes to Court'.

#82:  Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:29 pm
    —
Kathy_S wrote:
They were still mouth pipetting solvents and passing mercury from hand to hand in the early 1970s, and yes, I was told in 1979 by my first attempt at a Ph.D. advisor that "Women can't be scientists," though there might be a chance of a lower level position if I avoided marriage.


I left school in 78 and we were still mouth pipetting acids and alkalies then Rolling Eyes


Matty however has spent the last few open days at his school helping in the chemistry department by setting his hand on fire Shocked Apparently the head wasn't too enthusiastic when he saw what was going on and declined Matty's kind offer to set fire to his hand Laughing

#83:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:47 pm
    —
Dawn wrote:
Kathy_S wrote:
They were still mouth pipetting solvents and passing mercury from hand to hand in the early 1970s, and yes, I was told in 1979 by my first attempt at a Ph.D. advisor that "Women can't be scientists," though there might be a chance of a lower level position if I avoided marriage.


I left school in 78 and we were still mouth pipetting acids and alkalies then Rolling Eyes


I read that as "I left school when I was 78". It confused me muchly, as you were definitely not 78 when I met you at the Gather. Or else you look very good for your age. Laughing Laughing

It speaks volumes for my sleep deprivation that I didn't wonder why you were supposedly still in school in your 70s.

#84:  Author: Chelsea, Location: Your Imagination PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:28 pm
    —
Dawn wrote:


Matty however has spent the last few open days at his school helping in the chemistry department by setting his hand on fire Shocked Apparently the head wasn't too enthusiastic when he saw what was going on and declined Matty's kind offer to set fire to his hand Laughing


I've done that. If he is doing it the same way we did (not that I can remember the chemical name), he may to want to make sure that he doesn't ask men with 'hairy' hands to be volunteers - we found out (the hard way) that the liquid doesn't cover the hairs enough to protect them!

#85:  Author: Lisa, Location: South Coast of England PostPosted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:44 pm
    —
Chair wrote:

ETA: I have just looked the drabble up in the archives - I have too much spare time! The drabble was written by Katarzyna. The drabble you're looking for is called 'The Chalet School Goes to Court'.


Thanks, Chair! Very Happy

I recommend said drabble to all!

*Goes off for a nice long re-read*

#86:  Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:11 am
    —
Um, my turn to chuck something in..

Prefect duties
I attended boarding school in the 90s. As a fifth former and house monitor (or house prefect, if you prefer) duties were:
Turn the lights out
Put Year Seven (ie, First Form) to bed. That was rather fun..

School Prefect:
Chase the kids for serving and sweeping
Deduct housepoints from said bratty kids
Police entry to areas like the Manor. Which was hard. You get an upset fourteen year old begging to be allowed back to her dormitory because her period has started and she forgot to bring protection into school- what do you do?! And how do you know if they're trying it on..
Do the polite with visiting VIPs
... not very much, really, but this was mainly because by the time I was in the Sixth, the Sixth had their own separate accommodation (as the First did) so the duties diminished. Before that, though, prefect duties were comparable to the CS. In fact, in my first year at Mary Hare, there was still a much-used Prefects Common Room in addition to the Junior and Senior Common Rooms. The PCR became a mostly empty music room, if I remember rightly..

Risk assessment
True, very true- but RA can be idiotic sometimes. And I can remember plenty of scary things happening both in school and on trips. Fire on the ferry home from France? A near collision in the middle of Rouen? A bunch of kids with a positive genius for breaking everything in the Chateau whateveritis (near Bayeux).

Crazy teachers
Throwing books. Setting themselves on fire. Posing page 3 style on one of the tables in the Science lab- while Form Teacher number two tied the shoelaces of Form Teacher number one (the poser) to the table. H'mmmm.

CS careers
Actually, I think the CS does pretty well career wise. I admit we don't see the mechanics of the process, but by triplets, at least, it's very clear that some effort has been made to allow the girls to specialise in subjects that will help them when they go on to university, or take apprenticeships or whatever. From what board members have said, I would say the CS was pretty enlightened.



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