Published on 12, July, 2020
Just curious about people who slipped through the net, so to speak. How did you cope with school? I developed quite good ways of hiding how much i struggled. It helped that i was in most of the bottom sets, as no one really cared back then. I was in the top set for biology, i excelled in that area. Nothing else part from sport. I hated going in every day, i was like a zombie....i literally cant remember my last year in school. Ive blanked it out completely.
My school history is a very complicated mess.
First of all my parents were refugees with multiple mental health problems and they never learnt adequate English. They had no idea how to register me with a school, so they pretended the problem (me) didn't exist.
I started school when neighbours became concerned why I was playing in a garden rather than being in school. So I started a couple of months late.
My first school was a local sink school called Cowper street, it was awful, a mix of Victorian red brick buildings and temporary wooden huts. My knowledge of spoken English was negligible and I made no friends, I was subject to corporal punishment daily or even twice a day. My attendance was around 50%.
When I was eight I was sent to my first special school, this was a school for children with language difficulties, the staff had no idea what to do with me and the other children just shunned me. I was there for maybe two months.
My third school was called Lovell road. Another Victorian sink school with no grass, just black asphalt and outside toilet blocks. At least the violence from the staff had stopped. Only made two or three so called friends.
Fourth school, Scott hall middle school. I couldn't cope with a new school, new faces, PE etc. After two months I just refused to attend.
Fifth school, I don't know the name. It was a special school located in the grounds of St James hospital, the children were all emotional wrecks like me, the school catered for children all the way from 5 year olds to fifteen. The school had zero academic content, many children arrived and left by hospital transport, the headmaster was a psychiatrist and half the staff were nurses in uniform. It was almost like a mental ward. I stayed a year.
Six school, back to Scott hall middle school,. I coped a bit better.
Sixth school, Roundhay high school, a former grammar school. I hated it,. Many children in my class were middle class snobs and most knew each other from previous schools,. I felt very very alone. I only managed six O levels ( 5 Bs and a C) and two A levels ( A and B).