History Matters

Yesterday a group of us devoted the afternoon to analysing our predictions for this summer’s GCSE results. You’re never safe until the results actually arrive in mid August, but, all being well, we might well have cause for celebration because we’ll be making history.
 
And even if we don’t quite make the very high targets we’ve set for ourselves (and I’m not going to tell you what they are, just in case we do undershoot) the confidence and hard work of students and teachers are still very impressive and worthy of a school which is on the crest of a wave.
 
Well, so what? You might ask.
 
Moorside’s outstanding – everyone agrees – just look at the successive years of massive improvement. And all this from a school where ten years ago they’d actually started the demolition process and the results were the lowest in the area.
 
All of that is true.
 
And not only that but parents have been clamouring d for places at Moorside for some years now which shows how well we’ve won over community confidence. So what’s my point?
 
Well, it’s this.
 
The Moorside name disappears at midnight on December 31st, 2011. From that moment we will be Consett Academy and Moorside will have closed for business. Well, it won’t be quite as brutal as that. Our new sponsors assure us that it will be business as usual, but you might still think that staff heads would go down.
 
And in some schools you’d be right.
 
But not this lot.
 
Staff enthusiasm for doing the very best for the students in undimmed, even though legal closure of the school is in sight.
 
And I know that because of the exam meeting I ‘ve just mentioned,  a quite amazing breakfast meeting of the Teaching and Learning group and the full attendance by Humanities staff and students at the exam revision classes after school.
 
And all on the last day of a long, hard term which, by the look of them, has left quite a few teachers utterly exhausted.
 
Anyway, I hope you get my point.
 
So the Moorside staff show that we can go on improving even though we’re near the end of our history.
 
And speaking of history, on Wednesday night at our year 10 parents evening I met a very nice guy called Eric Symonds. Eric taught technology at Moorside in the sixties and wanted to tell me that he’d taught Paul Brasington who passed away recently. Eric also gave me a historical nugget which, as a total rock music anorak, really took my interest. Apparently, Moorside use to hold an end of year dance and in 1969 they hired a young band from Newcastle. Anyway, who should turn up but a very young Mark Knopfler destined for international superstardom in Dire Straits in the 1980’s. Apparently, Knopfler and co blew the roof of with an incredible performance.
 
Well, I love the idea of one of the world’s best guitarists doing his stuff on the Moorside stage. And wouldn’t it be great if we could find some photos of what sounds like a great gig?
 
And on that theme, we are starting to talk about ways in which we can celebrate Moorside’s history between now and Christmas. The school opened in 1958 (I think) so thousands of children and hundreds of staff have walked the corridors over the years – that makes for a lot of stories.
 
So if you have any film, photos, mementoes and recollections of Moorside you’d like to share before the academy opens, just let me know.