Poor grammar

Once again I am limping towards the end of the month, desperately waiting for my wages to be paid into my account, having to put £10 worth of diesel in the tank just to get to work. And when I do get paid, I won't have as much money as I did last month because of my overdraft. You could say I am starting April at a slight disadvantage. I anticipate, that notwithstanding my winning the lottery, I will be at a slightly greater disadvantage at the start of May - I am getting no pay rise, there is no real possibility of me increasing my hours until September, I am a full time teacher and writing this at midnight, so it doesn't look like I have any chance of earning any extra between now and ever. So that pattern continues to be consolidated for the foreseeable future. I don't think I am qualified for anything else, but I would quite like to work in Aldi right now.

A report on the BBC website today suggests that "Grammar schools perform no better than non-selective state schools, once their pupils' higher ability and wealth is taken into account" 

I can almost hear every teacher glancing at the report and barely raising a "meh?" in unimpressed response to this report. The study has found that "the "apparent success" of these wholly selective schools was down to their brighter and more advantaged pupils."

So what it's saying is that grammar school would not really increase social mobility? And that those students would be likely to do well in comprehensive school? But the government still want to work "to widen access to grammar schools." You could say that this is consolidating the advantage of the wealthy and the disadvantage of the less wealthy. What government would want to do that? Perhaps a government that doesn't really have any interest in increasing social mobility. Perhaps a government that would prefer all of us to stay in our places. 

When we find out who wants grammar schools it tends to be parents. Middle-class parents, that is. Right up to the point that their precious little Toby fails his 11 plus. I trained in a Secondary Modern. There was a pass score of 120 to get into the local grammars. Every student who scored around 117 was repeatedly sent for re-testing by their parents. At least the well-off ones. They didn't rate the school, they didn't respect the teachers, why would they? Their parents told them every day that they were better than that school, and every time they failed the test and their parents they were reminded that they could not succeed. 

Then there are parents like me who are opposed in principle - but what would I do if I lived in an area where there was a choice of school? We are teachers and want the best for our children. Of course that wouldn't happen. We would have to acknowledge that we are not the kind of people that grammar schools want. My son has special needs, I am a teacher, which is financially acceptable, but my husband also is, which is not. I have debts and an old car. I am not as middle class as I think I am.  

I don't think the government needs a report to tell it that grammar schools don't really work. Teachers could have told you that, but when do we ever get asked. We are sick of experts, or at least those who don't get listened to. However, if that government fancies paying me for my opinion, it would go some way to paying off those debts, giving me the chance to have a fair start, or even a slight advantage. It might even give me a chance to be a bit more middle-class. Perhaps if I stop buying avocados, I could even pay off my mortgage...

The reading rooms

Our county council is in trouble. It must be in trouble, and that trouble must be big because it's been on Radio 4. I love Radio 4, but it very rarely concerns itself with anything that happens in the "Regions" - that anomalous part of the country that has the rare distinction of being "Not London". According to my beloved Radio 4, and for that matter, most of the national newspapers, the "Regions"; that part of the UK that is not London; has more in common with itself than it does with London. This is not my experience. So the fact that our county council is in trouble and has made national news tells us that things must be really bad.

Our county council can't afford to pay its bills. I can't really afford to pay my bills so I know how that feels. I keep trying to sell stuff on ebay. I've sold some Next clothes of the children's and some of the expensive clothes that I have kept, but as it happens, we don't have an attic and there is no cash in it. There is nothing antique in my house and most of my clothes are from Oxfam so I don't have many assets. The council had assets, but it has sold most of them off to keep things going, which is not a good thing when you are a council, also you can only sell assets once, so it's not much of a business plan.

The residents of the county collectively feel quite frustrated by this turn of events, although it has been mooted in the press that our council is only the first to reach this crisis point, and others may follow. The reasons for the frustration are primarily anecdotal, but simultaneously easy to understand. We pay council tax for services. Our council tax hasn't gone up loads recently. It feels as if it has, but that is partly because things like petrol and diesel have gone up something like 20p a litre, my pay has gone up by - well - nothing, so even if council tax didn't go up at all, it has remained a substantial proportion of my income, and so, I assume, everyone else's. The village facebook page is full of complaints of poor rubbish collection, lack of policemen on the street, people dropping litter and parking badly and inconsiderate drivers. Primarily things for which we ourselves are responsible, but things we as councillors are periodically asked to resolve, while simultaneously not nannying or controlling lives.

Impossible? Perhaps. However, litter on the streets is something visible,  whereas litter in bins is something invisible. A very large and newly built council building in the centre of the town is something very visible, and visibly expensive, so residents may be forgiven for believing that a council prepared to spend that much money on a new building must be a very organised and efficient council. For that not to be the case is somewhat disappointing.

One of the council's solutions to the crisis it has found itself in has been to propose getting rid of libraries. We were consulted about this, but then they ran out of money and so our consultation really ended up meaning very little. I and others campaigned hard to get people to contribute to the consultation but few people did, believing that it might not make difference, turns out to some extent they were right.

There are nearly 60 county councillors with around a third of them women. I mention that in passing. I haven't looked at the breakdown in ethnicity and I don't know much about their social background. I don't know how much that matters, but for me, libraries play a massive part in supporting communities and often those in the community who are less represented in society as a whole. There are those who don't have a vote - like children; there are those who don't have access to a computer, like those in temporary accommodation, or older people; there are those who don't have full time or regular employment, those who can't easily pay for their heating bills when it is so incredibly cold like it has been this week.

Despite democracy's best efforts, not everyone has an equal say. It is up to those of us who have a louder voice as a result of our income, our gender, our age or any other accident of serendipity to speak on behalf of those who don't currently have as loud a voice, who we may become, or could become, or have narrowly avoided becoming.

When people tell me they don't use the library, I think "you're missing out", I think "aren't you lucky?" I think "what a shame". Our library building houses a community centre, a cafe with a lunch club for older people, the council committee meetings, a village information point. The library itself is a meeting point, a drop off point, a place to shelter, a place for calm, a place for fun. I didn't go to the library much before I had children. As soon as I did I went there for books, I went there to sit down when I was tired, I went there to get me out of the house when it was the only place I could afford to go. I talked to other mums there and sometimes it was the only adult contact I had all day, and sometimes I think that saved my sanity.

If only I could give up working and had another few hours free a week, there are lots of things I would like to do - but I would do them all through the library. Perhaps I would need the bus timetables and the community help offered by the librarians. There are some libraries in our county that have already had that opportunity taken from them. The libraries will be closed. Some will be offered to community groups to take on. How on earth could that be done? I cannot get anyone to help me manage 18 6 year old girls for 45 minutes a week. I do not believe I have the powers of persuasion to talk some friendly volunteers into giving up 2 hours a week to manage a library, a job that previously took a qualified librarian in full time or on a job share, managing three other people.  Who would take on that responsibility only to fail a few months later and have the libraries closed anyway only for the blame to be foisted onto the local community rather than the council?

The support offered by the libraries may seem intangible, amorphous even, but what is saved further down the line in NHS bills for depression, for hypothermia, for social care, for A and E stays, for extra out of work benefits and emergency payments when a job seeker cannot prove he has been looking for work? These are rarely measured except afterwards when we look at the number of people who have waited for a bed in a hospital or the number of job seekers.

What happens to the current county council? Perhaps they will get voted out or resign, perhaps even a different political party will become the majority for a short time, but I imagine it will be a short time, because they will be unable to sort out the mess that has been left for them in the short term that they will be allowed, and anyway the people who caused this will have long gone, not picking up after themselves, just like the people complaining on the village facebook page, leaving the mess for someone else to sort out and them blaming the community for the state of the place. I hope for better, but expect the worst.