Friday, 26 February 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
The Opportunity To Engage Partners In Schooling Support Takes a Huge Leap Forward
Parent support is fundamental to improving the learning process through a greater awareness of their child’s progress in school . Using educational games, toys and the internet at home can help children learn in a way that suits them. Having parents alongside gives children constructive support and a great insight into their progress, ability and the details of the National Curriculum.Becta, the original name for the British educational computerised training association, in case you’re ask, are behind the drive to engage parents in the schooling process. Children who use the internet at home do better in maths and reading tests, are more interested in their studies and have more fun learning. The Home Access scheme encourages children to go over schoolwork at home, do homework online, contact classmates and teachers, get information and work together on projects with parents.
Research shows that children achieve more highly when parents talk to them about their experiences of school and learning. However, a recent report showed 82 per cent of parents felt left in the dark when it comes to their s child’s schooling.
The online reporting to become available to parents will allow parents to see their child’s progress dynamically rather than end of term reports or parents night. Research also showed this level of parental involvement at home heightened their awareness of a child’s progress at school leads to a dramatic improvement in a child’s achievement. Playing educational games, board games or ICT games at home can replicate the teaching resources in class and bring enjoyment to revision in the form of CDROM literacy, numeracy, chemistry and physics quizzes that can lead to an improvement of two grades at school.
The recent scheme launched by the DCSF to fund 270,000 poorer families with a laptop computer and online access to schools will allow these children to catch up. Teacher advice in areas where help is needed will allow them to enlist parents help. Their interest and involvement in a child’s learning and education is more important than anything else in helping that child fulfil their potential.
Key benefits:
- Home -school communication is improved considerably.
- Communications of a very a positive nature is encouraged
- Contact can be established with all parents, irrespective of the nature of the catchment area
- Father’s become more involved in their children’s education
- Parents give a significant amount of quality time to their children
- Parents become more knowledgeable about the school curriculum
- Parents become more involved in the assessment of children’s progress
- Equality of educational opportunity is addressed
- Esteem between parents, pupils and teachers is enhanced
- Promote team promoting family learning activities
- Underpinning home- school agreements
- Raising standards of attainment.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
How Does Education Help or Hinder the Road to Success of a Chief Executive: Chapter 2.
The continuing series of memories by Bill Whiting retired Chief Executive of B&Q. He reflects on his school days, the teaching resources and educational values learnt or missed that influenced his rise to top level management in a global operation.
When I was Chief Executive of B&Q, I was asked by a business school if I could help them out with a project. They were inviting a series of people to give a talk entitled “The secrets of my success.”
The programme was to run for a number of weeks and the idea was that each week someone who was deemed to have reached the higher echelons of the business world would explain the main reasons behind their achievements in climbing the corporate ladder. Thus students would be given helpful insights to help them fulfil their ambitions.
I thought about this for a few moments and then said: “You know, I don’t think I can help you there. I haven’t really got a clue myself. I think I might have just got lucky.”Bill Whiting.
Chapter 2
The most painful caner of all, however, was the headmaster, ‘Baldy’ Adams. Baldy was a short, stocky man who would have won any Nikita Khrushchev lookalike competition and who seemed to have much else besides in common with Soviet dictators.
He was a prolific caner and I recall two contrasting occasions where this was demonstrated.
One day, for reason perhaps of a teacher absence, Baldy was taking our class when he had cause to admonish Neil Shields for some very minor offence. I’m not sure what exactly it was, but suspect that Neil had given Baldy a ‘wrong’ look.
“Get out here boy.” Baldy barked - and Neil duly rose and walked sheepishly to the front of the class where Baldy demanded he bend over.
Neil then put on an Oscar winning performance of total innocence in the face of profound injustice. Slightly bowed and with an anguished and flushed face he shook his head in disbelief and said “But why Sir? Why? I haven’t done anything.”
We all looked on and froze. Oliver had just asked for more in the workhouse.
“Of course not boy.” Baldy retorted, quick as a flash. “I always cane boys for doing nothing. Bend over!”
This was of course a master stroke from a man with total power and who could not only cane boys, but also had no need to explain why. Neil could provide no answer to the wonderfully closed nature of Baldy’s statement and so took a severe whack and struggled not to weep as he returned to his desk rubbing his buttocks.
Afterwards Neil told us he really had done nothing, but we suspected the truth was that after being told off he’d given Baldy a look which fell slightly short of fear-fuelled humility. Thus, strictly within the context of the prevailing rules, we all thought that Baldy was most probably entirely justified.
At the other end of the rule breaking scale, one day a robust lad called Robbo actually punched a teacher. This was the school equivalent of an inmate attacking a guard in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. It called not only for a minimum of six strokes, but even worse, the punishment had to be carried out in a fairly rare and frightening ritual manner.
At the end of morning assembly, with all pupils and teachers gathered in the hall, Baldy called Robbo up onto the raised stage. No mention was made of the crime or the prescribed punishment. Perhaps this was simply because everyone knew anyway – or maybe it was just Baldy’s way of demonstrating again that he had no need to justify his actions.
Robbo bent over in full view of a hushed school. Baldy picked up his cane. The hated Jap was all set to behead the prisoner.
Robbo took six strokes and they resonated loudly as Baldy clearly put all his strength into their delivery.
But for all Baldy’s efforts it was a triumph for Robbo. He did not cry out or weep at all – and he later showed off his very severely bruised arse to at least a hundred of us. Robbo’s reputation soared and he secured a legendary place in the school’s most prestigious though strictly unofficial list of war heroes.
Although punching a teacher was a dire offence, it was perfectly okay for boys to punch each other and fights frequently broke out in the playground. A cry of ‘scrap’ quickly attracted a big audience. If it went on for more than a few minutes, the fight would be broken up by a teacher, but otherwise it would be left to fizzle out on its own.
I presume fighting was expected of boys and it was tolerated - in rather the same way that we can observe a large gathering of chimpanzees shown on one of those TV nature programmes. The older chimps step in only if the fight amongst juveniles becomes inconvenient in some way to them.
In a similar vein, it was perfectly okay for older boys to piss on new entrants to the school – though only in close proximity to the toilet wall.
The toilets in the playground featured a brick wall, maybe about five feet tall, with a long urinal on one side and playground on the other. Young boys can project pee a very long way indeed and many could spray it right over the toilet wall. Many new boys would be pissed upon as a result. And then, after a few days familiarisation, the playground side of the wall would resume its curiously empty appearance in that otherwise crowded and bustling space.
However, the greatest moments for us came when we could ‘get at’ teachers without punishment and the fact that all such opportunities were taken enthusiastically perhaps justified in some way the rather brutal disciplinary regime the teachers normally exercised.
Certainly, any weak teachers would be exploited without exception – and one such was a young science teacher at Stamford Road.
Like all teachers he would regularly throw out questions to the class, hands would be eagerly raised and someone chosen to answer. But one day, we hatched a plot whereby no-one would appear to be able to answer any question.
To achieve this, we first had to ensure compliance from our meeker brethren – and especially that of ‘Crawler Arch’ who was programmed to live on teacher approval. All pupils were informed that anyone answering a question in the class would be ‘got’ at playtime - and for extra security someone was posted behind Crawler with a clenched fist.
It was a chemistry lesson and the expected questions were duly asked; “What gas is needed to make something burn?” and so on. But on each occasion we all gave pained and puzzled expressions, ‘ummed and erred’ out loud and scratched our heads.
The questions got easier as the teacher sought to overcome the problem. Then finally, he took a glass tumbler and poured some water from a tap into it. He held the water up and said “What’s this?” Again we all displayed very visible and audible signs of mental stress – and this time he broke. He threw the full glass into the sink and smashed it and cursed.
Teacher 0 – Boys 1
Another great favourite of ours was Joe Wilde, our religious knowledge teacher, commonly known as ‘Holy Joe’. Joe was a very fat man with a booming preacher’s voice and a rather theatrical manner. Perhaps true to his faith, he did not cane or hit boys or even hurl blackboard rubbers at them. However, as Christian martyrs before him had also found, entering the lion’s den without a whip, was asking for trouble.
Our best ruse with Joe was to go to the wrong room for his lesson. Joe was not a full time teacher at the school and so he always used whichever room happened to be scheduled as spare or vacant when he was due to work. But if Room 2a was designated for Joe’s lesson we would find another empty one and wait for him there - with a prepared deceitful claim that we thought this other room was the correct one.
After quite some time he would find us and enter the room in something of a rage. “You young sinners!” he boomed.
Teacher 0 – Boys 1
But the greatest victory we scored was against our greatest adversary, Baldy. ( to be continued next week in chapter 3; Bill meets Baldy head on.)
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Does School Help or Hinder the Road to Success of a Chief Executive
A burning question, how much does educational schooling really influence the career of a successful businessman? Over the next eight weeks we are serialising the career of Bill Whiting, retired Chief Executive of B&Q during its huge growth phase overseas. It is a fascinating and humorous read.
PREFACE
When I was Chief Executive of B&Q, I was asked by a business school if I could help them out with a project. They were inviting a series of people to give a talk entitled “The secrets of my success.”
The programme was to run for a number of weeks and the idea was that each week someone who was deemed to have reached the higher echelons of the business world would explain the main reasons behind their achievements in climbing the corporate ladder. Thus students would be given helpful insights to help them fulfil their ambitions.
I thought about this for a few moments and then said: “You know, I don’t think I can help you there. I haven’t really got a clue myself. I think I might have just got lucky.”
I think the college organiser thought I was just being deliberately obtuse and guessed I was rather reluctant to give up my time. They obviously did not have anything in their curriculum designed to enhance their students’ skills at being lucky or benefitting from happy coincidences and strokes of providential fate.
So I was pressed a little further. “No, seriously.” He said. “People can find this kind of thing really helpful and inspirational.”
I paused for a moment to savour the flattery, but then explained that I was in fact being serious.
“I tell you what though.” I then added in a helpful tone. “If you ever do a course where I can come along and the students can then explain to me why I succeeded, I’ll be there.”
The conversation ended amicably enough, but I suspect my name may have been jotted down on their contact page marked ‘Unhelpful sods’.
Anyhow, when I came to write down this brief history of my career from secondary school to retirement, I had no ambition for it to serve as a guide to success for anyone. But it did occur to me that should it ever be read, it might be illuminating if people told me why they thought I had managed to get a lot further up the slippery pole than most other people have.
I could then offer to attend college events and make a useful contribution as an exhibit for analysis. Alternatively, if after reading my memoir, other people are also unable to explain my success, then I can offer my manuscript as an open-ended enigma designed purely to stimulate discussion and speculation on career planning.
In any case, what follows is a list of memories spanning forty years. I’m sure many of them would strike the reader as entirely unimportant, but of course they are nonetheless the things which stayed in my mind. And they include some of those small and apparently inconsequential incidents which occur and which, quite mysteriously only loom large in later life.
I am aware too that different people have a different take on the world and often see the same situation in entirely different ways. A triumph for one can be a disaster for another and a single incident is quite capable of being seen as everything from very funny to very sinister.
Corporate histories in particular are regularly re-written and it isn’t at all uncommon for new chief executives to look at a company and say the same kind of thing that many plumbers do when they look at a sink – “Jeez – who the hell did that?”
So I don’t claim that every memory I have is all the truth or even the only truth. I simply claim that this is the way I saw it.
And anyway, sheltered in retirement and secure in my standing with my family and friends, I have nothing to prove, no exam to pass, no burning ambition to fulfil and no reputation to build or embellish.
As the Chinese say: “Reputation is like a cake drawn in the sand.”
You can’t eat it folks – and in time it just gets washed away.
THE LONG ROAD TO IGNORANCE BEGINS
One of the more alarming things about being retired is that I have suddenly been able to read and think a lot. And in doing so I have become increasingly aware of how much I don’t know. So perhaps it is appropriate that I begin this book at school in my early years as a teenager - for as every parent is aware, that is the only age when one is young enough to know everything.
In 1959 the clearest signal a child could give that only modest occupational prospects lay ahead was to fail the Eleven Plus – so the fact that I failed it with flying colours does add a nice pinch of pepper to the career dish that I eventually managed to conjure up.
For boys, success in this landmark Eleven Plus exam meant entry to the Grammar School. In Kettering in Northamptonshire, this was then a sparkling new heavily-glazed building packed with state-of-the-art academic facilities, including language and science laboratories. Many acres of playing fields were also attached. Boys wore compulsory school ties and uniforms, played middle class rugby rather than the working class football and were groomed from day one to take GCE examinations, strive for university and aspire to a profession in later working life.
Meanwhile, Eleven Plus failures such as myself, made their way to a Secondary Boys School such as the one in the town’s Stamford Road. This was a heavy Victorian building completely surrounded by a high brick wall which gave it the appearance of an institution which was, once inside, difficult to escape from. Its facilities included workshops for woodwork and metalwork (Design and Technology) - and its toilet facilities, with entirely uncovered urinals, were located at the far side of the concrete playground. At this school, the brightest pupils were groomed primarily to aspire to become skilled tradesmen - and the rest were prepared as fodder to feed the economy’s multitude of semi skilled or unskilled job vacancies.
Stamford Road School had a uniform of tie and jacket badge, but I cannot recall seeing anyone ever wearing it. This was largely because few families could afford to spend money on such unessential items and, anyway, membership of this school was not something to boast about or advertise. Also, everyone knew that if they were foolish enough to turn up clad in such a manner, a good thumping would be delivered swiftly by the more aggressive inmates. Thus, unofficially but very effectively, the school operated a compulsory non-uniform regime.
The stark contrast between these two types of school and the different cultures they created would today generate outrage. But in those days this was not to my knowledge seen by anyone as being particularly problematic. It was simply a reflection of the class- divided and deferential society which then existed and which was largely accepted.
And of course the education system didn’t just reflect prevailing attitudes – it reinforced and institutionalised them. In fact it may have done this more vigorously that even I believed until recently.
At a reunion of my primary school, a classmate who went on to the grammar school and subsequently into an educational career, told me that he believed I had in fact passed the Eleven Plus, but was marked failed as I lived on a council estate. The primary school’s catchment covered a large part of a council estate as well as an extensive area of privately owned homes.
My old chum said this ‘markdown policy’ was quite normal practice and wasn’t done for any overtly evil reason, but to recognise the financial burden of the grammar school and indeed the cultural tensions that would arise at home for a council house boy educated there.
I have no idea if this is true – and I’m inclined to think it isn’t. But I did weigh up the evidence for his case. At the time of the Eleven Plus exam, I was positioned in the top third of the top stream in the primary school - and later I rose rather higher in my professional life than anyone else did in my primary school class. And yet, as the only council house boy in the class, I was also the only one to fail the crucial exam. Also I cannot remember anyone else from the council estate who ever passed the Eleven Plus - including all of my three sisters.
But even if my old school pal’s theory is true, I do not carry any sense of resentment about it. It’s all too easy today to condemn past attitudes with the benefit of hindsight and with today’s rather than yesterday’s values as the measure. My experience is that there are good and bad people scattered everywhere in the world - and that has always been the case. And in a hundred years from now we shall no doubt be ill-judged ourselves by a generation which will have entirely different experiences and hold markedly different values.
In any case, I always think that if you have wound up in a good place, then nothing should be regretted or wished to be changed. For all I know, had I not gone to this undoubtedly second rate school, I might have been run over by a bus cycling to the other one.
And anyhow, I enjoyed my time at the secondary school and made some very good friends there, some of whom I remain in contact with to this day. What’s more, for all its faults, the school did turn out pupils with basic literacy and numeracy abilities which I believe would shame quite a few of today’s comprehensives.
Above all, discipline in the school was very good compared to modern standards – reinforced no doubt by a parental culture which was big on tough love. Kids then would often get up to mischief and wrong doing, but everyone did know right from wrong and, as a result, there was an acceptance of due punishments. Indeed it was a world where, almost universally, working hard, abiding by the law and showing polite good manners and community concern were standards which generally prevailed.
Nevertheless, even then one of the greatest sources of pleasure for kids was to seek ways to break the rules and annoy adults and get away with it. But at least annoyance could be achieved by committing relatively harmless offences. Today, when there is a much higher tolerance of indiscipline, fairly serious misdeeds often have to be carried out before an adult crackdown is provoked.
On the other hand, most people today would be quite horrified by the level of corporal punishment administered in my school in the 1950’s. And this wasn’t confined to the school. Not only did parents give boys in particular a regular whack round the ear, it was also quite acceptable for neighbours and indeed for policemen to do the same for misdeeds which society widely recognised as warranting correction.
Indeed, a neighbour would be thanked by a parent for doing so – no doubt because it was seen as providing perfectly proper and helpful support to the community’s cohesion. It also meant that adults represented a uniform barrier to misbehaviour with no confusing ‘grey areas’ and little opportunity for kids to play one off against the other for advantage.
This attitude was extended to teachers in very full measure. Teachers were in those days members of a highly respected profession. They had full responsibility for the maintenance of school discipline and were trusted to exercise it.
As a result, the cane was in regular daily use in my school. It was always used on the buttocks of a bent over boy and most often one stroke was administered at the front of the class - though as many as three on some occasions. One stroke could be delivered for as small an offence as ‘talking in class’, even by mistake, at a time when silence had been proscribed.
The cane certainly hurt and left a bruise that remained visible for some days – though these scars were often worn with pride as ASBO’s are often said to be today. Certainly the cane was to be avoided where possible, but it wasn’t greatly feared. The main thing for the caned boy was to make sure he shed no tears and was seen to take it ‘like a man’. We were certainly not being groomed to weep in the streets at the funerals of future celebrity princesses – or to lay bare our emotions on the Jerry Springer show.
However, we were well aware that some teachers caned more often and harder than others, though this didn’t necessarily win them more respect. And there were of course many teachers who had that natural authority and charisma needed to win respect and keep order with very sparse resort to physical punishment. Nonetheless, a poor and disrespected teacher who caned hard, fared somewhat better on the discipline front than did his poor and disrespected ‘soft touch’ colleague.
I cannot remember the real names of some of the teachers as they were all given nicknames and these are the ones which have predominantly stuck with me. One of the hardest caners, however, was a female teacher we called “Hoppo”. Cruel you might think bearing in mind that she had a club foot and limped. But by curious coincidence her name was also Hopkins so perhaps it was just meant to be.
Hoppo had a thick cane and wielded it ferociously, but ‘Sid’ the English teacher had a thin one and we often debated, without resolution, as to which type of weapon was the most painful.
The most painful caner of all, however, was the headmaster, ‘Baldy’ Adams. Baldy was a short, stocky man who would have won any Nikita Khrushchev lookalike competition and who seemed to have much else besides in common with Soviet dictators.
He was a prolific caner and I recall two contrasting occasions where this was demonstrated. ( this article is being serialised in alistairowens blog. Bookmark the blog to see Episode 2 next week )
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