Philobiblon

You might wonder why recent studies indicate Britain’s youth are the most unhappy in Europe. A story today in the Sunday Times sums it up nicely: A 2,200-pupil high school is being built in Peterborough, under the “flagship” academy schools programme (so the local authority – and hence the local, democratic council, representative of the community won’t have any say in its running).

This school will replace THREE current schools, so pupils will be going from relatively small communities to be all mixed up in a huge one. But the real misery clincher is this – there will be NO PLAYGROUND – no space in which to chill, relax, take some time away from structure.

“We are not intending to have any play time,” said Alan McMurdo, the head teacher. “Pupils won’t need to let off steam because they will not be bored.”…
Miles Delap, project manager at the academy, said: “For a school of this size, a playground would have had to be huge. That would have been almost uncontrollable. We have taken away an uncontrollable space to prevent bullying and truancy.”…
There will be a 30-minute lunch period when pupils will be taken to the dining room by their teacher, ensuring they do not sneak away to run around.

In those three quotes there is so much to unpack it is hard to know where to start. There is fear – teenagers must be kept strictly under control at all times; there is planning – everything, every second, must be strictly managed; there is desire to turn these children into nice little corporate automata.

I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a house near this school; when the kids escape they’ll explode out of it like cork from a pressured bottle. And that will be used as an excuse to demand more controls…