school proms
School’s out for summer
It’s prom season! Teacher Peter King
looks at the event that has become
an end-of-year
staple for
many schools
hE LoCaL papers love
T
a prom. all that glitz but if the parents
and glamour makes a behind your school prom are
welcome relief from the removing their children from your establishment
column inches devoted to the rich and at this stage in their academic career, when the vast
council stories and magistrates’ beautiful lifestyle of tabloid majority of your pupils stay on, you do not want to see
court reports. celebrities has conveniently dropped on to the event described in the paper as a leavers’ ball. This
at one time the word “prom” conjured up a genteel their doorstep. could put quite inappropriate ideas in the minds of the
notion which was peculiarly british – a henry Wood become an iconic event in the but for schools the events spell potential trouble, more able and better motivated students who, you hope,
promenade concert or a gracious walkway along the calendar of the social whirl. whether they take responsibility for them or whether will stay on.
seafront – but for school children now the word spells a counter culture has grown they wash their hands of the whole thing and leave it is one thing to throw a party because school is
just one thing: the swanky send-off which sets out to up in the home in response to the them in the hands of self-appointed student events out for summer – but it may be sending out the wrong
capture all the brashness of the american high school establishment’s emphasis on league tables. The kids planning committees and their doting parents. signals to suggest that school’s out for ever.
prom. may not have been the models of industriousness, but Even if the school steers clear of the occasion, the any attempt to stamp on the celebrations and
america’s rite-of-passage ceremony has now become they have passed one of those meaningless milestones name of the institution will still appear in the report pull the plug on the proms would be met with fierce
all the rage over here, not just with senior school pupils, which mark the route to adulthood. They may not when the press inevitably turns up – and the images of resistance: you cannot come between the students and
but with bugsy Malone lookalikes as young as seven have passed their examinations, but they have done hands cradling beer glasses and cigarettes hanging from their rites. if the youngsters want to ape their american
sipping mock champagne and swapping their bibs and something far more important – they have succeeded the lips are not necessarily the impression which you cousins in borrowed robes and revel in this landmark on
tuckers for seriously adult attire – and firms hiring out in growing older. would hope to spread. the road to adulthood, they are entitled to their moment
stretch limos, ball gowns and tuxedos are cashing in on The mystery of the initiation takes precedence over and if any trouble happens later in the evening, of maturity.
the lucrative trade that the ritual has spawned. the measure of performance by the examiner. it is not whether you are directly involved or not, you are going but although the occasion may provide stunning
as the craze for proms has spread across the how a child coped at school but the spectacle of his to be tarred with the adolescents’ loutish brush. shots for newspapers, it is hard for the school to
atlantic, the focus has switched from the performance passing out parade that counts. The topsy-turvy logic There is also an element of the pupils and their keep a tight rein on the image which may be created
of the students to the simple completion of their passage makes Malcolm’s comment in Macbeth on Cawdor’s parents wanting to keep up with the Joneses. They see – particularly if parents and their children are running
from fresh-faced youthfulness to the finishing line of exit from life’s stage – “nothing in his life/became him other schools in the area securing pages of publicity for the show.
the final year, and the event has become an extension like the leaving it” – sound like the highest praise. the occasions and want to do something similar – but When joyriders take over the wheel of the publicity
of the school run, which allows parents to indulge their For local newspaper photographers, the events are there is a danger that the school is seen to be lowering machine, they have little or no clue about the snags and
twin passions for mollycoddling their offspring and for a dream come true. They have a ball as they focus on itself to the level of other schools nearby. pitfalls that lie ahead – and you cannot be sure where
flaunting the size of their sport utility vehicles. the décolletage being flashed about by a bevy of slinky a prom for GCSE students at the end of year 11 may their journey will end. SecEd
For them, materialism really matters – and for belles instead of the weighty matrons who are normally be appropriate for some neighbouring schools which
them and for their children, many of whom view life wheeled out for functions of the great and the good either do not have 6th forms or which expect to recruit • Peter King teaches English at Wisbech Grammar
as one long party, the annual homage to hedonism has – and for the editors in provincial backwaters it is as if only a handful of their students into post-16 courses. School in Cambridgeshire.
Notes and jottings psycho babble
A tribute to Siobhan Dowd And into the real world
So Siobhan Dowd has won the 2009 CiLiP pupils. Yes, yes, yes. as a professional writer with a aS WE prepare to send our leavers off into the big, ability to use a computer database, and an understanding
Carnegie Medal with her young readers’ novel Bog long teaching background i have been arguing exactly wide world, it has become increasingly important to of basic business or economics is likely to win the post.
Child. Set in ireland near the north/south border in this for decades in newspaper columns and books. prepare them for what lies ahead. The world is a very These days, you simply can’t be over-qualified.
the 1980s, its background is The Troubles. Fergus, You expect music teachers to be music-makers in different place to the one that existed only a few short Take a student who has aspirations to work in a
whose elder bother is on hunger strike, is fascinated their own lives and you assume that PE teachers will years ago. While it has been a global marketplace for classroom; someone who has kept up their music,
by the recent discovery of an ancient child buried in be tennis club members and will use gyms. more than a decade, requiring students to acquire a has achieved a coaching certificate in football or
nearby peat. he jogs and he thinks. it’s a wonderful So, in the same way, teachers of English should good grasp of other cultures and languages, there swimming, has experience directing a play, and
read: thoughtful, sensitive and, occasionally, funny. be writers, and read for the love of the subject. if are now other considerations that must be taken into has taken a first aid course will be in a much better
Sadly though, Ms Dowd, aged 47, died of cancer an English teacher is not passionate about English account when preparing our students for life after position to fight for a good job than someone who
in 2007. This is a posthumous book. So, poignantly, then no-one in his or her classes will realise secondary school. has simply got the requisite grades at university.
she was not there to collect her well deserved potential. it is enthusiasts who get the best Part-time and summer jobs are no longer readily Students need to have acquired life-skills – be
prize last week – the first time this has results and i do not mean in exams. available, nor are students likely to find it easy able to book a train or plane ticket, and get from a to
happened in the history of the Carnegie to find the job of their dreams after an b without assistance. They need to be able to exhibit
Medal, which goes back to 1936. all and still on the subject of English apprenticeship or further education. strong social skills in order to interact appropriately
royalties from her books (A Swift teaching, i have always said that “i They need to be prepared for this reality, with others – expressing or advocating
Pure Cry, 2006, was terrific too) go before e except after c” may be a or the steps that they take towards themselves positively, and able to show
to the Siobhan Dowd Trust which jolly rhyme but it’s so useless as their goal may seem meaningless. respect for authority and contribute to the
she set up just before she died to a spelling aid that i never teach it. What’s the point of spending three workforce by demonstrating willingness
support the joy of reading for young This mantra is responsible for the or four years and many thousands and an ability to articulate ideas and
people in areas of social deprivation. misspelling of words such as ceiling, of pounds at university or college if suggestions in a constructive way.
now there’s a wonderful cause (www. vein, seize, species and many more. unemployment beckons? What’s if they can drive the company
siobhandowd.co.uk). So hurrah for Support for Spelling, the the point of learning a skill only van, use a telephone system to
government’s new guidance to primary to join the dole queue? help out when the receptionist is
i usually listen to Radio 4 while i do my 20 schools which advises against using our students need to learn to ill, speak to Spanish clients, set
minutes early morning bouncing on my it (search at www.nationalstrategies. alter their goals as they progress up a database or a website, and
spare-bedroom mini-trampoline (don’t standards.dcsf.gov.uk). if they heed the through life – negotiate hurdles contribute to the running of the
ask). one morning last week, i was so advice it will mean fewer spelling as they meet them, and come up company with sound marketing
astonished by the banal obviousness errors for you to correct in year 7. with plans b, C and D when plan skills, all the better.
of what an ofsted spokeswoman was a doesn’t work. They need to Students who create opportunities
saying about the standard of English i chuckled over the dubbing of modular equip themselves with a multitude for themselves will find that they are
teaching that i temporarily lost my a levels as “Satnav” exams. That’s what of skills, in order to be in the right in the best place not just to survive in
rhythm and started muttering at the radio Professor Rosemary bailey of University position to get the jobs that are going. existing conditions, but put themselves
– never a good sign. of London’s Queen Mary College said and that starts now. Students need to firmly on the path to getting the job they really
The new report she was referring to about maths papers in connection with understand that learning doesn’t stop at the want in the future. Everything that a child learns
argues that standards in English are not a rather damning report by Reform, the end of secondary school, and that doesn’t mean can be used to his or her advantage at some point
rising quickly enough and that White boys independent think-tank. She said that papers simply carrying on with the courses they’ve in the future, whether it be an interest that is honed
from poor homes are the worst affected – as are heavily structured and laden with “do this or chosen in their desired field. it means keeping iCT into a skill, or a skill that has been adapted to suit the
we all already know. Then she went on to say do that” instructions which lead candidates to the skills up-to-date, learning second or third languages, current marketplace.
that children learn best if they are taught by good answers. it’s hard to disagree and schools don’t help. learning the art of successful interviews, and acquiring These are difficult times. Rather than seeing
teachers – who devise lively lessons – and that too Take Rhyddings business and Enterprise School in secondary skills that will help them adapt when the students deflated by the reality of the job market,
many are merely “satisfactory”. We’ve heard that Lancashire which was recently criticised for running jobs they want simply do not exist. let’s give them the tools they need to become the
once or twice before too, so goodness knows why a “masterclass” (aka last minute cramming) an hour The workers who are most likely to get a job today best possible candidates for what’s on offer, and give
more public money has been spent on yet another before a GCSE maths exam. What price exams as are those who fall into the category of being “portfolio them the future they deserve. With that preparation,
report to tell us what we already know. disinterested levellers in which candidates have to workers”, meaning that they bring a portfolio of and the psychological boost it offers, the future can
but then she moved on to something different, stand on their own feet? skills to any job they do. if there are, for example, and will be rosy.
asserting that teachers who write themselves – and 80 applications for a single job to stock supermarket
show pupils that writing is a “cool”, imaginative, • Susan Elkin is a freelance education journalist and shelves, the applicant who has strong numeracy skills, • Karen Sullivan is a bestselling author, psychologist
grown-up thing to do – coax better writing from their former teacher. a knowledge of another language to help customers, an and childcare expert. Email kesullivan@aol.com
SecEd • July 2 2009 
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