As parents, homework swots and even ordinary people hear on a daily basis, plenty of teenagers make no effort to disguise their hatred of school, some of whom go as far as playing truant or failing their exams in a professional (albeit unintelligent) matter. Indeed, a school may appear to share resemblances with a prison because a student is obliged to remain on the premises for the duration of the day or, once he or she reaches a certain age, may receive the privilege to leave the building for a while at lunchtime, purely judging by the bags of Walkers crisps and boxes of pizzas as large as a plasma TV being carried by teenagers at midday. However, as many realize at one point or another at their education - or live to regret past mistakes as an adult, like many expectant parents never let you forget - school is the very foundation of whom we are destined to become, beginning a journey towards adulthood and getting the best start possible in our working lives.
Although I can't pinpoint the exact moment when a spectacular epiphany - one relating to my education, of course - occurred, I was young, yet old enough to appreciate the values which an education can offer you, though those privileges only become valid if plenty of effort is made. Since that life-changing moment took place when I was roughly around eight or nine, I've vowed to follow the path necessary to securing a solid base for kickstarting my working career - preferably one in journalism - into action because, at an age where I'm free to be as versatile and original as I wish without facing restraints, these years as a full-time schoolgirl are probably the most important ones of my entire life. And, without going into full-on detail, I realize the significance of studying hard a little too well: otherwise, why else would I bother to write this article at all?
In case you are unfamiliar with my background or have gotten too caught up in your own issues that mine have ceased to remain in your memory, I'll give you a glimpse into the events which have just taken place in my personal life, proving for once and for all that my inner blogger does not spend all day in front of a laptop (though, if The Sims 2 is fished out of a cardboard and is ready to play, it is tempting nonetheless).
Over six weeks ago, The Waltons - um, I meant my family and I, including two bundles of tabby-patterned fur (a.k.a. Bart 'Barticles' and Benny 'Hissy Kitty') - moved to a village in the heart of English countryside which, despite having only had a limited amount of time to adjust to my new surroundings, I love with all of my heart. Prior to The Big Move - which, unless you were confused, is unrelated to the latest exercise regime at Weightwatchers meetings - my younger and I had been educated at home by our parents for the past seven years.
For those of you who remain unfamiliar with home-schooling, I can assure you that the typical stereotypes - for example, children educated at home are often dismissed as loners or looked down upon as 'weirdos', comments of which are greatly hurtful to those who couldn't be further unassociated with those claims - are untrue and doesn't limit students from achieving success to their school-attending counterparts. Besides, how many people have become as successful as the world-famous singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, who famously educated herself at home? When we were originally taken out of school, the figures for home-schooled children - a practice of which is recognized as illegal in several European countries, including Germany - were relatively small, but had significantly increased to almost 1500 students by the time that we moved away from our previous county, proving that home-schooling is no longer a rare practise in my native country, England.
Anyway, we decided to return to mainstream education when we moved away due to the schools being of a more superior standard than our former residence, a problem of which had contributed to our being taken out of school in the first place. In all honesty, the prospect of starting a new school - and making new friends - was one of the few things which helped me through the hassle of moving away, otherwise I doubt that I would have ever built the courage to go through with it at all. Along with returning to a county where I gained such beautiful memories as a youngster (my family and I had previously lived there around a decade ago) and getting my very own en-suite, turning a fresh leaf at a new school was a source of excitement and something to look forward to when packing boxes was getting too much to handle.
After The Big Move happened in a manic rush one sunny Friday morning towards the end of March, my family and I took a few weeks to get used to living in our new house which, compared to our old property, is as large as a mansion - therefore, a full-on Spring Clean was forced to go underway! Despite the matter of finding a school for my brother and I continuing to persist in my thoughts, it took a back seat for a while as I focused my attention (and ungloved hands) upon scrubbing cupboards, showers and sinks to an inch of their lives; clearly, there were more important tasks needed to be completed.
Once the worst of the cleaning, unpacking and finding-a-decent-takeaway tasks were finished, I almost yelped with joy - yes, I'm not exaggerating by saying yelped - when my parents put on their ready-in-action masks and started to phone the schools located in the nearest town. For as long as I can remember, being offered a place at girls' secondary school has been one of my main ambitions, partly due to my mum and aunt attending one and the fact that almost all of my old friends studying at a well-respected girls-only high school, so I was determined to achieve my dream at all costs. But, after my mum put the phone down and kept telling me that all of my preferred schools - the popular ones nonetheless - were oversubscribed and were unable to offer any places until September, here began my first encounter with a new-found arch nemesis: frustration. Again and again, my mum and I would scour through Google and reach for the phone as soon as we found a number but, to both our ever-growing disappointment, we would hear the words which every hopeful student - and parent who, no matter what, will try their hardest for the sake of their children - dreads: there are no places available.
That's it, all hopes of being offered a place at one of the respected schools are dashed within moments, bringing another round of frustration for the affected parties; had I not vowed to steer clear of alcoholic drinks (and actually be the required age to consume it legally), a drop of the brandy reserved for Mum's Christmas cake would have passed through my lips, warming what little of hope I had left. As circumstances had significantly changed at this point, I had all but abandoned my dreams of emulating my mum's education and realized that enrolling into a girls' school was a very slim possibility - how it pained me to give up an ambition which had never waved in all my years of praying for it to happen, but I was unfortunately left with no choice.
Not only did I have problems with finding a school, but looking for one which my brother could attend was proving more and more difficult, particularly as we had reserved our searches to single-sex schools beforehand. In the end, though, I had to suck it up and get real with the fact that teenage boys - and towering forms, making me look like a pint-sized doll in comparison - weren't an unknown species, especially as I'm living with a football-mad adolescent myself. So, our search for mixed-gender schools began - and, to this day, hasn't fully ended.
Much to our frustration (and hot-headed tempers), almost all the schools in the surrounding towns - most of which are ten miles away from our village - are oversubscribed or received damning reports from the educational authorities, known as Ofsted. Despite our problems in finding a school, there is no way that we are willing to sacrifice our educational opportunities by attending a failing school or academy, as many have become known in England. We have already thrown away our dreams of enrolling in a single-sex school which, as more mixed-gender schools are supposedly 'available', should have made our search much easier than before. But settling for schools to which barely any parents would send their children? It doesn't even bear thinking about.
At the moment, we are waiting for a response from a secondary school which, rather ironically, is our nearest school and, if the county council had its way, would allocate us there. Unlike all the other schools which we have contacted in the past month or so, this school is located outside of a village four miles away, so my brother and I would stand a higher chance of mingling with teenagers who don't live far away from us - or may even reside up the road! My fingers are crossed that we will receive the news that we have been hoping to hear for weeks, which would bring an end to this endless misery of a mess.
But what annoys me the most is that, despite staying on the right side of the Law for all my life and having a passion for learning, I'm turned away from schools which would not only help me progress within my education, but could be a place in which I may be a benefit to themselves. Whilst the government is wasting taxpayers' money on campaigns for which hardly anybody cares about, valuable money could be placed into creating new schools for future generations of students - how else will this country cope with the booming population? What I hope to avoid for not only myself, but my younger brother is being yet another one of the system's victims; it goes without saying that every student is entitled to gaining a good education, as it has been the case for hundreds of years. Yet why, in this modern day and age, should students like my brother and I fight to obtain it - if anything, isn't it one of the most important Human Rights known to mankind?
For now, however, I'll continue to keep on searching, my eyes alert for any chance in circumstances and fighting a battle against powers beyond me. Surely there will be a fairytale ending - and horrid-looking school uniform - at the other side of the tunnel, or is it a battle too far? Perhaps I'll just keep on looking...
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