The 17th of December 1999, nothing more than an ordinary school day close to the Christmas break. But to my family, it was a devastating moment. That morning a letter dropped on to the doormat informing us that I would not be attending Emmanuel College for my secondary education. Places at Emmanuel, one of the original city technology colleges, were the most coveted in Gateshead. It’s easy to see why: a school with no fees offering a top-notch education. It was such a successful venture that it inspired Andrew Adonis to start the academies programme during his time as schools minister.
Five years later, the Paynes were waiting for another communiqué on the future of my education. This time it was from a small private school across the river in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Thankfully, it was good news. The sixth form at Dame Allan’s Schools accepted my application and I waved goodbye to the state sector. Making this rare switch for the last two years of my schooling was an unsettling and costly move, especially for a single-parent family. My mother and father were both educated at grammar schools, something they would have wished for me. But like many families in the latter half of the 20th century, we were stuck in the middle-class quandary of choosing between the local comprehensive or doling out money.
After failing to get a place at Emmanuel, I had spent the first five years of my secondary education at St Thomas More Catholic High School, an excellent comprehensive in a suburb of Gateshead. Thomas More was marked ‘an outstanding and inclusive school’ by Ofsted in 2013, after becoming an academy in 2012. But my time there was far from smooth. I was dumped in the third-from-bottom stream in my first year and had to work my way up to the top tier.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in