The “Grammar Way”

I take no pleasure in having a crack at the way an individual school does things but have reached a tipping point on Auckland Grammar.

As the article, linked below states, AGS is the 49th ranked academic school in NZ but prances as if everyone else are pretenders. Their sports teams underperform as the largest boys school (Westlake sometimes has more students) and, although their websites claim they are the best “boys” academic school (excuse making by definition) they are even 5th on that ladder.

All of that is important but what is more important is that I know of case after case where young men are pretty much destroyed by “the Grammar Way.”

When Principal Tim O’Connor decided to have a crack at a Christchurch school serving an entirely different community … enough was enough.

It has had huge readership and I have received many supportive responses.

Key points:

• “Of equal concern is the ethnicity outcomes for progressing out of Auckland Grammar. For all ethnicities leaving the school, 62% go to degree-level study. The top school is Baradene on 86% and St Peter’s heads Grammar again with 71%. Dig deeper, though, and only 21% of Pasifika and 18% of Māori students leave Auckland Grammar to go to degree-level study. For St Peter’s it is 56% and 55% respectively.”
• “An Auckland Grammar parent commented to me this week, “It’s surprising that O’Connor would criticise another school for trying to positively address mental and physical health concerns of students when Auckland Grammar has had to deal with a number of serious incidents of bullying and fighting at the school this year that have seriously affected some of his students.”
• “It is a school that I have too frequently seen have a destructive influence on students — including some close to me — and most certainly not a place that, as O’Connor claims, teaches students to “cope with their feelings”.
• O’Connor states that “students need to be taught to toughen up”.
• “I know from having worked with many students with anxiety, and even full-blown school aversion, that ‘The Grammar Way’ is anachronistic.”
  
  Would value the opinion of kiwibloggers as the most common response of anyone favouring O’Connor’s views are the old “didn’t do me any harm” .

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd