School days - Peter Symonds 2

I have little more than memories of my time at Peter Symonds:  just a few photos gleaned from the web and my my A level maths notebook.

We called masters "sir" and they called us by our surname.  Even between boys it was by surname unless you were on really good terms. For a master to call a boy by his first name was generally considered a weakness.

Mr Hurst (an apt name) taught us woodwork in my first two years.  I enjoyed this, the only craft subject, even if the teacher was a little disorganised.  Every term he was expected to hand in marks for the "form order", but as he didn't mark our work this meant an impromtu test.  There were historic woodworking tools hanging from the walls which, so far as I can remember, were never used or even named.  His test would include having to name this one and that, and of course no-one had the faintest idea so the marks were random at least.  Towards the end of my second year I started turning a bowl. As we entered the 3rd year we were streamed and this apparently excluded the possibility of being academic and doing woodwork.  I rebelled against this nonsense by refusing to finish the bowl even though Mr Hurst encouraged me to do it in my spare time. Later on the choice had to be made between arts and sciences for A-levels - you could not do a mix.

I mentioned Breezy Gale in my last post.  He also took us for PE and games.  In the changing rooms there was a communal shower - a kind of passageway open at either end with numerous shower nozzles along its length.  All boys had to shower after PE or games.  As younger boys we would run through the shower to get wet as little as possible and hurriedly don our clothes.  But I noticed that the older boys (on the rare occasions when two years were changing at the same time) would actually choose to spend time in the shower AND use shampoo: only then did it dawn on me that a shower could be enjoyed.

Harry Hawkins was our O-level maths teacher.  Although we made fun of him unmercifully, as we did any teacher with whom we could get away with it, he must have been good for I still recant his aides memoire.  The picture is a classic shot and shows him completing the square with the mantra "take half the coefficient of x and square it".  The inverse operation was "square the first, twice the product and square the last".  Faced with a board full of equations he would instruct us to "look at the board while I go through it".  I kept a book of such sayings but sadly it was confiscated by one of the masters.  I only hope that the teacher's common room enjoyed it as much I did.

"Oink" red faced Griffin was my French teacher, poor guy - whilst I was near the bottom of the class in anything to do with language I think he accepted me as a challenge.  With a combination of his and my hard work I managed to get me an amazing grade 4 (where 7 was a fail) for my O level.

Tom Pierce was our form master and English teacher during one year.  Tom was also very knowledgeable on anything to do with nature. Unfortunately his strengths were my weaknesses and I learnt very little in his lessons and received very little encouragement in return.

We all played soldiers on Friday afternoons and I choose the RAF part of the cadet force in which Tom was involved.  My memories of him in uniform have resonances with Captain Mainwaring of Dad's Army.  Friday afternoons could be enjoyable but only if you took the whole thing light heartedly.

"Chalky" White was another of our maths teachers.  He managed to keep order without resort to much in the way of punishment and we respected him for this.

Ron "Biffer" Smith was our senior physics master.  His favourite appellation was "wretch" spoken with vehemence but not anger. I considered him one of the best teachers, but then physics was my best subject.  He allowed us some latitude - I remember a pleasurable lunch break with my friend making a nonsense experiment with yards of rubber tubing, reservoirs, filter pumps and the like.  I remember putting my hand up in his class and as a result being asked to explain to the class how FM radio worked and realising only too late that I didn't fully understand it myself. A trap I have since fallen into many times - I am a slow learner!

I elected to do Maths, Further Maths and Physics for A-level.  This was before the days of AS levels and such specialisation suited me.  I am good at what I am good at and pretty pathetic at all the rest.  One of the few relics of school days is my maths note book which I still have because it is (still) a useful reference.  In case anyone is interested (why else would you be reading this blog?) I include a couple of pages.

Note the spelling "proggression" (I have always found spelling difficult) and the "1855 BC" quip.

Back in those days A-levels were worth something.  They have been dumbed down since then.  Even over the few years recently that I have taught A level maths I have seen further reduction in the syllabus.  This I find strange - I would have thought a more technological world would demand higher academic standards, not lower.