Secondary schools in the 80s?
Please, is there anyone able to give me informations about english comprehensive schools in the 80s (teaching system, hours, lessons, anything that is related to school life)? I especially need experiences from foreigner people that moved in UK at that time as teenagers(14/17 years old) and can tell me how they were integrated in british schools when their first language wasn’t english. Was the integration easy? Were the teachers sympathetic? Was there any sort of discrimination from the teachers when not able to explain correctly in english? How about the bullying? Any help from the government to learn english? How long did it take to learn english? Please, I need as much informations as I can get, for I am writing something about this and it is very important to me. Personal impressions on the matter are also very welcome. Please bare in mind that what I am looking for are experiences from european people that had only a language barrier to overcome. Thank you for your help.
I went to school in the 80’s… the 80’s. (like in the song).
Hours were 9am – 4pm, Mon-Fri.
Some teachers were nicer than others, some had a fierce reputation that you just didn’t mess with them, others had little or no control in the classroom and it was the usual suspects who created the havoc (everyone else ducked!)
I’m very proud of my old school, they did a good job and I enjoyed my time there. Hardly any foreign students attended, we had a French lad stay with us once for a few weeks, I think most kids just left him be, the teachers tried their best to make sure he was able to follow the lessons but not at the expense of following the lesson plan.
