Back to school

Last week I spent the day with a class of twenty thirteen year olds at the Alumwell School in Walsall. My job? To enthuse the class about business, careers and earning a living. I was introducing the 'Young Enterprise' programme about which I had received training from Young Enterprise (YE) the week before.

By break my understanding and empathy with teachers had increased considerably. It was not the behaviour which was not too bad; it was the challenge of holding the class's attention which could disappear in a nanosecond. The YE material was well thought through but in my view was aimed at an older age group.

What did I find interesting about the day? I observed that fewer than five of the children in the class were white. But that this didn't seem to matter. I saw at firsthand what I have always known; that mixed ability classes are bad for everyone, teachers (stressful and leaving you feeling that you are not bringing the best out of anyone), bright pupils (doesn't stretch them) and slow pupils (get left behind). I was assured that in the normal academic classes pupils were setted. But often in comprehensives only in the key subjects.

There were some children being left behind badly. One exercise involved adding up ten sets of numbers. There was a collective groan when up when I said that no, they could not have calculators. In business it is important to have good mental arithmetic, so you know roughly what a machine is telling you and are able to spot wild errors. One girl who kept getting the simple addition wrong did not even know that to add numbers up the numbers need to be in columns with digits of the same decimal units down one column.

Another boy, Ammar, had a great personality; he was also one of the brightest in the class. So it was very sad that his reading was so poor. This led to him being very easily bored and disruptive in a minor way. He therefore had special needs and for my money he needed intensive help with his reading outside his year group.

The day was great for me as I prepare to be a Young Enterprise mentor at Stourbridge College next year and a governor of one of our local secondary schools.

Photo: Margot James visit Alumwell School in Walsall.