King Henry VIII Grammar School

Moderator Note. When insulting or abusive posts appear, the moderators have just three options. Delete the post, delete the topic or delete the member, or any combination. I have lost count of the times that this thread has been locked & posts deleted. Every time a post turns septic, we lose membership, often goodhearted & well meaning long serving members, folk who like me hate unnecessary conflict or nasty natured arguments, sometimes for arguments sake. Many having been friends of mine. Ordinary folk just turn off. We will not talk of rhetoric with regard to specific actions, but they will be used. We do have one more unthinkable action & that is to close the whole site. For the first time, that conversation has surfaced. The team, along with the membership can be held liable for the content of posts just as in any publication. This topic will remain locked for the time being. I will not enter into any discussion on this, either on the public forum or private email. Any such will be deleted.

Additional note from the webmaster: I am unlocking this topic in one last attempt to save this forum. I also want to draw people's attention to the message that pops up every time the mouse hovers ready to click on the "Submit" button (unfortunately, those with tablets might not see this message).... Before pressing the button.... If you have commented on another person or their opinion, then before posting please put yourself in their position and re-read your words. If you are certain that neither they, nor anyone else, will be offended by your comment, then continue. It is understood that teaching methods at KHVIII often left something to be desired, and describing these teachers and associated memories is natural. However, repeatedly dragging up the same names gets rather tedious if nothing new is being said. Additionally, relatives of these teachers do read this forum, and who here would enjoy seeing their own family being spoken about in such terms, whether or not they are aware of the content? Please bear this in mind as we continue.... hopefully for some time to come, but if this becomes a constant problem, then sadly I will have to call it a day for the HCF. Best wishes to all, Rob

As we're coming round to exam results I'd like to submit a question that's played on my mind for years. In the early 70s KHVIII pupils sat exams set by JMB (Joint Matriculation Board) whilst Bablake sat AEB (Associated Examination Board). AEB was dubbed the Amazingly Easy Board by a few of us after we reviewed the Maths paper sat by the Bablake lads, when comparing it to the paper we'd taken. Obviously there are going to be differences between different examination boards, but was the difference really very wide?

Memory may be failing me here, but as I recall, your first O levels were JMB. The AEB was for resits in November. The general belief (or rumour) was that AEB was easier than JMB, so somebody stood a better chance of passing a resit, having failed their first attempt with JMB. I stand to be corrected, of course.

Bohica and Slim - I do hope you are correct about the JMB O Level papers because I have been looking for an excuse for my results since 1966.

I recall in my year they gave us all the Northern exam board maths papers, because they were harder and would look better on university applications. Backfired spectacularly when grades plummeted, a lot failed though mainly with 7's so they could resit in the autumn.

Hi all Circumstances have dictated exam boards in my lifetime. Whilst the exam boards used by KHVIII were the official line, the school gave me good assistance when I was doing music exams back in my teen years. Coming more up to date, a conversation that I had with senior staff in 2000 helped me chart what I was going to do when I considered converting my 780 (adult education cert) into a full teaching degree, which I then went on to do at Warwick. For all of the criticism & folks not so good experiences during their time at the school & for that I am truly sorry, my experience was & still is that whatever my failings, I still have my neck above water six decades on. The proof of the pudding is in the eating as I am still able to enjoy it. The pudding that is.

"The people who did the Oxford and Cambridge boards were the worst offenders!" I guess that would be down to snobbery. I came across the "not invented here" syndrome regularly during my career.

At the risk of having only part-remembered a conversation I had 35 years ago(!), I seem to recall speaking with someone who marked for JMB. I went to the University of Manchester in the early eighties, and there I spoke with someone (a postgrad, if memory serves) who claimed to have earned extra money marking O-level papers for JMB (based in Manchester, I think). His complaint was that they received inadequate financial compensation (is anybody happy with their pay, ever?) and that there was not enough time allowed per paper. Apparently the 'howlers' they print from time-to-time - answers which are unintentionally funny - are quite true! A randomly-selected few papers he marked were re-examined by supervisors to check that the standards were consistent between markers, so there was quality control. However, any imaginings I had about learned professors carefully grading manuscripts with a meerschaum pipe producing an academic blue haze around the mahogany desk were shattered! I too recall a change at KHVIII from AEB to JMB, but I was not aware of any reason why this was, nor of any rumours concerning differences in difficulty.

I will soon be celebrating 50 years to the day when I first became a member of that elite group entitled "Pupil, King Henry VIII School, Coventry". Please be assured that I will drink responsibly and look back with fond memories on the time when I first entered the hallowed portal with a gleaming satchel slung over my shoulder, ready to cram full of homework exercise books. My expectations were of excellence. Each subject would succumb to my intellectual prowess. My gifts for sport were unparallelled. My abilities in obsequiousness would rival the greatest of sycophants. Where did it all go so horribly awry? Sadly, this will remain a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, coated with a conundrum thingumabob. Nevertheless, I am that pupil. I am that cap wearer. I am that armour coated fist, clutching an arrow. I am that boy who tore his shirt asunder to reveal a superhero costume beneath. (Or PE kit as it was called, back in the day.) My senior school. My first steps into adulthood. Those tentatative, anxiety-ridden movements towards maculinity and hairy fluff at the corners of the mouth. The fake deep voice. The pretence to prefer the female form over collecting a complete set of soccer player bubblegum cards. All were accomplished with a bravado that belied my years. Henrys. The educational establishment that was my home during adolescence. Why did we have an unconscious uncoupling? There was so much I could have taught you. But you would not listen. You were unreceptive to my paradigm shattering concepts, such as "Newton's Laws of Motion are just plain daft", "Shakespeare couldn't write his way out of a paper bag" and "Social media via internet connections and smartphones will become very popular in the twenty-first century". You poured scorn on these insights. You dismissed them as twaddle. But I forgive you. Cheers.

Hi all & thank you for your shared experience, Last of the Inkers. We probably each have our own ideas of what was the success or failure of our education. You won't ever find me on a list of great school achievers, in any subject. No one was more surprised than me when one morning about a decade ago I received a phone-call from the now late Mr Vent asking if I could help him on an issue. What I did believe that the school gave me was the broad ability to ask the right questions at the right time, which I do sometimes get wrong. A STORY *********** This afternoon, I was waiting for my train at B'ham International station at about 3pm, when sat adjacent to me were a mature couple with huge suitcases, the labels I could clearly see were for a hotel in Llandudno. I knew that their train was in platform 5, further down the platform from where they were sitting, that was due out at 15.11. Me, not wanting to sound too nosey, I asked them jovially if they were off somewhere nice, to which they replied Llandudno. I told them that their train was further down the platform, about to leave. So with them in a near state of panic, I helped them on with their luggage, also found them their reserved seats. They were both so grateful as they said that they would have missed their train, even though they had been sat there waiting from before I had arrived. What was obvious was that they were not seasoned railway travellers, so were outside of their comfort zone. Maybe rail operating staff need to recognise that not all rail passengers are aware of rail jargon. Ok, so rail-travel is second nature to me, but I have misread timetables before now & made assumptions that were wrong on a whole variety of subjects. Most of what I did for my day to day living I did get right, but sometimes a got it horribly wrong. I think that most of us if we are honest will admit to that. It's how we are able to recover a situation that has gone silly, that makes our mark & for that I do honestly owe a debt of gratitude to the staff of Henry, who taught the skills of managing our own lives. I have shared that about this afternoon, not to blow my own trumpet as to what a good boy am I, more the fact that it was an everyday event that happened a couple of hours ago, just as these things do.

Oh Mr Porter what shall I do. Every station should have a 'Philip' Hopefully just like you. Ok so I am not a poet, however my sense of direction is unmentionable so I hope there are a few 'Philips' here in Oz when I need one.

There's only one Philip

I could have done with you Philip. After a days teaching at one of Birmingham's finest, I dashed into New Street station, straight onto platform 4 and onto the train as the doors closed. Phew, just made it! Except that the train had been split and I was now going the opposite way to where I wanted to go! Strangely enough, I wasn't the only one caught out that day.