So I did go back, I did return to my first primary school very recently. I was a little nervous as I really wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I didn’t want all my old feelings to come flooding back to me, feelings of failure and unhappiness. I was also though full of excitement and I could not wait to get inside the building. I was greeted by a friendly receptionist and then the most lovely head teacher as I stood in the extension to the school built many years after I left. I was so pleased about this as I really wanted to savour the moment when I actually set foot once again after almost 50 years into the original school building. I was back, back and it felt amazing, it felt so very happy! I was so very surprised by this as I had expected to feel much worse, sadness, even tears but no. This was a feeling that remained with me throughout the 45 minute visit and I don’t think I ever stopped smiling. We began in the old reception area which one was the office of the receptionist and is now a photo copying room. Then we went into the hall, the lovely hall which was a source of happiness during choir practices, school fairs, discos etc and a school production that I was in. I think it was just for my class and for the very first time in my life at the age of ten I was the star of the show. I remember the short play was about Doctor Benardo and the history of how he helped homeless children in the late 1800’s. He was inspired by the sad death of an 11 year old boy called John Somers who sadly died due to malnutrition. This young boy had red head and was nicknamed Carrots. So of course I with my red hair was perfect choice for the leading role. My hair was short so I could easily pass for a boy. I remember wearing torn clothes, a shirt and shorts and my black school plimsoles and having, I guess it was stage make-up, put on my face and limbs to make me look dirty. I loved performing in this way and was not the least bit fazed by doing so in front of the whole school. I guess the fact I took the leading role gave me some credence with the others in my class but if it did it was short lived. So here I am in the hall with the same hefty wooden PE benches and believe it or not the same piano that I sang along to in the school choir. So this was a great starting point on my tour round the school, full of happiness. I shared my thoughts with the head teacher including where I stood with another year 6 child to give out the hymn books as the children filled into the hall for assembly. The head then proudly and rightly so, talked of more modern day use of the hall.
We moved on out of the hall into the corridor, yes my lovely amazing corridor was just as it had been all those years ago and I felt my smile enlarge and stretch even further across my face. The coat hooks and little cubby holes were still exactly the same but now painted blue I remember them being varnished dark word. The cubby holes of the 1970’s school simply held our plimsoles but now there were books in many of them, a refreshing change I thought. The first classroom we went inside was actually no longer a classroom but now he school library. We had to go into the room through a door as this great change meant that all the classrooms previously open plan now had doors on, I was pleased to see that there was glass in the doors to at least allow light in. I wondered briefly how I may have felt being enclosed in that way and I am om convinced I would not have enjoyed it at all as I’ve previously said I relied on the fact I could see out into the corridor and my means of escape should it be needed. The library looked lovely and was well stocked. My eyes however were immediately drawn towards the right hand side wall where the old huge and looming backboard used to be. All I could think about was my maths lessons.
We moved on looking in all the other classrooms, all the teachers were very welcoming and the children so well behaved, engaged in what they were doing, it was all so positive. When we arrived at the last classroom which was the first one I began my journey at the school in I stopped, reached out and tapped the wall as this was the wall I had to stand by when sent out of the classroom for not being able to pronounce the teachers name correctly. I shared this memory with the head teacher. Directly opposite was the area in which I did my reading test and to the right of that my first coat peg and cubby hole. We spoke briefly about dyslexia and the head assured me that strategies were used including the use of coloured overlays for one example. Also he was proud to show me he even the future transitioned from class to class in terms of its colour remaining the same throughout school. There was also natural wooden areas which help to soften rooms and reduce sensitivity and over stimulation which I very much liked. It was nice tis was considered as many young children today can feel overwhelmed at primary school ages between 4 and 11. This of course should not happen but it sadly does. However the school recognises the need for this level of detail and have acted positively to aid transition between classrooms and give a calming atmosphere in each room.
We continued our tour past the quiet room, and into the reception class area, now Foundation stage. I stopped and looked as gone was the lovely open plan space and instead two further classrooms now stood. In addition to these rooms was a room where drumming took place. The school was very well resourced considering its size. The lovely attachment to school where I did many after school clubs is now use in a similar way. It is a great space and now houses a kitchen for cooking and a breakfast club in addition to after school clubs.
Now outside we looked at the playground. I saw myself doing those clapping games and looking for four leaf clovers on the school field. The mobiles were next, still in the same place but new buildings due to the lifespan of a mobile building typically being around 20-30 years. It was so lovely to be outside again and remember happy playful times. I also did cycling proficiency on the tarmac playground and sat for the netball team photograph.
We then made our way back into school and it was sadly time to leave. It is lovely however as it will now not be my last visit to the school. The head teacher has asked me to go back and do an assembly with him when they do history about the school. Get me being a part of history, Ok I felt incredibly old but also incredibly proud that I was indeed in the vey first cohort of the school and could now give something back. I will now eagerly put together a short plan and hopefully fins some photos of my time in school to add to the assembly presentation. I will very much look forward to the day I can go back.
The whole welcome and ethos of the school was so lovely and I feel it actually overtook my previous bad memories. How amazing now to feel so very much more positive about the school. While it was mainly positive I did find it impossible not to be reminded of the bad things that did happen. A couple of teachers names were spoken during our visit but these were of course not recognised due to the great number of years that have passed. How very important I now feel the visit had been. I felt sure it was a good thing to attempt to do but I really wasn’t too sure of what would happen and how on earth I would actually feel.
On my way back down the school path I started to well up and my emotions got the better of me for a short time. I was speaking with a lovely prior to my visit, explaining my motive for going back She said that I would be able to frame my memories due to my visit and I thought what a very positive thing to say. Having completed my visit that’s exactly what I feel has happened. So I can now begin to frame these memories, some may be framed in thick black wooden frames, the wooden ridden with splintered wood which could cause pain. But other memories may now be framed in clear glass with pretty floral designs etched into the surface. Other =s may be framed in more elaborate designs of an art deco or art nouveau style. These would be happy frames, showing off good memories, memories that I would want to share and would want others to see.
I had an hour or so between my first visit and that of my very first primary school, you remember the moss ridden steps at the outside entrance just to get onto the playground. I fond a small coffee shop that has been a clothes shop and a chemist back in my day. I sat with a decaf latte and then a decaf tea with oat milk and wrote some notes about what I had just experienced. When it was time to drive to the next school. Now the village hall my nerves started up again. I met a lovely lady who showed me round the old building. I was immediately transported back to when I was five years old, remarkable really that a building has the power to do that. As soon as I entered the second classroom my eyes went to the eft had corner where I use to sit. And then to the right hand side wall with a huge free standing blackboard just by the small high windows. It was here where I did my coloured handwriting practice n a Friday afternoon. Also on the wall were pictures of old time tables and there against, Thursday afternoon, (not Friday as I had first thought) was the word handwriting, amazing. I was shown all round the inside of the buik ding which just houses two classrooms and a hall which I had forgotten could be divided. Once outside I took a few photos of the steps and he main entrance which is now a fire door and the back entrance. Another amazing thing is that the whole building is reportedly haunted and some people have heard the chatter and laughter of young children The fact laughter could be heard is at least encouraging! This surely means there were at least some happy children in the school which is wonderful to think. So there are once again memories to frame, these memories are also not quite the horrific ones I was expecting. I do feel the second school visit was far more painful for me but it is a huge relief to know that no more young children will ever need to be taught in that building again.
Making frames
Frames allow for things to stay
to be positioned so
not able to be moved away.
Consider the style,
shape and size of a frame
How this can help determine
what is put inside.
We chose a frame so personally
it needs to reflect the picture
now my memories are framed
for good and they are
really such a mixture.
The good the bad the painful
all now neatly housed
what a wonderful exploration of the mind
in order to put to rest
some of the demons
I’ve now left behind.
Secondary school was a very different visit. I felt far more nervous this time I think I knew it was going to be much harder visit than the primary school a few weeks earlier. Is it because I have more vivid memories of my time there due to being older? Or is it due to the fact I was bullied by children and I also feel I was bullied by staff too. I can’t remember teaching assistants so it was just the teacher and the children. The classroom door was closed so who knew what happened behind those closed doors. Yes there were windows but if you were sat on the wrong side all you looked out in was the corridor and to the classrooms opposite. This was the case for English, maths and science and also the foundation subjects of French and humanities.
I saw the building and my heart sank, the butterflies were turning into dragons, but these were real dragons that breathed fire. Each step nearer to the front entrance I took, I felt worse, then I was in! As I sat waiting to be met by a member of the school SEND team, by stomach was in knots, so too my head. I could even quote Shakespear’s Macbeth here ‘Oh full of scorpions is my mind!’.
After signing and putting on my lanyard, I waited for the member of the send team who was going to show me around. In the reception area there were to the right, the usual framed certificates and cups showing how successful the school was. To the left of me was a huge poster explaining the importance of attendance and how many days of turned into weeks, months, years and how many lessons missed, what a welcome.
We walked down the corridors which of course did seam a little smaller but also a little more cramped in terms of the ceilings being so much lower than I had ever remembered. I’m 5 ft 8” now so I think I was a fairly tall teenager but I don’t remember a feeling of being squashed under the weight of corridor ceilings, not explicitly anyway. But I did have that feeling now. We walked past the head teacher’s and deputy head teacher’s offices, now there are 6 members of staff who hold management positions, senior principal, senior deputy principal, deputy principal and three assistant principals, quite the list!
I saw one of those offices where I was disciplined for hitting the girl I did not call a slag, I think my palms were beginning to sweat. We continued through the library and off out to each area leading off from that central room. The library seamed much smaller, gone were the small quiet study booths, one of which I remember being chastised for not being as good as by brother. The security of being in the library during lunch time was a little heaven to me but that place had gone. The small internal room where I stamped out children’s books was no longer as a librarian sat at a table and I guess books are now scanned out and back in again. I never did take any books out myself as I was never a reader something that has not changed.
We then went down each of the areas, English, maths and science, history, geography etc, etc. I saw myself in the English class getting hit, and getting told off for my spelling and presentation, the room where my good work was not believed and the corridor where they played the April fool’s joke on us. I also saw the maths room, that dreadful maths room where that dreadful maths teacher made that dreadful, dreadful comment at the bottom of my page. Too many dreadfuls, I don’t think so.
The art and design areas came next, woodwork, textiles and home economics all the same. Then onto the drama studio, hall where we did dance and then down the steps to music. There were practise rooms on the left and the music room on the right. I was encouraged that this department was still there at least. At the end of this shorter corridor was the sports hall where a little happiness was sometimes felt although I remember attempting to do my gymnastics floor display and being told it wasn’t long enough. I quickly added some teddy bear tumbles or teddy bear rolls, something like that, it was pretty bad. Once outside however it was a slightly more pleasurable experience as memories that were a little more positive came back, the tennis courts, hocky pitches and the huge field. The field was an escape from the hemmed in classrooms with four walls and no way out. I could breath outside, run and compete. It was very important to me to win, or at least not let myself down completely. I so wanted to give a good account of myself in front of the others and to be at least slightly good at something during the long, depressing and oh so difficult days. Back inside the building and out again to go to my car. Well that was quite a visit, I don’t think I was completely expecting it to be so negative. Having had a much more enjoyable visit to my primary schools I maybe thought this one wouldn’t be so bad. I am glad I did the visits in the order I did as I may have been put off actually going to the primary school and would have missed out.
I feel I would definitely need to invest in a fair few thick black glossy frames for these memories. Memories that that been stirred and brought back to life more explicitly than they were previously in my mind. Although having said all that, I’m glad I went as it has helped me to consolidate my thoughts and memories and realise that yes, they were sadly as bad as I remembered and thought. What is so sad though is the fact they are still so powerful and still have the negative and alarming impact on me 50 years later!
Time heals
Does time really heal? I’m really not so sure
Does time really help to sort memories false or true?
Some memories cannot be erased
however hard we try to
rub them out, they remain.
Some memories are etched, scratched and scarred
into our hearts, our minds.
How very sad it is
that memories can still hurt so much,
powerful, jarring thoughts
that will never leave my soul.
Why go then? why go and stir it all up again?
I guess it’s helped for the writing of this book,
it’s helped for me to go and have that second look,
to check on those memories that I once made
but rose tinted glasses I will never ever wear
as my school days
are best viewed wearing shades.
So that’s it, that’s my dyslexic education. My years in school were not happy, they were filled with sadness and failure. But looking back, looking deeper into the whys and the how’s has I feel been helpful, if painful at times.
I have also learned a great deal from the children I have taught over the years and this learning continues with those I teach now. It is real privilege to be able to support children and their families. I feel when I do retire, I will do so with happiness and satisfaction that my dyslexic education eventually became of use.
Time
It has taken time, a lifetime really
of feeling so terribly hurt, so ashamed, so stupid,
so underachieved just made to feel like dirt.
I now feel I have got there, I feel free to express
what I know to be who I am.
I can share experience,
what I have learned as I now help and support.
So please, please whatever you do, spare some time, some thought for those with dyslexia
who need time to be able
to achieve when being taught.
