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Private Notes
A social experiment which sends 30 16-year-olds back in time to a Sixties-style state school, to learn the practical skills that used to be taught in state schools. The comparisons they make will help fuel the debate about British children's education over the past 50 years.
The boys prove adept at car maintenance, giving them a massive confidence boost, but the girls find being trained as housewives far less appealing, managing to strip the paint from the walls while learning to clean a house. A spelling test and an outbreak of constipation spread panic through the school, but Matron is on hand to put things to rights in time for Guides and Scouts.
The class face their mock CSEs in English and maths, which will determine who is selected for a bright future of academic study, and who goes into a life of manual labour. The girls' culinary skills are put to the test when they prepare a meal for the headmaster, while Andrew Brown is sentenced to a bout of dung-shovelling for answering back to Matron.
The school holds an open day so the parents can see what their children have learned - including a display of gymnastics and maypole dancing. The boys' competitive side comes to the fore as they enter wrestling matches and learn to drive, while the girls find themselves stuck in the kitchen. However, the end is almost in sight as the final exams loom on the horizon.
The students revise for their exams, with those who passed their mocks facing CSEs in English and Maths and those who failed undertaking bricklaying and typing. But before the test, they are packed off to scout and guide camp, where the girls finally throw off the sexist shackles of the period and declare all-out war on the boys. Back at school, there are some pleasant surprises when the results are announced, while an IQ test also reveals some unexpected findings. Last in series.
