Speech Day

Well, here we are again; another year over and it’s Speech Day. Hurrah!

In most schools, this important day of the academic year is known as Prize Day or Prize Giving but in the public school sector it has a grander name, Speech Day, which is more apt because that is indeed what it is – one long line of speeches, with just the shortest of time spans given over to the dishing out of prizes to pupils.

The day usually starts off with the arrival of the prize winners and their parents at the designated venue. It is a chance for the pupils to dress smartly for a change and for their parents to don their best, best designer outfits and expensive shoes – and oh, of course, to roll out the Bentley or Aston Martin, the family car they wouldn’t normally be seen dead in, just in case the local ragamuffins damaged it. And what do the teachers wear? Well, just their academic hoods and gowns – a chance to show off who went to Oxbridge or the University of Nowhere.

There is always, of course, a dignitary of some note or other who will preside over the distribution of prizes, their national importance being directly proportional to the social pulling power of the headmaster himself – an author, an MP, some high ranking bloke from the armed services or the church, a famous old boy (never a famous old girl, especially in the top public schools) or even royalty if the school has that sort of connections. And then the speeches – long and extremely tedious:

• from the Chairman of Governors – always taking the safe mid-line approach, nothing contentious here, so much so that by the end of his speech (always a ‘he’) you wonder why the duffer got up in the first place;
• from the visiting dignitary - using flowing, glowing and all-knowing language about the ‘wonderful’ pupils and their school. ‘How lucky you are’ and ‘It wasn’t like this in my day’ are favourite and timeless sayings;
• and then the Demon Headmaster – brace yourself – for a potted version of the year’s events and achievements and plans for the future, never brief and certainly never interesting. It’s just laborious lip service to his role as top dog. The best bits, which teachers discuss in their huddles later on, are the ones which involve subtle hints of the controversies which have occurred over the year – the overstated appreciation of a colleague who is leaving the school under a cloud, the award of a prize to a rude or badly-behaved pupil, a troublemaker no less, or gushing references to a pupil who has brought shame on the school in a more public manner. But do not forget the public school mantra – that everyone deserves a second chance and forgiveness! And then the ebullient praise to individual departments such as art, music, drama and sport for their magnificent achievements that year, forgetting that as outwardly showy actvities that this is exactly their brief! The headmaster has forgotten, yet again, to mention those hard working departments in the backgound – such as science and maths – the trainers of tomorrow’s engineers and scientists, doctors and dentists, and vets! No mean feat, one would think!

A recent article in The Telegraph reckoned that low achievers deserve prizes, too. What poppy cock! What would be the point of doing that? Are not the low achievers in public schools the trouble makers, the liars, and the blaggers who say they will improve next time and continue to be lazy or wilfully disruptive?And remembering that the Demon Headmaster tells the pupils that they can be ‘anything that they choose to be‘, then under-achievement is not even on the radar at Eccentric School.com!

But all of this pettiness aside, once the tedious speech-making is over, the proceedings then move on to the best part of the day:

Yar, Yar! Cheers, everyone!

• drinks with parents either in boarding houses or in some central space, around a jolly good game of cricket for instance. This year, despite the crippling credit crunch, the champagne was flowing like water which goes to prove that the bubble culture is alive and kicking for the affluent English middle classes. The champagne also makes the chore of remembering the names of parents and praising up their offspring when one shouldn’t a little more palatable, especially if one lands up going home with a spare bottle which matron has secretly distributed to the house tutors once the parents have moved on to their Fortnum and Mason picnics. One gets the immediate impression that the parents at Eccentric School. com seem totally detached from the financial heartache of the credit crunch which has destroyed so many lives thus far. No having to sell the third car or second home for them, if you please, or even foregoing the sixth family holiday abroad this year!

• and then time for wandering around the exhibitions and displays of every and any nature – art, design, music, sport, polo, the CCF – the list is seemingly endless. And seemingly tedious, too?

Finally, here is an extract from ‘The Grim Rupert‘ (Lesson 23) which gives a brief insight into how Speech Day in some public schools can be quite a scary experience!

• If anyone recognises which English Public School this might refer to, then please contact this blog!

Speech Day was held on the very last day of the summer term.
It was a frightening and intimidating experience.
Teachers all gowned up in their rainbow colours, and furs of their alma mater,
And parents in their best bib-and-tucker, and real tans,
With their Mercedes, BMWs, Jaguars, and Bentleys parked precariously outside.
A prime target for the smash-and-grab brigade, in a working class town.
All packed into the Speech Room, with just a few spare places for prize-winning pupils,
Almost as an after-thought.
Teachers in a multitude of rows of wooden benches, severely tiered on the stage;
Parents in a multitude of rows of plush chairs, softly tiered in the auditorium.
Teachers and parents, face-to-face, almost nose-to-nose.
Eyes everywhere: sensing, searching, and checking no one face was glaring at another.
Teachers acutely aware of parents who’d given them a hard time with their incessant aggressive complaints,
And of their progeny who’d made their lives a misery with their incessant aggressive behaviour in the classroom.
Like, engendering like.
Parents aware of teachers, whose work they were constantly dissatisfied with,
And pupils who were the cause of the problems in the first place, with their arrogance and rudeness.
Tension was in the air.
England! Oh, England!
Is this what you are so proud of when you boast your education abroad?
And then, the proceedings start.
The tall, emaciated headmaster stands up to lord it over his fee-paying clients, to waffle on about this-and-that
And how well the school was doing.
And wasn’t he and the governors clever at achieving it all?
And then the nudge to her left, a slight twist of the head, a swivel of the eyes to see what was up.
A piece of paper, a pen, and a whisper of an instruction.
She stiffened for several seconds, looking straight ahead at the sea of eyes, seemingly on top of her,
Afraid they were watching what she was doing, what she was thinking.
Could she do it?
Could she bend her head to write, knowing hers would be the only one to move
Amongst a blur of motionless bodies?
Fuck it!
Of course, she could.
‘Projected length of headmaster’s speech’.
15 minutes, she thought?
Number of times he mentions the term ‘Faggs Foundation’.
40 times, she thought? Or maybe even 50?
She filled in the form,
And passed it on.
And then the school song.
Loud,
War-like,
Victorious and proud.
In Latin.
Teachers who criticised the school, singing loudly and forcefully as if they enjoyed it,
As if things were never amiss.
And then, at the end, a smartly-dressed figure, bedecked in Italian high fashion,
Searching,
For the piece of paper with times and names on it: the sweepstake concerning the headmaster’s speech,
The sweepstake, which would have annoyed him immensely.
And the figure?
Not a rank-and-file joker who’d seen it all before, or one who was bored with the proceedings,
But a well-respected one.
One who had the head’s ear.
One who had influence.
Teresa, a housemistress.
The one who’d taken over from Vivian!

• The clip below is taken from the film ‘If’.
• Are you surprised that this Speech Day landed up in a riot?
• Going back in history, such riots are known to have occurred at the odd public school here and there; on such occasions, even the army had to be brought in to quell the naughty school boys!
• Incidentally, the weapons at the end are provided with the courtesy of the Combined Cadet Force (the CCF), a curiously quaint and ancient public school tradition!