Hey,
So every year at my school we have this really rather dull PSHCE day. The actual objective of this day is to try and assertain what career you want to aim for, to help you write CVs… and to play boring board games in a room full of people that don’t want to be there – teacher included. It was like this every year since I first started at the Academy!
However, as I am now in sixth form I was off timetable. We had our own roles and goals for the day than the rest of the school.
My timetable was fairly simple really: Turn up, go to assembly and have a girls only revision session, break, have a guest speaker, ‘This Girl Can’, Lunch and then a session on healthy relationships. If you can’t tell, it was a very gender segregated day.
The start to the day wasn’t the most pleasant. People within my household seemed to find reason after reason to scream and yell at each other from the moment we all woke up. This then put everyone in an even worse mood. Eventually I arrived at school (ridiculously early as always) and sat and read my book for a bit until my friends arrived.
Eventually we were all led through to the theatre and were subjected to a rather dull assembly. It was full of ‘motivational’ quotes and animal pictures that were meant to be relatable but nobody seemed to find it that way. The girls and boys were then separated from this point, where I was led to a room where I could partake in fifty minutes of revision. However, this didn’t go too well as one of my friends kept disrupting me everytime I tried to work. I eventually gave up and chatted with them.
After break, we had a guest speaker come in and talk to us about apprenticeships in engineering, graphic art and mechanics – something nobody in our sixth form was interested in. The girls and boys were also in the same room again. This led to the poor woman giving the talk trying to engage us through a series of ‘games’ such as would you rather that very few partook in. I felt rather sorry for her really.
However after this talk the guys remained in the theatre whereas girls took part in ‘this girl can’. For those who don’t know what this is, it’s an initiative my sixth form is running to try and get girls to engage more in exercise. But by making it fun. This session was set up as a circuit. We had to pick partner. While one partner was doing the exercise, the other had to run outside all the circuits until the time was up, then swap over. This went on for easily half an hour. I have to say, as fun as it was my thighs felt like jelly by the end of it! I definitely needed the drink I went and got after the session. Everyone that arrived seemed to find it fun too which created a rather happy atmosphere.
After lunch, we then had a session on healthy relationships. This talk was led by Ms Scott, well known for her red lipstick, heels and feminist attitude. I knew as soon as she said ‘it’s not a sex talk… but it’s a sex talk’ that the session was going to be interesting. We learnt about Freud’s theories on men and women, that women in the early nineteenth century used to sit in circles on chairs with mirrors and look at their… areas (we were then encouraged to do this too), we had some sheets to fill in about rape scenarios, we talked about what makes a healthy relationship, what consent truly means… and we talked about feminism. In great detail. I mean, I was already a feminist but this discussion easily went on for over twenty minutes about what it means to be a feminist. The talk was then deemed ‘traumatizing’ by Ms Scott just so we could all go home twenty minutes earlier than everyone else. That was actually pretty cool of her.
So, in the end the ‘dreaded PSHCE day’ wasn’t actually that bad. Sure, the assembly was kind of boring and my thighs STILL hurt, 48 hours later but it was fairly fun.
Also, as I am sure you are all very aware, tomorrow is Valentines day. Our school ran a charity even where you can pay £1.50 and send a rose to someone else. The money then went to a children’s charity. A lot of my younger friends had just gotten out of bad relationships so I spent about £6 buying roses for them all just to get a smile out of them. They all seemed to appreciate it. I even got a rose back from my ‘Wife’ whom is also called Megan! That made my day to be honest.
I also won an award! I have won an award for being ‘student of year 12’. This basically means that I am a pupil that (apparently) stood out to the teachers and made a positive contribution in some way. I’ll be honest, I was completely surprised as I didn’t feel I made any sort of impact to the sixth form.
Now we’ve broken up for half term, I have just over a week to take a break but also to try and get at least an hours worth of work done each day. It should be fairly easy as I have next to no plans for this next half term. In fact, all my plans are after the break such as getting my hair recut and going to a meet up! How typical.
Until next time,
Megan Stapleton
thatstrangegirlsblog 