"Alice
thought she had never seen such a croquet ground
in all her life. It was all ridges and furrows,
the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live
flamingoes and the soldiers had to double
themselves up and stand on their hands and feet
to make the arches. The chief difficulty Alice
found at first was managing her flamingo. She
succeeded in getting its body tucked away safely
enough under her arm with its legs hanging down
but, generally, just as she had got its neck
nicely straightened out and was going to give the
hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist
itself round and look up in her face with such a
puzzled expression she could not help bursting
out laughing, and when she had got its head down
again and was going to begin again it was
extremely provoking to find that the hedgehog had
unrolled itself and was in the act of crawling
away. Besides all this, there was a ridge or
furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the
hedgehog, and as the doubled up soldiers were
always getting up and walking to other parts of
the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion
that it was a very difficult game indeed. The
players all played at once without waiting for
turns, quarrelling the while and fighting for the
hedgehogs, and in a very short time the Queen was
in a furious passion and went stamping about and
shouting "Off with her head" about once
a minute. Alice began to feel very uneasy." Do you know a better
metaphor of what the world of change can be than
that passage from Alice in Wonderland? The world
in which most young people of today will be
living until well into the second half of the
twenty-first century? A world which will not
stand still; in which that which seems certain
turns out to be something different; a world in
which relationships between people are
unexpected, in which everything is changing. This
is the world of constant change where somehow,
like Alice, you and I - and more significantly
the children in our schools - must find a safe
route.
How will
Darren cope who, when asked by his teacher, 'What
comes at the end of a sentence? He replies, -An
Appeal,". . and what about Haley when asked
in the geography lesson, "In Huyton, does
the sun rise in the east or the west? said,
"Yer wot! I ain't lived there long enough
"
When you
look back upon your schooldays, did PGS, PGGS or
Prescot School provide you with the wherewithal,
the skills, the confidence to ensure your safe
passage through a world which was Changing then
and wil change much more quickly in the future?
C.W.H.
Richardson, when leaving PGS in 1937 referred to
'many changes in any school" and mentioned a
few "which I am proud to have had a share in
bringing about............................
- the
new school building
- the
new Coat of Arms
- the
Prize Fund
- the
sport
- the
school magazine
- school
societies
I find
myself warming to Mr Richardson
It's not
been all change. All these achievements continue
today - although the magazine is irregular. You,
my friends, must judge the state of the Old Boys'
Association - or its successor. You must not be
disheartened for I read in July 1934,
'Since
about eight hundred boys have passed through the
School during the past quarter of a century,
would it be asking too much that a few more
should join the Old Boys' Association, the
membership of which is small but its loyalty is
greet?"
School
societies come and go but I believe they flourish
as well today as ever they did. And what of
Spencer Briggs? What had he to say when he left
in 1963?
He is
struck by the changes . . . the present school
is, in size (600) and character more like our
rival schools and we are proud because we can
match those rivals in class and on the field. He
also speaks of "managing skilfully to avoid
the worst effects of inadequate
accommodation."
Would Mr
Briggs have been surprised that the School would
remain in "inadequate accommocdation"
for another thirty-four years until 1997 when the
last of our temporary buildings disappeared? To
many of you here, those inadequate buildings
meant so much and I try to understand why the
disastrous fires of 1978 rather than the
reorganisation of education in 1975 are viewed as
the end of PGS as many knew it. Is it that the
intangible memories of friendship, characters
loved, lessons loathed, school rules and school
societies became embodied within ths wooden
walls, the roof and corridors of the building: to
lose those was to lose part of oneself? Do the
former pupils of PGGS have the same affection for
the Knowsley Park Lane building ? So, no more
crawiing under the floors of classrooms -
although the gaps under the 'mobiles' at the Park
Wing of Prescot School did at times prove very
attractive. Incidentally, when the last of the St
Helens Road building was demolished, a worrying
amount of asbestos was discovered under the
floor!
Today, we
come to the end of a building programme financed
largely by the £2.6m raised by the sale of what
came to be known as the Lathum Wing and now we
have some of the finest facilities in the
North-west. Our new teaching block is called The
Gilbert Lathum Wing.
The School
has made great efforts to retain from P.G.G.S and
PGS those aspects of education which will equip
our children for the twenty-first century.
1544 Church Street
1759 High Street
1924 St Helens Road
1994 Knowsley Park Lane
As far as
the toss of the Lathum Wing in St Helens Road is
concerned, should not we agree with John Buchan ?
"We can pay our debt to the past by putting
the future in debt to ourselves." I have
enjoyed looking back through the archives and
noting the ever-present challenges.
What a
surprise it was to find that in October, 1926
there were equal numbers of staff and governors
and even more significantly that the all
important Pupil / Teacher Ratio (PTR) of about
17:1 was very similar to that in the school
today. What struggles there were during World War
2 to maintain staffing and the curriculum, but
the 1970s were, in their own way, very difficult.
Although a future with a constant threat of
insufficient teachers of quality looks
frightening, I can say with sincerity that the
appointment of very able teachers to Prescot
School for September 1997 was one of the most
encouraging and pleasing aspects of my last year
at the School I mentioned governors. How would
they cope today if they still had to rely on the
four old pence for a house rent and the shilling
(5p) for the hire of a cow ? I am sure that the
annual salary of £7 for the School Master
(Headteacher) would be envied. That was in 1544
and it remained unchanged for at least
forty-three years. The School Master was then
paid £42 in lieu of salary unpaid for six years
There is an echo today. In the 1990s, with Local
Management of Schools and the governors in charge
of their own budget, finances were so inadequate
that the complement of three Deputy Headteachers
was reduced to one. The PTR rose to a point well
above the national average and five committed
members of the non-teaching staff volunteered to
take unpaid leave in order to help the budget.
Collecting
for charities and good causes remains a feature
of the School but tell me, how did they raise
- £3022
in National Savings for War Weapons Week
(1941)?
- £3008
for Warship Week (1942)?
- £4008
for Wings For victory (1943)?
I should
have liked to have met Jack Smith, a master who
returned to PGS in 1946 after six years of war
service. He returned to a school in which the
roll had increased by one third to four hundred
and fifty-four. He wrote, "No Manual
Instruction, no baked jam roll, the same old
text-books. The boys are still the same - as
jolly as can be but. . . . ." and here I
stress a trend which has continued, "much
more knowing and less knowledgeable
(intelligent)more sophisticated and sceptical . .
. and less enthusiastic."
In 1937
only forty school dinners at 9d (4.5p) were
served each day to those who could not go home
and back in the lunch break. In 1959, three
hundred meals were prepared - the cook being a
llowed 10p (2 shillings) per meal. This is a neat
indicator of how the School had changed from a
'Prescot' school to one with a much wider
catchment area. Today, a free meal ticket is
valued at 95p - no baked jam roll. If we had not
fought to retain our wider appeal, there would no
longer be a secondary school in Prescot. As few
as thirty per cent of our pupils now come from
Prescot primary schools. Today we admit some two
hundred new pupils annually - a century ago this
figure was between ten and twenty. We always try
to provide visiting primary school children with
an attractive cafeteria meal; big sausages, chips
and gravy - a powerful means of recruitment!
And what of
the girls ? I do not intend to refer to the
Annual Prefects' Dance described in one
Prescotian magazine as 'A useful way by which the
masters could get to know the boys better. "
For years I have emphasised how important it is
to the Prescot School Foundation that it includes
both girls and boys and yet, in this talk, I have
hardly acknowledged the existence of PGGS. Let me
now make amends and say that I was appointed in
1977 to do many things, none of which was more
important than to strive to provide education in
which both boys and girls could flourish.
Most of the
early hiccups were caused either by my male
colleagues or by the boys themselves. The girls
coped marvellously although one of them bit a
boy's bottom and had to be discouraged from
repeating such an effective means of getting her
own way In March 1926, the Headmaster, C.W.
H.Richardson, emphasised the growing need for a
secondary school for girls in Prescot and then,
in 1953, R Spencer Briggs was not quite right
when he referred to 'An event which does not
directly concern the School but which is
nevertheless of historic importance, was the
cutting of the first sod of the Girls' Grammar
School
in Prescot. '
Tell me,
was the advertisement which appeared in The
Prescotian from 1926-1933 looking forward to a
co-educational school ? "Buy your boys suits
from W.T.Tyrer and Sons. Everything a boy
requires for hard wear including "strong
tweed knickers" !!
I must move
to a conclusion. Were I speaking at the Literary
and Debating Society (one of the School societies
which has gone out of fashion) I could present a
case that Prescot School since 1975 is more like
the PGS which existed from 1544 to the 1930s than
the PGS which most here present remember
- its
wide ability range
- lower
leaving age (but many still progress to
universities)
- a
school largely in charge of its own
finances
- a
strong and effective governing body
- a
school in the marketplace for pupils.
Even the
turmoil of the sixteenth century is compatible to
that of the last twenty years when the future of
a secondary school in Prescot was at risk. The
problem in the distant past was religious - more
recently it has been political. I am saddened
that Geoffrey Dixon cannot be present this
evening - a man whose influence for thp good is
incalculable. Geoffrey has written to me at
critical times during the last twenty years. How
appropriate it was that it was he who presented
the Duke of Edinburgh with a copy of the revised
history of the School when he visited us for the
450th Anniversary celebrations. I will cherish
Geoffrey's words in his letter wishing me well in
retirement. He referred to "....those of us
who like to think of the present School as a
continuation of the dream of the founding
fathers."
We must all
cherish our memories but. . .was there ever a
Golden Age ? Robert Davies. the novelist, wrote,
"The world is full of people whose notion of
a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to
the idealised past."
Frankly,
this might offer comfort but it is really not an
option available to us. I believe that you have a
school in Prescot which has come through very
difficult times which have not been of its own
making. For too long the School had to compete
with others which were more favourably endowed.
Nevertheless, the School possessed one great
strength - it had a staff, both teaching and
non-teaching, who could lead it through these
difficulties and were not discouraged when the
demands of innovation became a watchword.
Standards are rising and there is every
likelihood of the School becoming a magnet
school.
It is about
to be connected to the Internet and will then
have immediate access to the world's production
of books and much else. I am sure that Prescot
School will not forget Alice in Wonderland.
Finally, I
thank you for the support you have given me over
the years and particularly during the 450th
Anniversary celebrations: I hope that I have
pleased more people than I have upset.
The
Governors have appointed an energetic, thoughtful
and compassionate Headteacher in Lynne Heath. I
have been encouraged greatly by the discussions
we have had during the hand-over, I hope that you
will give her the continuing support which you
have given to me.
Change may
be all around us but ... the Future looks good.
"
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