#grammar school

[bettie-may-page]

Early Bettie #39 Much as I love our Bettie in bikinis, lingerie, sexy poses and more I like to show Bettie Page was a person. So intersperse amongst all those photographs you’ll find a more complete timeline of Betties life on my page, enjoy.

Photograph Repaired: Craig Stewart

[its-a-date]

'By the end of the sixteenth century,' he told me, 'anybody who went to a grammar school or university would have been instructed in how to take and keep notes. But common-placing is never an end in itself. It's always about producing something afterwards, or preparing you for public life.'

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[omg-hellgirl]

To grammar school boys, as to their parents, thick lips suggested just one thing and there was just one term for it, repugnant now but back then quite normal. Decades later, in a rare moment of self-revelation, [Mick] would admit that during his time at Dartford Grammer “the N-word,” for “nigger,” was thrown at him more than once.

Philip Norman, Mick Jagger.

[manchestergalore]

This detailed 1888 plan of Manchester

[alisamaefawn394]

So something people don’t really know about me is that I went to a terribly run, snooty arse, awful private school, filled with rich pricks. This school is literally the worst place on Earth. Here’s just one reason.

Every year, for gcses and a levels, they enter students in two groups under two different entry numbers. They put the lower achieving kids (at a grammar school!!) into a Different group, meaning that if/when they get bad results, those bad results don’t count as the schools total and don’t reflect badly on the schools name and prestige.

HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT?! But wait- it gets worse.

I was always the top of my classes without even trying, especially in English and music, where I got consistently the best results in my whole year. Sciences I didn’t really try but still got pretty good grades, and maths, I was top set, but I had awful teaching so my grades went down. THEN I GOT ILL. When I got ill, the school decided to withdraw me from all of my exams, saying I’d fail and it’d make me upset. I knew I wouldn’t fail, and I didn’t. I got some of the best results and highest grades in my whole year group, 3 A*s, 2 A’s, 3 B’s and I hadn’t been at school for 6 months, and I never paid attention before that anyway. However, when the results came out, they were surprisingly low for my school. I thought this was strange due to my grades bringing them up (even after being encouraged to drop out), but I knew that half my year failed most things, so I didn’t think too much of it. Then I found out about the split centres. If they’d just counted everyone together, they’d have been top of the scores for the whole county.

And that is just one of the thousands of reasons why private schools are corrupt xoxox

[joolshallie]

This hugely provocative read challenges the current English public school system (public = private in the UK - aka you pay for them). It outlines the origins of public schools, institutions established as charities to provide education to the poorest and least able to access education. Verkaik then covers how this historical origin has developed into the public school system now present - where annual fees can be significantly more than the average annual income, where bursaries are given to a tiny proportion of students, and often to middle-class families rather than those who really need them.


There are some shocking facts about the number of positions of power held by people who have been privately educated in fee-paying schools. Boris Johnson is the 20th UK prime minister to be educated at Eton. LSE research found alumni of a group of just 9 public schools were 94x more likely to reach positions of power in British society. 
He talks about the disproportionate amount of public-school places secured at Oxbridge. Just 7% of the population attend public schools, but ~40-50% of students at Oxbridge were privately educated.


Although Verkaik’s argument becomes slightly repetitive, it is an important one. There is a huge barrier to state-educated students getting places at Oxbridge and into positions of power in the UK. Those attending public schools are attaining an advantage which is generally perpetuated down generations, and one that is primarily accessible only to families with large expendable income. There is a call for change to the system to establish a level playing field.

[plangentia]

no one:

absolutely no one:

my school: house university challenge!!!

[mediocreleftist]

Learning about quantum physics is like swallowing the red pill and being forcefully dragged out of the comfort of the Matrix of high school physics. Everything I've learned so far is incorrect, the world is completely different than I thought and I just feel like vomiting and crying out of pure shock.