The Kingscote Term

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I've just posted a new AF fanfic on my LJ.  It's set during the events of the Cricket Term, from Miss Hellier's point of view.

The Kingscote Term

Enjoy!

Comments

[richenda.livejournal.com]

My own memory/experience includes a graduate who was appointed to a school, and proved to be useless in the classroom. She was moved to the boarding house to spend the rest of the term as an assistant matron, and spent many happy years in that sort of post.
I don't know if this has already been remarked on in Trennels - I can't remember it being - but is there any reason given by Forest for her doing teaching practice at Kingscote? Surely schools like Kingscote, at least until the 1960s, tended to employ graduates without teaching qualifications? So why would a training college send a pupil there for teaching practice?

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Schools like Kingscote still employed non-graduates later than the 1960's - a contemporary of my sister (graduated 1987) went straight into teaching.

I think Kingscote may have been a fairly academically inclined school, certainly by the 1960's - I don't think they'd have much truck with the 4 year Education degrees, preferring their staff to get a degree in a school subject, but they'd probably have been happy to employ teachers with the post-graduate qualification. If only to impress prospective parents.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I'd bet there were some B.Ed's on the staff. Miss Redmond, for one.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>I'd bet there were some B.Ed's on the staff. Miss Redmond, for one

Not in 1948. when her character is first developed!

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Indeed they did - and graduates who were already teaching weren't subject to the requirement to do teacher training.
I agree that Kingscote would have preferred PGCE to B.Ed.
But I suggests that this tends to reinforce my point that 1974 seems to me a bit early for a college to think of a school like Kingscote as a suitable placement.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Why not? Training colleges sent (and still send) students to all kinds of schools. Though when I did my PGCE at Oxford, they were very left-wing and refused to send anyone to anything other than a comprehensive. But that was rare. I certainly have friends who did their teaching practice in independent day and boarding schools. It's free labour for the school and a different kind of experience for the student.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>>>Why not? Training colleges sent (and still send) students to all kinds of schools

Certainly, they do - but, before - um - about 1963/1966 (whenever it became compulsory for graduate teachers to hold a teaching qualification) it would be very unlikely, because there was deep suspicion on both sides, sometimes open and public dispute.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I certainly have friends who did their teaching practice in independent day and boarding schools. It's free labour for the school and a different kind of experience for the student.

I'm not in the least arguing with this.
The reason that we are at cross-purposes is that Miss Hellier's experience was written in 1974. I'm suggesting that, at that date, the colleges were still wary of schools that employed unqualified teachers.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I understand that perfectly but I am saying (a) I think you're wrong and (b) AF thought you were wrong.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Well, I am wrong quite often! On the other hand, as far as I know, AF didn't work in boarding schools in the 1960s/1970s, so I think that she would probably have taken seriously a suggestion made by someone who did.OOps, perhaps I'm wrong about that, and she did?
When I first read the book, I supposed that she was drawing from her own school experience - as she did with some of the characters. Someone who knew AF told me that Miss Cromwell was Real Life in Hampstead.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Hum - apologies - I see that in switching back and forth I didn't get round to saying that I enjoyed the work!
Another hum - I wrote
>On the other hand, as far as I know, AF didn't work in boarding schools in the 1960s/1970s, so I think that she would probably have taken seriously a suggestion made by someone who did.
I meant "who did work in boarding schools at that time"
Similarly, when I wrote "perhaps she did" I again meant "work in boarding schools at that time".
Phew! You can tell that I haven't your gift with the written word.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I'd agree (with you). I have a novel called "First Year Up" written in the 1950s about girls at a women's teacher training college. It's a Significant Plot Point that one of the girls is sent to the local boys' Prep, wch would most definitely have been employing unqualified teachers, for teaching practice when the school is in need of cover, and it's implied it is quite a normal thing.

Also Yes to Miss Redmond at Phys Ed college - thinking of all those Chalet Girls who went to be games mistresses (and didn't Lois Sanger?).

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>>>sent to the local boys' Prep, wch would most definitely have been employing unqualified teachers

Yes indeed. The first time that I met a Montessori student was at a boys' prep school, doing "prac", in around 1960. A Lower Second (I think - about eightish anyway) wrote "I love prack students" on his (own) arm.
Kingscote isn't a preparatory school for boys, amd my first premise was "schools like Kingscote". (The reason that I then spoke of boarding schools" was that direct grant grammar schools, which employed graduates without teaching qualification, were certainly used for teaching practice in the 1950s.)

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Certainly - College of Physical Education - but not B.Ed! Didn't exist until 1966/1967!

[ivohenry.livejournal.com]

After the Robbins Report in 1963 Teachers' Training Colleges were re-formed as Colleges of Education, and the first B.Eds graduated in 1968

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Many thanks - that fits! At Canterbury the first intake that was being considered for it was the 1967 intake.
So a character created in 1948 couldn't have had one - Miss Redmond would have a Cert Phys.Ed or whatever it was called.

[(Anonymous)]

Hee hee, I always enjoy reading stories from the teachers' point of view and this was a good idea - I imagine those terribly VIVID girls really would be terrifying. Good stuff!

Promethea

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

Coming late to this but, wonderful story. I love fanfic that takes on the POV of some completely unlikely character and gives them a full history and personality. Of course, AF tends to give pretty clear personalities to even minor characters, but I never thought of "the Hellibonk" (isn't that what the girls call her behind her back) as a complex individual. Thanks!!