Primary importance

THE headteacher of the Dover. Boys'. Grammar School has paid tribute to the work of the primary schools in the area.
    Neil Slater was speaking at the school's guest evening.
    The boys come here for seven years. Hardly any now leave before that time is up," said Mr Slater.

    "The years before they arrive here must not be forgotten. I am always conscious as a secondary teacher of how much depends on the groundwork laid in primary schools.

    "In recognising the good work of the teachers who have brought these boys up to their present levels of success I include those primary teachers who got them in here in the first place, and who gave them their chance to benefit from what we offer."

    On the latest situation over the plans to merge the two grammar schools Mr Slater said his school's governors had now set up a working party to study the future of the school.

    "They will look at the merger issue and any related matters, but they will also be looking into the implications of continuing as a separate Kent boys grammar school as well as the possibi1ity of going grant maintained."

    The main guest, who presented the prizes, was John Russell Taylor, who was a pupil at the school and left with an open exhibition to Cambridge.
    He then studied at the Courtauld Institute and followed a distinguished career in journalism as a film and TV critic and is well known as the long standing art critic of The Times.

    Prizewinners were: Whitehouse memorial prize for RE, Matthew Wilkinson; Martin Broom memorial prize for special endeavour, Richard McPherson; Rookwood prize for drama, Andrew Champion and Keith Goodwin; Old Boys' Cadet Prize, David Goodacre; Robert Michael Brown Prize for RAF Cadets, Anthony Downing; Jubilee prize for endeavour, Gary Dixon and Edwin Hollingsbee; Staff prize, Stephen Cleverley and James Watson.

    Headmaster's Prize, Stephen Burns; Dubris Award, Andrew Champion and Kevin Holdstock; Town Mayor of Dover's prize for Good Fellowship, Andrew Champion; Arnold Shield, James Flack; Ian Wallace Bird Cup for outstanding service to school sport, Simon Gretton; House Challenge Shield, Channel House.
    Upper School, John Tomlinson Memorial Prize for maths and the Pfizer prize for maths, Andrew Champion, Kevin Holdstock and Jonathan Swift; Pfizer prizes for physics and chemistry, Stephen Cleverlay, Pfizer prize for biology, Ian Goddard; computer science, John Swift; English literature and French, James Watson; Spanish, Richard McPherson; German, Anthony Cole.
    Clatworthy prize for classics, Stephen Burns and Andrew Dale; art, Paul Tallow; senior music prize, Ian Goddard and Richard McPherson; Bulow music prize, James Pitchford; history, John Revell.
    Middle school, Roy Sutton memorial prize for English and the Thomas memorial prize for chemistry, Daniel McCann; Patrick Elworthy memorial prize for French, Simon Redfern; German, Anthony Perkins and Stuart Allison; Tunnel memorial prize for history, Steven Riley; geography, Stephen Durrant; art, Thomas Wharton.
    Sidney Clout music prize, Mark Scales and Matthew Wilkinson; Frederick Ashman memorial prize for maths and the physics prize, Anthony Spicer; biology, Matthew Wilkinson; Alec Coveney memorial prize. for design technology, Mark Tredgett; Lewis Robert Kennedy memorial prize for design technology, Robert Maynard; certificate for outstanding service to music, Peter Butcher and Tom Marchand.

    Dover girls' grammar headteacher Dr Roger Thurling has attacked the school's details in the exam league tables as inaccurate and misleading.

    He has written to parents expressing his concern that the Department for Education ignored corrections which were submitted to the original draft.
    The official figures for the girls' school are 85 per cent for GCSE A-C passes and 14.8 average A-level score, But Dr Thurling says these are wrong.
    "In our view the correct common sense figures for our girls should be 94 per cent and 15.1," he said.
    "The department's calculations completely ignore the school year in which a pupil is taught and consider only her age.

    "In our case, we had girls of GCSE age both in year 10 and in the lower sixth, one of them visiting the school from Germany for one term only.

    "These girls are counted as having achieved no GCSEs at the end of the year. Of course they didn't. They weren't taking GCSEs at all."