Wednesday 12 March 2008

"Bouquet residence; lady of the house speaking..." a NAME allegory

Being touched, as I am, with the stain of the unlanded rabble, I have sorely missed out on a solid grounding of culture and civilisation. Instead, my father has bequeathed to me a legacy of amusement-finding in lower forms of entertainment, such as the television. One of his all-time favourite shows (I have completely forgotten its name) centres around one Hyacinth Bucket, a sniffy suburban churchlady, eager to make an impression of her dignity and standing. My dad's favourite character in the sitcom is Onslow, Mrs Bucket's slobbish brother-in-law. From a sense of duty or obligation, the Buckets occasionally visit their poorer relations, an occasion in which she seems to try to reform her errant sister and bring just a touch of respectability to them through her pearls of wisdom from on high or even her mere presence. Occasionally, Onslow and family decamp chez Bucket, much to the horror of the lady of the house. This is an excercise in patience and tolerance, but it is near catastrophe if the cretins are seen or associated with Hyacinth. Fortunately, Mrs Bucket is able to put a nice gloss on it all in the end and the offending family are shoved off with a smile and sigh of relief.

Despite my own rather unfortunate upbringing, I do not actually watch that much telly nowadays. I prefer to read (rather above my station perhaps), but that is probably down to the private arena of my schooling winning the battle over the state-half. So yesterday, as I was reading, I came across this: http://www.winchestercollege.co.uk/DOCS/PDF/HM/MidhurstAcademy.pdf . Do read it, but if you're short on time at the moment,
"The College will make no financial contributions to the establishment of the Academy... our input will concentrate on raising standards and aspirations of teaching and learning... Our resources... are readily available for sharing via electronic medium. Joint professional development training sessions can be provided without cost and interruption to our internal practices", and my personal favourite: "It can only be to our advantage* to work with the maintained sector in a positive and meaningful way. Winchester is forty-five minutes' drive from Midhurst, which makes contact convenient, while preserving an appropriate distance".

It all reminded me of something, but I'm not sure what...
Anyway, Winchester College, welcome to the family from the Rother Valley Onslows
*advantage of hundreds pounds in tax breaks, could it be?

6 comments:

Trabb's Boy said...

It's just come back to me:
"Keeping Up Appearances"

jane said...

I hope that the staff of Midhurst Grammar will be charging Winchester College for training their staff. Looking at last year's exam results the average uncapped points score for Midhurst was 350.8 against Winchester's 338. Of course, the Value Added is not recorded for independent schools.

Midhurst Grammar staff will also have to train Winchester College staff in identifying and helping SEN students, since Winchester seem to have none, whereas Midhurst had 27% in that GCSE year.

What I am not so sure about is what Winchester College staff have to offer Midhurst staff. Perhaps they can let us know.

Jane

jane said...

I hope that the staff of Midhurst Grammar will be charging Winchester College for training their staff. Looking at last year's exam results the average uncapped points score for Midhurst was 350.8 against Winchester's 338. Of course, the Value Added is not recorded for independent schools.

Midhurst Grammar staff will also have to train Winchester College staff in identifying and helping SEN students, since Winchester seem to have none, whereas Midhurst had 27% in that GCSE year.

What I am not so sure about is what Winchester College staff have to offer Midhurst staff. Perhaps they can let us know.

Jane

bs detector said...

WTF? Failed allegory. Academies are not good news but leave it out with all the "humble beginnings" crap, this is MGS you are talking about, hardly in a hurry to give up the old "Grammar" school title and become a comp were they? Go and campaign on the real issues and good luck, I'll be supporting you, but please give the "poor neighbour" thing a break, it stinks of middle-class meddlers masquarading as something they are not, furthermore, every MGS student and teacher I've ever met are more likely to be lunching with the Bouquets than the Onslows.

Keep up the good work, but please, don't insult us. BSD.

Trabb's Boy said...

BSD
I have published your comments as you've made fair points, though with some reservations about the abbreviations (it being a public forum for all). Hopefully, no one will be offended. Anyway, whilst I fully concede that Midhurst/MGS is hardly of "humble beginnings". I was merely pointing out the attitude of Winchester College towards their future 'charitable' recipients- us, and the assertion by some that we should be grateful for it.
I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence- so I apologise if the post had this effect. I do not apologise for being offended myself at the supposed superiority of Winchester College.

Trabb's Boy said...

Another of my typing errors: the full stop should be a comma between beginnings and I.
so
"Anyway, whilst I fully concede that Midhurst/MGS is hardly of "humble beginnings", I was merely pointing out the attitude of Winchester College towards their future 'charitable' recipients..."