When I left school I had a burning desire to strip of the blackwatch tartan uniform and burn it. 
Mum wanted to resell it and I gave in. I was ever the good girl with the spleen of a rebel.
Though I won in being allowed to leave school ‘early’ at only 16 to go and study at University 1000 miles down in the South Island. I didn’t stick around for the leaver’s ceremony the following year, I needed to get out of there, soon as.
So strange sitting in the old school hall today watching my 16 year old ‘finish’ school. There’s quotes around the finish because he’s going off to college at the end of the summer to take his A levels, so it’s not really finishing but even so it is a rite of passage.
Bizarrely, the head of house spoke how he left school in 1994 – the year my son was born. Some of the teachers spoke as if they were speaking in the lingo of the teens they teach!
I felt at least one hundred and fifty two years old!
So much has changed.
It’s all so different from my old private school. We wore tartan tunics and ties and regulation undies a la St Trinian’s. Socks were kept up to the knee with garters. Hair that grazed the collar was tied up in ribbons. Earrings were forbidden. On the hour long school bus drive home I would methodically take my earrings off the back of my tie and put them in my ears, undo my belt (so I looked like a pregnant school girl..) pulled out my ribbons and defiantly shoved my socks down to my ankles.
There were girls at Son’s school today who have mistaken their knickers for skirts.
When exactly does a short skirt become undies?
Or a belt?
If a skirt is so tight you need to be cut out of it to regain circulation in your backside does it cause permanent damage?
Some of the boys had earrings. In both ears. Which I guess is handy if you don’t remember which ear was supposed to indicate their homosexual preferences.
One boy sported a full ginger beard!
Sitting in the old school hall I couldn’t help my mind wondering back to the assemblies of my day. We sat crosslegged on the cold floor, until we were in the sixth form and then we were allowed to sit on chairs. We chanted the school chapter all twelve verses of 13 Chapter of 1st Corinthians: ‘
Thou I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am as sounding brass or tinkling cymbol..
I used to smile at the irony of 900 girls and women all speaking with the tongues of ‘men’ hahahaha..
Our headmistress, whom we called Pud (so often I can’t remember her actual name!) wore a full gown and presided over preceedings with a saccharine smile. There were rumours she was gay. But then, the rumours said, so were the PE staff, the deputy head and all of the science staff ‘in the lab’!
My school assemblies were a very formal affair.
We said prayers, we sang hymns, and were addressed by the great and good of Auckland society. Oftentimes very special guests were bagpiped in. On the table on the stage was a dazzling array of silverware.
There were no cups today, only photocopied leaver’s certificates. No one received a ‘first’ for any of their subjects. There was no formal recognition for the work the teens had achieved over the past year, beyond a clap and encouragement. I was surprised, it was all so very different from the wonderful private school my Son attended in Auckland before moving over here.
It was a worlds apart from the school I attended, and the old system I knew and wanted my children to benefit from.
I couldn’t help but grieve a little that after all those years of fighting to get him into the best school, and working so hard to pay the fees, in the end he spent his last two years in a bog standard local secondary school.
Here, school has been very much a one-size-fits-all experience. No extension for G&T. It’s been a hard slog for him to feel vaguely accepted – the new boy with the weird accent and the quick brain.
I was feeling guilty that I’d stuffed up his school life, whilst the Heads of House read out the names of the other students to receive their certificates. I could feel tears welling up. All I could think about was those years he had extra tuition at the G&T programme I helped to establish in his primary school. How the teacher had told me then to have faith, that he’d be ok, back then when he was a dark-eyed strange little boy…
My thoughts were interrupted by the head of his house’s speech.
‘I think this year should be the year of the excuse,’ his teacher said to the audience.
‘In all my years of teaching I heard the best excuse for late coursework this year. Earlier in the year I asked this young man why he had not handed in his coursework. I expected him to say the dog ate it or something similar.
Instead, he told me: Sir, there’s been a problem and my computer’s stuck in customs!’
My face turned red. I became a beetroot puddle on the chair.
‘I’ve no idea what he had on his computer, or why customs would seize it but I’m pleased to say they didn’t blow it up and it was duly returned. The same young man a month or so later brought all of his family’s papers and passports into school AND LEFT THEM IN THE LAB OVERNIGHT!’
The hall erupted into fits of laughter.
‘Mrs Vegemitevix if you’re here, I’m sorry, but they truly are the best excuses of the year, maybe even my whole career!’
And then he called the names of the Year 11s in his house to receive their certificates.
When he called my son’s name, a surprising thing happened for this kid, who has worked so hard to fit in at a difficult stage of his life..
…the hall of students cheered him on as face flaming with self-consciousness, he walked up to the stage to get his certificate.
I met the teacher on the way out. He pulled me aside.
‘I think he’ll be alright now’ he said.
Schools have really changed, haven’t they!
Maybe I didn’t do irreparable damage to Son’s school career by moving him here!
Image: phi1317
