Swotty parent night...

If you have a child of primary school age you’ll be well aware of the InCas tests and will probably know by now if you’re child is above, below or just about average in the old smarty pants stakes.
It has to be said I’m not a big fan of testing and labelling kids. Every single child is different, learns at different speeds, and excels in different things. Although these tests are great gauges for the education system I feel that the best judge of a child’s ability is their teacher, who works with them every day.
I went to a parent’s meeting last week where the teachers discussed the progress of our children and outlined the work the kids would be doing in the next year.
Our teacher introduced us to Inky, the friendly little cartoon computer dude who will help our children prepare and take part in these tests.
I know it’s a cartoon character, I know he’s not real but the voice was so irritating that I could have easily listened to and enjoyed fingernails being scraped down a blackboard or dentists drilling teeth instead of his, probably very important, instructions.
It’s an over exaggerated Belfast accent, like the ones the Hollywood stars do. The little person who owns the voice no doubt has a beautiful accent, but I imagine that he was asked to explain everything super slowly in order for the kids to understand. Speech that would normally have taken two seconds to produce was dragged over two minutes of slow and over exaggerated drawl.
I’d say had I sat the InCas test that night the computer would have had just enough time to register my name and average reading age as five years old before I deposited the thing through the window into the watery depths of a blue recycle bin below the window.
Children at my son’s school, and I imagine schools across the north, were talking in Inky’s annoying voice for days after the tests. I would also hazard a guess that the increased rate of head flushing and playground walloping skyrocketed in direct correlation to those mimicking incidents.
After that ordeal we were introduced to the ‘new way of doing stuff’ in education. Back in the olden days, when I was a lass, we multiplied and divided numbers in a normal fashion. But that way was wrong and now we have to learn new, more complicated ways to do the same things that we already knew how to do perfectly fine before. Are you with me?
Things were running along fabulously, that is I understood largely what they were talking about, until we got to the maths part. The teacher explained that the kids would be partaking in a bit of multiplication, division and the like. She did a sum on the board and took us through it, step-by-step so we could help our children with the homework.
Now I like to think that I’m an intelligent woman, I have been through the education system and run my own business. But as my son’s primary four teacher explained the division sum I was completely and utterly baffled.
Then she asked if anyone would like to come up to the board and work it out.
The swotty parents at the front all put up their hands, other ‘not so sure I want to make a fool of myself’ parents smiled and threw knowing looks at each other, some counted on their fingers, some nodded and some coughed so that they wouldn’t be asked the answer. A few up the back, myself included, slouched on our seats, folded our arms, stretched out our legs and chewed gum violently, rolling our eyes intermittedly. A few of the Mums went the whole hog, twirling their hair around their fingers and popping gum bubbles. I opted more for the ‘slack-jawed, slouchy, please don’t pick me’ look.
In those few moments that old feeling of school nerves came flooding back…. What if the teacher picked me to go to the board? What if I don’t know the answer in front of all these people and they think I stupido? What if I choke on the chalk fumes and collapse in a snivelling heap on the floor and they have to call an ambulance and they can’t get the vehicle in because the grumpy Dad who drives the 4x4 has blocked the school entrance gates again and I die right here on these boring beige coloured slip-proof floor tiles? Oh dear God, what if?
So I did what always worked for me back then. I made no eye contact and pretended to look for something really important in my bag until a swot parent was picked and I could breathe easy again.
School’s tough kids, I don’t envy you.