Parents Evening

It was parent's evening for son and heir at Brinkburn sixth form college today. The lad is studying psychology, maths, physics and chemistry at AS level this year and will probably take three of them onto A2 next year.

The psychology lecturer described a keen, well motivated student, with a good sense of humour, who was performing well in the subject. Well done Ed. The physics lecturer was a bit puzzled by Ed's results after he performed poorly in the first few weeks of term and seemed to lack basic knowledge getting only 40% in his first test which was deliberately quite easy to help the student settle in. Ed then got 60% and 80% in the next two tests, totally reversing the usual trend where marks fall as the tests get harder. That's my boy I thought, paddling his own canoe and refusing to conform to expectations. I wonder where he gets it from? The physics lab where Ed is taught is the same lab where I took my first steps in secondary education back in 1971 when as a brand new first former (1 PT) at Hartlepool Grammar School for Boys. Thirty seven years ago and they still had the same lab benches. I sat at that same bench right through to my O Level (Grade A) with (if memory serves me correctly) Philly Henderson, Nigel Shaw and Colin Stead. Of course those benches will all be gone next year when the old school is demolished to make way for the new building. End of an era.

Anyway Chemistry was a bit disappointing and he needs to work smarter if not harder, his lecturer said he needs to think a bit more before he opens his mouth or commits his thoughts to paper, don't just rush in. Spooky I thought, he is getting more like me every day, the poor sod!

Waiting outside the maths department for our appointment Ed was ready to pack it all in and go off to do Geography and History instead of maths and Chemistry. Unfortunately if he wants too be an engineer he won't get far without maths. However, as it turns out his Maths lecturer was quite upbeat about Ed's performance. No doubt he could do it, if he worked at it. So Ed remains on course. at least until the January Modules when he will get his first real test of how he's doing. However at the end of the day his mother and I are both very, very proud of him. That's my boy!