Originally Posted by Lorna at Vicenza

Your examining board memory is better than mine Jonwel.

I've just checked my certificates ............. brought them here with me thinking I might need them. I never have.

I have O Levels from the Joint Matriculation Board.

I have a CSE certificate from Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Examination Board in textile and design. This is a CSE because this subject wasn't taught or tested at O Level.

I've also got a GCSE in sociology from Southern Examining Group - signed on behalf of The Oxford School Examination Board.

**** knows where my A levels are.

I have other certificates from clubs and things and activities mostly done with school and all FREE:

B.A.G.A gymnastics certificates levels 4,3,2 and 1. I remeber we were given cloth badges along with the paper certifcates and we could sew these onto our leotards.

Swimming certificates from the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale Education Department. These date back to the last year at Junior school and the first years at Grammar School. Who remembers doing a width, then a length, then diving into the deep end to get the brick/disk and then swimming in your pyjamas making them into floats?


Calderdale Schools Gymnastics Association ......... Inter - School Competiton
Girls team. Winners in 1982.

A Certificate of Merit awarded to Lorna ***** who has submitted art work of exceptional quality to the public exhibition on the dangers of fire held in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, during February and March 1981 .... so that was Junior school too.

Help The Aged - for taking part in Youth Campaign sponsered events to raise funds. Oh yes ---- we all did so many sponsered things and bothered family and neighbours for pennies not to mention school sponsered things too and cake stalls and bring and buy jumble sales to get money for smart new things for school. At Grammar school we had a non-uniform day once a year. It cost 10p and you could wear what you liked with crazy hair and even make-up and mad jewellery or fancy dress and some of our teachers joined in too and paid their 10p. Some of ours turned up in versions of our school uniform. That was always a laugh.

I even found my Brownie certificate from 1978 to say I was officially now a Brownie. God knows where the Girl Guide one is but I do still have my badges.

There are other bits and bobs too.

Oh what a little trip down memory lane. I haven't opened this box for decades. Might keep it out to show the kids. Some of the badges are cool !

Originally Posted by ononno

Enjoyed reading that Lorna, thanks. Do show these things to your kids. My memory lane goes a long long way, and has too many twists and turns in it.
bye bye dicette l'inglese

Originally Posted by Patty

Just seen on news that Renzi's big announcement for the school reforms - due today and which he said was going to amaze us all....... has been postponed.
Well what a surprise

Originally Posted by sunnysider

Perhaps the dog ate his oh so carefully written proposals.

Originally Posted by Lorna at Vicenza

You did O' Levels or GCSE at 16 Patty so you dropped your most hated subjects before that.

Primula ..... very basically this is how it works ....... we have a national curriculum and all schools teach the same foundations at high school for the first 3 years. This means that if you move from York to Bristol or from Dorset to Lancashire you don't miss anything and don't have to start new things.

After those first three years you get to drop some subjects and make choices towards your future. Four basic subjects are obligatory ...... maths, English, one science and one foreign language. You get to choose the other four and you study these 8 subjects for the next two years and have national exams in those subjects. You can take another subject or more if you're clever and if your teachers think you can handel the workload. There was also plenty of sport - all kinds of sport.

School timetables and classrooms are very organised. I was friends with Catherine and Sarah. We were together in maths and English but when I was doing biology Catherine was doing German and Sarah was doing physics for example, so we were in different classrooms then. We get tests but the goal is to study towards your exams and we all grow up knowing that if you screw up and do bloody nothing, you'll get shit exam results. Shit exam results means that you won't carry on into the sixth form where you begin to study another set of your chosen, more specialised subjects towards university. Shit exam results mean shit jobs and no further education.

We are taught to become little adults and we are not just taught lessons but how to reason, debate, study, rationalise, carry out experiments (method - conclusion - results), write comprehensive essays and lots of other stuff. We do our first lot of "big important " exams at age 16 in May. Every child in England does the same maths test on the same day at the same time. All the exam papers are sent away to an independant examining board. Your own teachers do not ever mark your exams. You have to wait until August for the exam results. If you get a low score in an exam, there is the possibilty to do another one in August and September. These are called retakes. If for whatever reason you only got a C in maths but you really wanted and needed a B or an A to carry on and you were just off balance or nervous or stupid on exam day - you can do another maths exam, a retake and hopefully get that better grade.

When I was at school the options were there but very basic to what is available now. I could only choose French or German. Now many schools offer a much wider choice of languages and other subjects. Schools also have lots of extra-curricular clubs and activities and we have sports teams. There are also mini-positions of responsibilty in most schools which you volunteer for or are elected for ....... library prefect, dinner hall prefect, study group helper for the first year kids etc.

Some teachers are quite willing to give a student an extra ten minutes of their free time. I once asked my maths teacher the same question 3 times. After 3 explanations I said "sorry Mr Bond, I still don't get it." The rest of the class did so he said "come and see me when the lunch bell rings Lorna." I did and he carefully explained everything again and did examples with me until he was sure I got it and that I could then go on and do my homework by myself. Teachers call us by our christian names and not shout out our surnames like we are in the military.

Every child has a locker. When the bell rings at the end of one lesson you have five minutes to go to your locker, put your maths books away and collect your chemistry books and walk to the chemistry lab before the next bell rings to start the next lesson. Teachers have a homework timetable too and they have to stick to it. In the first years we never had more than 2 subjects of homework per evening and the homework was supposed to be an even 20 minutes. My maths teacher couldn't give my class homework on a Thursday because it wasn't our day for maths homework. They can suggest that you study fractions or angles a bit more at home but not give homework that night.

We were never scared to say "Mr Bond, I did my homework but got stuck on question 6 and couldn't carry on." The teachers knew us and knew which kids were genuine, didn't bother or made excuses. We were never scared to ask "why?" or say "why is a handbag so flipping important in The Importance of Being Earnest.?" If the teacher was ready to discuss it that day, she would. If not she'd say something like, "we'll get to that on Friday Lorna. Now let's get back to discussing the personality of Miss Cecily"

Originally Posted by sunnysider

very interesting post Lorna.

Sounds like you liked your school and thought it good.

Also a curious post though - do I take it that you think some of the qualities of schooling and teachers you so fondly remember are often lacking in Italy or have I read too much into it? (Eng lit background so I do sometimes read too much into things)

Somewhere else you refer to Calderdale.

ah - a fellow northerner - must account for your unique approach to modding

(which I like)

all the best

Originally Posted by Lorna at Vicenza

Pray tell. What is my unique approach to modding? I hope you're not suggesting that I favour Northerners?

Originally Posted by sunnysider

Answers

1: Maybe best to PM you on that one.

2: No of course I don't think you favour anyone.

>>Do I think certain things are lacking in Italy, in schools? You bet your boots I do. I know so.

Would you mind if, when I have a bit more time over the w/end, and at the risk of being boring if I ask you on the public forum for more views on some of the specific points you raised - ie: positives of your schooling which you sort of implied might be lacking from your experience of Italian schools?

Did I have the impression that you went to a Grammar school though (as I did) - if so it possible that comparisons might be unfair?

Originally Posted by Patty

Well Mark - I hope he hurries up and revolutionises my son's school

We were supposed to have the results today of who passed and who didn't after the exams last week. People actually went to the school between 10 & 12 today to see the list. No list appeared - then the school apologised and said it will be postponed until tomorrow afternoon. THEN some were told that we can go on the school website to a special reserved platform for parents and get the results there. ...........problem is the new passwords they gave us all don't work

And this is all in an ITIS INFORMATICA - god help us

Originally Posted by Lorna at Vicenza

That's so annoying Patty.

I helped quite a few kids out for their debito exams and they've all had the results already.


I'm updating my CV guys. If you had to give a title to O levels and A levels what would you put in Italian? I don't mean something like "easmi Inglese a livello ordinario e avanzato. I mean something like :

A Levels - equivalente a ......................... what?

Originally Posted by MarkRD

Esami di scuola superiore, a livello ordinario eseguiti a XX anni e a livello avanzato eseguiti a XX anni.