Gordon Jeyes, Stirling’s boss of children’s services, underlined the importance of language as he recalled his early teaching days at Smithycroft Secondary in Glasgow.
Jeyes told his audience, appropriately of learning support teachers, of the “slashers” in his non-certificate classes. Although one of his pupils was Arthur Thompson Jnr, son of the notorious Glasgow godfather, the explanation for the nomenclature had nothing to do with the excesses of the city’s underworld.
It appears that timetablers in those days put an “O” in the box for O grade classes and an ”” with a slash through it for the uncertificated groups. Happy days.
