Blog twelve: Me and my wobble

One of the few images of FDR in his chair. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

First, an apology, I didn’t write last week, which I hope the reasons why will become clear. Last week was a week in which the enormity of what this scholarship is and the distances I’ll be travelling have become unshrouded in my mind, which has often been a place of tumult, and this hasn’t gone down well. There were points last week where I was in a state of terror around whether I’d be well enough to go to the States and whether I’d burn out whilst out there. Whilst the terror has abated a little, these are still clear and present dangers as far as I and the trip are concerned. I did seriously consider sacking it all off and not going.

I read an article last week, which I’ll paraphrase below, that discussed how we have a real problem talking about mental health as we still don’t think of it as an equal priority with physical health. This division is a harmful one and I find my mental health has a greater impact on my day to day life than my physical health (I’m a type one diabetic). This stigmatised approach to these issues pervades, and makes me feel a kind of guilt for being ill in this way which my diabetes (another chemical imbalance) does not. This guilt exacerbates symptoms. Removing such division societally would help anyone feeling distress to understand that there is no more shame to be felt than if they had tonsillitis. Illness is illness, and health is health. This is easier said than done.

FDR contracted polio (though some scholars believe this could have been Guillain–Barré) at age 39, which left him with permanent paralysis from the waist down, and unable to stand or walk without support. Throughout his political career there was some effort put into concealing his illness. There was “a gentlemen’s agreement” between FDR and the press corps to hide the extent of his disability, and the Associated Press wrote that it was “virtually a state secret.” The Secret Service used force. As Editor & Publisher reported in 1936, if agents saw a photographer taking a picture of Roosevelt, say, getting out of his car, they would seize the camera and tear out the film. It was reported but mentions of Roosevelt’s wheelchair were extremely rare. Far more commonly, news coverage depicted him as someone who had been stricken by polio but who had triumphed over his affliction.  

I think this is unhelpful. Yes – it was a different time and views on disability have altered in the intervening 80 years, however should we speak of Roosevelt more prominently as a disabled President and a positive role model from the past? Absolutely. America’s record on, for example, broadcasting of para-sport is poor for example. Admittedly, the UK’s got a real shot in the arm from Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics in 2012. But illness, disability, difference should be spoken about and celebrated. From my theatre work, some of the best nights in the theatre I’ve ever had have been watching companies that embrace and enable this difference, in both performer, creative and audience, with companies like Graeae and the Ramps on the Moon project (which Nottingham Playhouse is leading on next year). For me too, I must be open: I could hide away from the way I’m feeling about the trip and my health (minus the Secret Service agents) but I don’t think that this will help me, the guilt I semi-foolishly feel about being ill (as I mentioned in the second paragraph) and, in bottling it up, will lead to a pressure cooker gasket blowing, likely to be when I’m away without support. This is also the greatest affinity I’ve felt with Roosevelt since being awarded the scholarship, that we live in societies which are going increasingly accepting of illnesses but within accepted narratives. Unlearning that being ill in your head is the same as being ill in your pancreas (for example) is for me a challenge, but one which I have to work on before I go. FDR again comes to mind – yes, he had the support apparatus of the State, but I too have support of family, friends, the amazing NHS, and this could be the biggest thing I try and do before my trip starts in earnest in October.

Here's to hoping and happier thoughts.

Blog eleven: serious on the state of schools

Reading in Nottingham Primary Schools. Image courtesy of Welbeck Primary School.

I’ve been reading far too many reports recently that seem to signal that there is a crisis coming in education and it will be felt very acutely in Nottingham City.

I love the city’s primary schools and the fantastic teachers who work in them – I was in Brocklewood Primary in Bilborough yesterday and seeing the brilliant things the school is doing really inspires me. They have also seen the value of having a dedicated non-classroom teacher coordinating their non-core curriculum and the increased uptake, especially in sport, is remarkable. Bilborough is not an affluent area but these kids are bright, creative, inventive, active and inquisitive. They need support (like all schools do) and the ability for school to give children positive learning experiences – take them out of the classroom on trips, have arts and music curriculum in school from specialist teachers, have excellent sports equipment and compete in the School Games, go on overnight residential – like Brocklewood’s year 2s last night at Wollaton Park! All of this costs money.

School budgets are shrinking – my local primary school (Djanogly Northgate Academy) receiving a 25% budget cut and Brocklewood who I mentioned earlier a 12% cut. At Brocklewood this equates to the equivalent of 8 teachers lost by 2021. Chris, the excellent coordinator I mentioned, would be an easy cut for the school, as is their excellent sports programme, or swimming lessons, or school trips, or subsidising the residentials for children (this is a huge issue in a city with low household incomes).

We’re also not getting new teachers. Teachers again are having their pay capped at a 1% rise for another year, and for 7 years in a row (a real terms cut with inflation at 2.9% back in May), and almost a quarter of teachers, who qualified since 2011, have left profession. Who’d be a teacher now? With many young bright graduates considering leaving the UK, including myself, due to Brexit, is a chronically under-valued profession something people want to work in? Every teacher I know tells people not to be one – and the extra year’s training to do your post-graduate training to be a teacher will cost you £9,250. Nah, I think you’re alright, ta.

Display at Brocklewood Primary. My image.

Good teachers and high-quality additional activity (sports, arts & culture, outdoor learning, residential, PSHE and learning outside the classroom in a fresh, different or unusual way in subjects around literacy or STEM) provides both value for money and value for learning for schools and for pupils. That said, you can’t put a monetary value on helping a child become who they want to be. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, in their 2014 report Cracking the Code: how schools can improve social mobility, stated "we need to prepare students for all aspects of life and not just exams… supporting children’s social and emotional development and the character skills like 'grit' that underpin learning". It also observed "marked social differences, not just in grades that disadvantaged children get relative to better-off children, but in terms of non-cognitive skills and 'performance virtues' like resilience to educational knock-backs, persistence and optimism… [and] in access to work experience and advice and extra-curricular activities that build these broader skills and help convert good exam results into good jobs". Such inequalities matter and are a barrier to both learning and a young person’s life chances.

This all has knock-ons. Nottingham and Nottinghamshire already has issues with low attainment in literacy in Key Stage 2; only 61% of children in the city and 65% in the county achieving expected standards in reading in 2016. This drops further to 58% and 57% for children with English as a second language, to 53% and 48% for children identified as disadvantaged and to 50% and 43% for children eligible for free school meals. The East Midlands is join third-bottom, barely above Yorkshire and Humber and the West Midlands, in regional attainment (all figures from here - source DfE). Nottingham City is the 4th worst education area (when judged by local authority) at GCSE with only just over half (50.4%) of young people getting 5 A*-C grades, the expected minimum national target. Only Knowsley on Merseyside, Blackpool and Sandwell in the West Midlands are doing worse. Nottinghamshire is 111th out of 151 (all figures from here – source DfE). In a report on released few months ago from the National Literacy Trust and Nottingham’s own Experian every single electoral ward and parliamentary constituency in England were given a literacy vulnerability score. Nottingham North came 8th bottom and Nottingham East 14th bottom out of 533 constituencies. Every Nottinghamshire constituency also contains at least one ward with significant literacy need (all figures from here – source NLT).

This won’t change with cuts, demoralised teachers and schools being forced out of offering a diverse and varied curriculum for children. Hopefully I come back from America with some ideas about how we can support anyone’s literacy across Nottinghamshire, because we know Literacy Changes Lives.

Blog ten: time for a celebration

Back row: Dr Nigel Chapman, Rachel Armitage, Cllr Margaret Handley. Middle: Miles Waghorn, Russ Blenkinsop, Me! Front: Cllr John Handley, Sarah-Marie Taylor.

Last Friday, the Nottingham Roosevelt Memorial Travelling Scholarship held its annual Celebration Event at the Manners Arms in Knipton in the Vale of Belvoir. Last year's scholars, Rachel Armitage and Sarah-Marie Taylor, gave presentations about their travels across the States last year and two of this year's scholars, Miles Waghorn and myself, spoke about what we'd be doing. The third of this year's Roosevelt trio - Angelena - is currently studying bats in Malawi!

Rachel told how she travelled across 14 states to see how effectively the US improved voter registration among the young and marginalised people in the USA. She studied first-hand the 2016 Presidential Elections bringing back good practice to Nottinghamshire. She is now implementing some of her findings through her role at Nottingham City Council and through her newly launched Chi Hack Night. Highlights of the trip were meeting Congressman John Lewis who marched alongside Martin Luther King, appearing on ITV News live from Washington, participating in eight Get the Vote Out events and attending two Hilary Clinton speeches. Rachel said “I also experienced the kindness, generosity and openness of American culture that ensured I was never without a pillow for my head, a meal in my stomach and a friend to call on, no matter where I was. Americans taught me how to eat gefilte fish at Shabbat dinner, when to wear my ‘rush cap’ at a baseball game, how to contra dance with two left feet, and to look for the adventure in every day. I was welcomed into the homes of young families, retired couples, single mothers and struggling students, at each place experiencing the grand tour of the area or taking friendly advice on what to see and do. I toured the Capitol Building in DC, saw the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, cheered at a college football game in Tennessee and followed a Gay Pride parade through Gainesville, Florida. I loved every minute of the crazy diversity of life on the road -  although I’m not sorry to see the back of those Greyhound busses”

Sarah told how she overcame her initial fears of travelling alone to embark on a whirlwind 12 city tour visiting urban farms to research urban agriculture and visiting primary schools to learn from organisations teaching practical horticulture, for replication in schools in Nottinghamshire. The trip included visiting Brooklyn Grange Urban Farm, located 11 stories up in New York’s skyline that produces 40,000 lbs of produce a year selling to 25 local restaurants, farms located in derelict  industrial sites that are open to anyone to pick their own produce and interact with the space Rootdown LA , an urban project that works to empower youths through horticulture in South Los Angeles that runs school based workshops for young people teaching them skills in growing food and cookery. Sarah said “. I would say the first week was the hardest and spent with emotional highs and lows. However, the whole time my feelings went from being excited, proud, passionate, inspired, and happy to exhausted, homesick, lost and overwhelmed. But that’s the magic of it, no two seconds are the same, emotions come and go like waves against the shore but one thing that’s remained is a huge sense of achievement. No longer do I fear the unknown, no longer do I take the easy option or stay within my comfort zone and I certainly feel a new ‘can do’ attitude.”

Then it was mine and Miles' turns - I did my usual waffle and ended up insulting the Chairman of the County Council's wife by thanking Barnsley for perennially keeping Nottingham off the bottom of the GCSE English league tables (she was from Barnsley) and probably spent a little too long talking about a man from Eastwood who wrote mucky books. Miles talked about his business, Tech Silver, which he runs from The Hive at Nottingham Trent University and how he will be investigating the uses of technology in America that support an ageing population staying in their homes rather than moving to supported living accommodation. Angelena sent us a voice-mail from Lilongwe too! The Chairman of the County Council, Cllr John Handley, also presented Miles and I with our Roosevelt Scholarship scrolls. 

The Scholarship also recognised the services of three retiring trustees including the Chairman, Dr Nigel Chapman, who is stepping down after three years, Paul Balen - a trustee with over 30 years of Roosevelt board experience, including 15 years a chair, and John Town, who joined the board shortly after his daughter Katy was selected as a scholar in 2010. Thank you, chaps, for all your hard work. Now it's up to me (plus Miles and Angelena) to work hard over the few weeks and months to get the most out of our scholarships!

PS: Bon voyage, Miles - who departed for his trip today!