Aspirations and Expectations

Jamie Renton: Low Assumptions


Jamie was born in 1962 in London. He attended a local special school until the age of eleven when he moved to a mainstream Jewish private boarding school in Oxfordshire. From age sixteen he attended a local college, continuing on to university.

Here Jamie describes attitudes about achievement within his school.

https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/low-assumptions.mp3

Transcript

I mean the assumption was that you wouldn’t achieve anything academically, there was no point in trying to achieve anything academically. Certainly the assumption was you weren’t going to go and do GCSEs or O levels as they were then, or the old CSE’s either, you know, you shouldn’t aspire. Maybe you’d get one in, I don’t know, cookery or whatever it was, woodwork or something like that, God knows, I mean woodwork was never a good idea, but there you go. And you – so you sort of, you know, you kind of – and I think, you know, it was an environment where you learned to become disabled.

Explore more

Explore stories by theme or view the timeline of significant events in education for disabled people

A selection of other stories...