School reports - how were yours?

Yes damaged for life in many cases. I wished that I had gone to school a decade earlier and been able to attend one of the old grammar schools. I think in that type of environment there would have been less bullying and general lesson disruption.

I used to read books where the characters in them attended boarding schools and I thought they sounded wonderful. Certainly compared to the rough comprehensives I was forced to attend.

Interestingly one of my schools was only a few miles from yours, that you mentioned earlier in this discussion. Do you remember The Avenue? One of the teachers there did notice that I was on my own all the time and he tried to encourage me to join the chess group. However I left that school shortly afterwards and never got the chance.

The next comprehensive I attended was even worse. I do not recall any teachers there ever trying to help.

And wow, lovely community!  Thank you so much for all of your contributions to this thread. 

I was fascinated and troubled when I watched Sam's video and I'm now feeling even moreso!  This all reads like interview extracts from a piece of qualitative research on the failings of the education system, with strong "emergent themes" around lack of acceptance and accommodation, erosion of trust, bullying and social exclusion and a system which is centred on perceived societal/cultural needs and norms with barely anything that's person-centred.  Controlling, coersive and liable to lead to issues with anxiety and/or depression!

Thriving wasn't possible for me but I'm actually feeling thankful for surviving!  

Very true. I think it would have been far better for me if I'd been educated at home. School was very damaging for autistic children back then (and maybe still is). 

I went from being happy, positive, keen to learn and conscientious to being so anxious and traumatised that I was no longer able to attend. Of course nobody asked why I wasn't able to speak in class or why I stopped attending lessons.

Support was non existent in those days. It was very much a blame culture and survival of the fittest, both physically and mentally.

Yes, teaching can actually be quite dangerous and there are a few teachers in my family who've experienced this kind of thing.  And putting victims and perpetrators together just seems ludicrous!  I wonder who this system is actually working for! 

Mind you, my sister and I were both well on the way to becoming school phobics.  In fact my sister barely attended for her A levels and we had to fight for her to still be able to sit the English exam because they reckoned her non attendance meant she wasn't interested and wasn't learning.  She was actually learning at home and outshone everyone else in the final exams!

Autonomistic said:

However nobody asked why or offered any support 

And that was something that should have been asked at the very start!  Increasingly, when I look back at our school days, I'm seeing so many ways that, far from educating us, damaged us so that it became very difficult to recover and make appropriate choices in life.  :( 

Indeed.  We were so often met with those well-worn statements, as if simply bringing it to our attention would resolve matters.  We, I suppose it did from their point of view as it pushed systemic failures onto our individual shoulders and then, when we failed to learn from that, well we only had ourselves to blame for not simply being more confident, speaking up or behaving like everybody else!

I only eventually started to feel more confident after doing a Level 1 Interpersonal skills course in my mid 40s - the introduction to lots of counselling courses - and the emphasis was on experiential learning, within small groups and a very safe and accepting environment.  I could feel the atmosphere shift as I drove back from my day in the finance office and walked into the counselling room.  But even then I felt really angry because I couldn't help wondering why the rest of my education hadn't been like that!   Also the basic level of knowledge and experience imparted was exactly what I'd needed when I was about 13, not 45! 

NB that's not to say that I think autistic people specifically should be taught social skills - the opposite in fact, because it should be on the syllabus for everyone.  Then maybe there'd be more understanding between neurotypes.  Certainly I was in a very mixed group and at the time didn't know that I was autistic, but there was a lot of emphasis on group dynamics, a safe learning environment and accepting difference.  Much of it was based on the person-centred approach of Carl Rogers, who was writing in the 50s and 60s so all of this was certainly known when I went to school!    

But anyway, I just feel really sad that the combination of intelligence and sensitivity often isn't accommodated and doesn't sit well in many workplace environments either.  It feels as though a whole neurotype is being systematically undervalued and, whlst not overtly excluded, discouraged again and again so that it becomes very hard to "succeed".  "Success" is, after all, often only gained on their terms.  :( 

If something like GCSE cross-stitch had been an option, or perhaps GCSE cake decorating / sugarcraft (as opposed to Home Economics), I am quite sure I would have found my school days far more enjoyable.

My Mum was actually a home tutor, I did used to think that would have been nice, but it was only extreme cases that got that, like school phobics who just wouldn't attend at all. She also worked in a special school which had 3 types of pupil, the school phobics, pregnant schoolgirls, and violent bullies who had been excluded! I never understood how anyone could thing that was a good mix. Put the bullies and the most bullied together?! It was quite dangerous, she got threatened with a knife once and the stress made her sick.

I was also at secondary in the 80s but I don't recall strikes causing so much chaos, maybe my school handled it better, or maybe a different part of the 80s? It sounds horrendous, as if school wasn't bad enough!

Yes, other kids were the worst. I did have some good friends which helped immensely. We had places to go at lunch, it was the breaks between lessons, but since my school was large and spread out, often half that time would be used going between classrooms. Still had to dodge the bullies. But I did fight back so it was more teasing than physical for me, which was bad enough.

Yes, to me it feels as though they grind us down and then blame us for feeling anxious or low.  And yes I know some of it isn't deliberate and much of it is systemic as much as individual but in both my own and my sons' experience, there was no thought given to why we were feeling that way or to finding ways of supporting us.  Overall I think we'd have been much better off being educated at home and "far from the madding crowd". 

Jenny Butterfly

Exactly, the whole system is ridiculous. I would have loved to have skipped most subjects and just focused on creative activities.

The ‘morose’ thing is shocking, isn’t it. My end-of-year report stated that I’m ‘clearly troubled’, yet they did nothing to find out the reasons.

I’ve experienced that as well. From early childhood, I was constantly told to ‘smile’ everywhere I went. Used to annoy me big time. As I got older I was just called miserable and grumpy by everyone. Doesn’t help our mental health!

@Helen 

Sorry to hear you had the same experience in secondary school. Primary school definitely allowed for more creative freedom. They sucked it out of me in secondary school. Writing’s great therapy isn’t it!

Ah yes in secondary school there was no option to stay inside. I used to try hiding in various places, but I always seemed to be found by a teacher or a prefect and sent outside to fend for myself in the wild  It wasn't the rain that bothered me it was the other kids.

Being conscientious certainly isn't a prerequisite to be autistic, but those children were much more likely to be overlooked.

I attended secondary school in the 1980s. Due to the widespread and long running strike action even the teachers didn't bother turning up a lot of the time. I doubt I would get away with such a poor attendance record nowadays.

It really added to my anxiety, not knowing who the teacher was going to be in advance of lessons. Often the supply teachers couldn't control the class at all and the resultant noise was unbearable sensory overload for me. Different ability classes were often combined, as there weren't enough supply teachers available.  Sometimes no teacher turned up at all, not even a supply teacher. You can imagine how the other kids ran riot.

I'm very upset at the mod removing my school report.  

So I am reposting it with the offending details, teachers name, headmaster and school name blurred out.

Interesting thread.

Thank you.

The 3 things I remember:

'Although not physically well co-ordinated Debra enjoys PE' (Physical Education).

'If Debra put a quarter of the energy she puts into talking into her school work she would do very well'.

'Debra only spends time with one or two friends of her choosing'.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

To be honest, I think the schools wouldn't have got very far at understanding or helping me given how unknown high-functioning autism was (it wasn't even recognised until I was in secondary school) and how resistant I was to any suggestion that I wasn't living my life in a healthy way. I was very resistant to anyone "interfering" (as I would have seen it). I did go to counselling at one point, but got selective mutism (which I've never had in other contexts) and just sat there in silence for four sessions until I gave up, even though the counsellor wanted me to continue and said I needed help.

I would have liked some guidance as to *how* to contribute in class, or how to communicate more generally beyond "well you've just got to do it... you've a tongue in your head, haven't you?"

I spent my whole childhood being told I was (a) very intelligent and (b) too quiet. I couldn't figure out how on earth to fix (b) so I leaned into (a) hoping that would somehow compensate. Got the best A level results in the history of my grammar school. Struggled through uni but still did well on final exams. Crashed and burned after graduation due to not being able to have successful interactions with others and have achieved very little since.

Autonomistic said:

Every day I used to ask my teacher for extra maths questions that I could do during break times and at home. I would much rather do maths questions than be forced to go out into the playground with the other children.

One of my primary school teachers had a rule of "whoever is slowest putting their stuff away at the end of the day gets extra maths homework." I would deliberately go as slowly as possible in the hope it would be me.

My reports, on the whole were good. I was as compliant as I could possibly be, and I was quite bright academically. I hated and loathed school, however. My reports tended to say I was quiet, I had bouts of selective mutism in infants school, so I was very quiet then! Comments often said that I volunteered very little in class, and would only speak if asked a direct question.

Oh do pick up your art supplies and play with them! Make that child that was once you happy!

I do play with yarn sometimes, or sewing and a little bit of calligraphy now and then. My worsening eyesight is not helping though.

As for the huge eccentric sculptures, fun as they were I am sure my husband would be horrified! Where would they go in the house? It is messy enough already! Maybe I should try and claim the mess is an art installation... like the unmade bed?