Everybody gets an education but do some people deserve one?

I am the government's latest weapon. I am a member of the SAS. No not the SAS I'm currently partaking in the student associates scheme, the government's latest way to encourage kids to stay on post-16. They hope by having university students in the class room that we can lead by example to encourage students to stay in education after GCSEs.

I currently work at Bristol Metropolitan Academy. As a district central Bristol has the lowest GCSE scores in the country, far from the average of around 55% of students who achieve 5 A*- C grades nationally.

I was introduced today to the lowest achieving troublesome students, so much so that they are taken off site for special activites 2-5 days of the week. I have to admit I wasn't expecting big things but I was pleasantly suprised. Yes there was the play fights, the running outside in the rain and climbing onto the building's roof but the kids responded well to 1-on-1 tuition and proved that it was just attention they needed. One kid who I worked with suprised me with his attitude especially towards the others kid's playfighting and his general perception of drugs.

In the afternoon i was placed back into school and suffered the worst kind of abuse from a student. Her lack of respect for me was truely shocking and according to her classmates was the norm for this girl. It made me wonder when there are kids struggling, crying out for attention, who are willing to work hard if you have the patience, then why do other more intelligent students with a complete lack of respect for staff and surrounding gain that attention despite their obvious discontent?

Hopefully which ever government takes over smaller class sizes must become a priority as it seems all kids need to make them achieve is some attention.