A Up from me - a newbie


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#8

 

Shaz58, you mention being in form 1L. Just trying to think who your form teacher might have been. Mrs Lowe, geography? Miss Long, Biology? Mr Langley, Latin?

 

As to form 5C, possibly Mrs Christie, French? She was my first form mistress in 1C. Friends at other schools thought being in 1C meant you were in the bottom stream. Other schools didn't seem to follow the system of adopting the form teacher's surname initial.

 

Among my other form teachers were Mr Wells, geography. Mrs Schofield, Biology and Miss Burnham, English. There was no need to smoke if one was within 10 feet of Miss Burnham. Simply inhaling provided the equivalent of 20 Woodbines...I should imagine, never having smoked. She was a good teacher but lived in a nicotine bubble which meant that exercise books stank of it for days after she'd marked them!

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Just fished out my school report book. Yes, I still have it and it is 47 years ago to this very date that I spent my first day at the Manning.   I see from the reports in the book that I had

I feel inspired to add my own tribute to my old alma mater. The tune is well known, please feel free to join in. Apologies to any left wing members for misappropriation of their anthem.   TH

Welcome, Shaz.  Pleased you took the plunge and dived into Nottstalgia!  I'm much older than you but I'm still looking forward to reading about your memories.  Keep them coming....

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On 4 September 2016 at 8:55 PM, Jill Sparrow said:

#8

 

Shaz58, you mention being in form 1L. Just trying to think who your form teacher might have been. Mrs Lowe, geography? Miss Long, Biology? Mr Langley, Latin?

 

As to form 5C, possibly Mrs Christie, French? She was my first form mistress in 1C. Friends at other schools thought being in 1C meant you were in the bottom stream. Other schools didn't seem to follow the system of adopting the form teacher's surname initial.

 

Among my other form teachers were Mr Wells, geography. Mrs Schofield, Biology and Miss Burnham, English. There was no need to smoke if one was within 10 feet of Miss Burnham. Simply inhaling provided the equivalent of 20 Woodbines...I should imagine, never having smoked. She was a good teacher but lived in a nicotine bubble which meant that exercise books stank of it for days after she'd marked them!

Now then Jill you've got the old memory cells working ! It must have been Mrs Lowe and definitely was Mrs Christie - 'Bon' ? ! As for the others :

Langley, Bianchina (English), Edgeley (science), the two games teachers (!), Davy - I will mull over the rest today as I can't bring any others to mind - I can visualise them but can't put names to them yet! 

 

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Well now, Shaz, let's see who else you might remember among our former den of tormentors.

 

Miss Alderson, Mr Abbey, Mrs Butters, Mrs Bibby, Miss Baines, Mrs Barnes, Mrs Clarke, Miss Colthorpe, Mr Diaz, Mrs Darroch, Miss Fewkes,  Miss Greig, Mrs Hobson, Mrs Hall, Mrs Hadwen, Mr Hammond, Miss Newlyn, Mrs Race, Miss Ramsden, Miss Rayne, Mrs Robbins, Mr Rundle, Dr Smarridge, Miss Steele, Mr Williams,Mrs Wheeler.

 

There were others but they didn't all teach me.What a crew. Worthy of Dickens every one of em!

 

I can still walk around the place in my head and see it in detail even though it was long since demolished. I note that the original site of the building has never been built over. The Djanogly Academy was built across the former tennis courts and hockey field! Result!! Took long enough but my fantasies eventually came to pass!

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I forgot Mrs Vernon, who taught RE! Short black hair, thin, very serious!

 

Mrs Barnes taught art in the spacious first floor room above the back entrance to the school, next to the sixth form common room.

 

Very eccentric was Mrs Barnes and one of her favourite subjects was cruelty to paint brushes. "Do you know how much these items cost, girls? How would do you like to be left standing on your head in a flask of water for days on end? The result would be that all your hair would fall out and you would then be bald! Which is precisely what happens to the paint brushes when you treat them in that way, girls, so please don't do it!"

 

Mrs Barnes also had a habit of referring to anything she didn't like as an "amorphous mass". It was her catchphrase in a way and since she was somewhat fitting of that description herself, I thought it rather hypocritical!. She would also witter on at length about her son who, apparently, wore spectacles but encountered problems because his ears were not evenly placed on the sides of his head, poor boy. This meant the lenses were lopsided and caused some problems with his eyesight. Precisely why she thought us girls would be interested in any of this completely eludes me!

 

Her favourite subject, however, and one she frequently waxed evangelical about related to visits to the supermarket and her objection to being expected to carry her shopping in bags marked with the supermarket's logo. She argued that this was providing free advertising for them and should be banned by statute. If forced to use their bags, she meticulously turned them inside out first!

 

To avoid this, she was forever trying to persuade us to encourage our own parents to collect empty cardboard boxes in which to put their shopping and therefore avoid providing supermarkets with free advertising by carrying the bags around displaying names and logos, thereby supposedly providing something of a sandwich board service, free gratis and for nothing.

 

Since I couldn't draw a straight line, even with the aid of a ruler, Mrs Barnes didn't take much interest in me except on those occasions when I left a poor unfortunate paintbrush in the water jar for too long.

 

Since it wasn't a subject I wanted to study for O level, I had no further contact with Mrs Barnes after the third year and suspect that most, if not all, of the work I had produced in the art room probably ended up in the bin.

 

 

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Just fished out my school report book. Yes, I still have it and it is 47 years ago to this very date that I spent my first day at the Manning.

 

I see from the reports in the book that I had missed out a few teachers: Mrs Garner, Mrs Davies...both history teachers, allegedly, Miss Jarvis, who never taught me, and Miss Scott, maths first year only.

 

Looking at the reports, I was struck by the following exam results:

 

Summer 1970. English. Position in form- 1st. Comments: "Could do better."

 

Summer 1971. English. Position in Form- 1st. Comments: "Could try harder."

 

Summer 1972. English. Position in form - 1st. Comments: "Jill needs to make more effort."

 

I ask you! What did they want....blood?:blink:

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#35

 

The problem with The Manning, Stephen, is that nothing was ever good enough. They always wanted more. A bit of praise never goes amiss but there was very little of that in evidence. I can't speak for my fellow pupils but, eventually, I just switched off and got by on doing the bare minimum which, as my mother pointed out to the staff at the time, is and always has been my default mode! How well our mothers know us, eh? Mine campaigned against my going to the Manning because she knew I'd hate it and, as ever, she was right.

 

Its much in the news at the present about bringing back grammar schools and I have to say that I would be in favour of this idea. I would be even more in favour of bringing back single sex grammar schools but I would not be in favour of running them along the lines of Manning.

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I saw it much like you did, Jill.  Little praise or encouragement seemed to be routine at that time.  Just a little "well done!"  Once in a while would have helped when we knew we'd done our best.

 

i was like you.  I kept a low profile and tried to get by with minimum performance.  That meant I had quite a bit of catching up to do later.  Just enough to stay in the A stream without getting demoted.

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Loved my years at Padstow secondary Modern............Sport was my main thing,but also enjoyed Geography,History and English did ok there stayed in the A's all thru..............Hated Woodwork and Metalwork still do.....can't knock a nail in straight..........but IF I had taken my 11 plus,would love to have gone to Manning...............

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Just read about 20 pupils being sent home from Hartsdown Academy in Margate for wearing incorrect uniform and inappropriate shoes. Wonder if they've fallen foul of "knicker inspection" or had the height of the  inside of their heels measured? I suspect not...

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My word Jill your memory is impeccable! I do remember most of the teachers you mentioned and actually couldn't say that I liked any of them ! I do remember the music teacher just wanting to get the speech day songs spot on and spending ridiculous amounts of time in the hall practicing the Hallelujah Chorus ! My favourite subjects (and ones I got O levels in) were history,  geography and RE and also the 2 Englishes - I think because the teachers I had for those lessons were, at least, OK and didn't make you feel like an imbecile for asking questions. I was good at maths and enjoyed the subject up until I went to Manning and then when Wheeler and Davy got stuck in with their Victorian work house style of 'teaching' there was no hope for me - I hated it and hated them. It really does prove that children learn given the right environment and as so rightly has has been said- a bit of praise now and then. I can still see Davy with those ridiculous animal skin ankle boots and hear her accent even now. I was so scared of her I feigned illness when double maths was on the curriculum and she also then made sarcastic comments when I returned - horrendous woman. Games was another story all together ! If you weren't up to the Jessica Ennis-Hill standard then the two of them (Ramsden and Greig) just didn't have time for you. Which beggars the question; weren't they there to get the best out of you? To 'teach' you how to achieve?! Not the happiest of days I admit but I made some lovely friends and we had some laughs which means I can look back with some fondness but only for that reason as the whole experience of being there took all my confidence and knocked some abilities out of me which I haven't regained (I still hate participating in sport!!!) 

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#41 Jill....................I've always found that whatever activity i'm doing whether it be work or play.........to dress the part,you feel the part and stand a better chance of enjoying the part and succeeding in it............or is that just me ?

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Hi. Shaz58.  Somehow or other I missed saying welcome.  So I'll say it now,. welcome!   Hope you continue to share your memories on the site.  We're an easygoing bunch here.  Not perfect.  Who is?  Great to interact with though.  Keep posting.

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#42

 

She did look a bit like a demented leprechaun, old Davy, all in green except for her boots and Hush Puppies. She hated me!

 

The worst thing about speech day, I found, was the rehearsal at the Albert Hall in Nottingham in the morning when we had to sit on those wretched horsehair cushions for hours on end, wriggling about like bored worms before returning in the evening to give our performance of whatever we'd been learning to sing that year.

 

One year we had rehearsed Zadok the Priest, one of the Coronation anthems by Handel which Mr Abbey had arranged for an all female choir. He was playing the accompaniment on the organ himself and was, therefore, out of sight and earshot behind the blue curtain of the great Binns organ loft. Some wag had the idea of letting him play the 32 bar introduction and then failing to come in with the words 'Zadok the Priest'. So, we let him do it and when he was met with complete silence, he came raging out of that organ loft like a bull in a china shop and started throwing things around! It was so funny but we daren't laugh.

 

I must admit, I remember having four or five different history teachers at Manning and only one of them was any use. I studied history for O level and the teacher we had was fresh out of college. She had absolutely no idea how to teach the subject and simply read from her own notes so, of course, we all rapidly lost interest. When I was reading through my old report book for the fifth form, I saw that this woman had the effrontery to write that she thought I took no interest in the subject.  It makes me angry even now just to think that this woman almost killed off my interest in history through sheer poor and lazy teaching. Over the years, when I have been to speak to local history societies on subjects I have researched and given presentations, I have always been very much aware that I must engage their interest and not bore them to death as that particular teacher did with us when we were 14. Where was Michael Wood when we needed him, eh? He would have gone down a storm at the Manning!!

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1 hour ago, loppylugs said:

Hi. Shaz58.  Somehow or other I missed saying welcome.  So I'll say it now,. welcome!   Hope you continue to share your memories on the site.  We're an easygoing bunch here.  Not perfect.  Who is?  Great to interact with though.  Keep posting.

Thank you - once I've started I can't stop ! You do seem like a great bunch and I'm glad to have found the site.

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Mrs Glass. Been trying all day to remember her name. 30ish, short ginger hair, supercilious smirk, specialist subject Sarcasm. Taught French. Don't know who was worse, her or Mrs Christie (Bon!...not).

 

Double maths with Davy must have been hell but then she thought we were all going to hell because we were English and, still worse, Protestant!. Fortunately, I was moved into another group for maths and remember seeing Davy the day I left when she smiled at me, trying to be conciliatory, and said in her Irish brogue "You'll be glad to see the back of me!"

 

I think my reply was something along the lines of "Too bl99dy right!" Or words to that effect.

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You've all got me worried now. Did I welcome you Shaz58. If I didn't, here we go. Welcome to Nottstalgia Shaz as you can see we are a friendly bunch.I will look forward to reading  about your memories and sharing ours.

Yes I did welcome you Shaz on #15. A double Whammy from me Miduck :)

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