Chalkface: September Start

This week, the ‘schools went back’. Educational facilities obviously go nowhere, but they typically re-opened their doors to staff on Monday and Tuesday and then to pupils yesterday. As I was sitting at my laptop writing this yesterday morning at 7.45am, I saw various uniformed young people walk past my study window to begin a new term of teaching and learning, and I was glad that I was not among them (as a pupil or a teacher).

The first few weeks back at school were usually quite good. Classes were quite enthusiastic and the older pupils one was teaching for GCSE and A-level were generally pleased to see their tutors again. Memories of the previous year’s poor behaviour were conveniently wiped and fresh starts and resolutions to improve were still occupying little minds. The naughtier children of new classes were keeping a lid on their baser instincts, merely hinting at the coming months’ misbehaviour by excessive friendliness and unusual degrees of confidence. The weather, though currently dull, was still mild and the days quite long. Colleagues whom one had not seen for six weeks were regaling us with stories of holidays and family updates. All very interesting. September was a nice month to be a teacher.

Though I have few regrets about giving up my teaching post and concentrating on the work at Salem Chapel, I still have a love for this ninth month of the calendar. Whether it is because September, like May, is not officially part of summer so any bad weather can be more readily forgiven and its good weather deemed a wonderful bonus, I do not know. It might just be that my teacher-mindset has not yet left me. Yet why must schools begin in September? Would not January be more appropriate?

The Education Act of 1880 made school attendance compulsory for children aged 5-10, with September as the start of the academic year. This roughly corresponded with the end of the harvest season when children could attend school without absenting themselves for the sake of the farm. I tend to associate harvest with September rather than August, which would mean that an October date would have been better for the schools’ start, but that might have meant the Christmas break came to soon, leaving the first term too short.

Although it was important that the harvest be gathered and the winter food supply safely stored, teaching children to read and write, while offering an elementary knowledge of history, geography, science and scripture was thought more important in the long term. There would have been several farmers who resented the loss of their cheapest labourers from the September of 1881, but the nation became stronger as a result. The USA and the German Empire were beginning to overtake the United Kingdom economically, and a better educated, socially advancing workforce was a counter measure to this.

Like Victorian children, the individual Christian’s mission is two-fold: to reap the harvest and to improve his own knowledge of God and His ways. It is important that we share our faith with others, and that we grow in grace ourselves. Let us not do one at the expense of the other, for both are vital. This September, go and share and go and learn.

...but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. 2 Peter 3:18