We are grateful to Iain White, the heidie at Govan High, for reminding us what multi-disciplinary working in the new curriculum should not be about.
Addressing a Selmas leadership seminar, he mused: “In the technical class, you make a box. You then take it to the art department where they get you to paint it. Then it’s up to the English department where you’ve to write a poem about it - and then stick it in the box.”
We hope Her Majesty’s inspectorate will be ever vigilant.
Nothing to sing about
Morris Simpson’s teacher chum Davie McManus certainly started something with his charming little ditty of disaffection, “C.F.F.E”, danced to the Village People’s 1979 anthem “Y.M.C.A.”
One teacher complains: “I find it somewhat distressing to note that some schools are trivialising the impact of the new curriculum to the extent that they would make it the subject of a song-and-dance routine.”
His school, he informed us, is taking an altogether more serious approach and has decided to set up an ad hoc working party to see what still has to be done.
A working title for the group has been hastily formulated, viz.: Fostering Understanding and Consolidating Knowledge In a New Generation, Being Aware of School Trends And Reviewing Developments.
The first meeting of the group was held last Thursday, April 1.
Maggie to the rescue
As a footnote to the demo held last month by the Educational Institute of Scotland, it appeared the members were a bit rusty. Despite the fetching slogan “No ifs, no buts, we don’t want your spending cuts”, the response was a bit underwhelming.
But some remembered the halcyon days of the Thatcher era when there was a march a minute, and suddenly there was a blast of “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie” - to which there was a loud and instant response of “Out! Out! Out!” Glory days indeed.
What Butler saw
Readers who follow the doings of celebrities will have noted that Hollywood star and Paisley’s very own Gerard Butler got himself into some hot water when he described one of his former classmates on an American chatshow as “someone you’d end up round the back of the bike sheds with”.
Showing great chutzpah, Julie Morrison, a fellow pupil at the now deceased St Mirin’s and St Margaret’s High in Paisley, dismissed his comments as “typical Gerry” and added: “I just want to say for the record that the bike sheds were at the front of the school.”
