“Remember, remember, The fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and plot.
I know no reason Why Gunpowder and Treason
Should ever be forgot.”
No one could collect assorted screws and nails like my father. We’d be working together on a DIY project and my father would be carefully organising and safely keeping screws and nails so that we could reuse them. I’d say, don’t worry Dad, I’ve got a thousand new nails and screws, just take one of those. But he’d say, no son. You keep those for what you need. My father always tried to reuse materials because he hated waste; he hated to think that time was wasted or that he had wasted an opportunity.
I do not think anyone knows who wrote the poem Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot which you may well have heard recited last month, just as you may well have heard or seen fireworks. Hindu families celebrated Diwali, and the festival of lights often includes fireworks but, for some, the weekend nearest to November 5th was an opportunity to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. The gunpowder plot was a plan by a small group of young Roman Catholic extremists to blow up the House of Lords, together with King James I and the entire Protestant government during the opening of Parliament on 5th November 1605. Roman Catholics at that time were persecuted for their faith, and hoped that the Gunpowder Plot would trigger a change in regime to allow them the freedom to practise their religion. The plot was thwarted, Guy Fawkes was captured and the others in the group fled – including Robert Catesby who returned to Coughton Court, the stately home not too far away in Worcestershire.
But why is it that so many of us remember the poem, Gunpowder Treason and Plot; why is it so familiar to us when we hear it spoken on the radio or on TV at that time of year? Some things seem to stick in our minds without effort whilst others are so hard to commit to memory.
As we know, GCSEs and A levels test our knowledge and understanding in the subjects we have chosen. The approach will vary from subject to subject but every Year 11 and Year 13 student will be studying for assessments that will, when they come, test, whether we can recall and apply what we have learnt through the course, regardless of whether we will continue to use that knowledge in whatever we choose to do next. Also, we will each be finding ways of studying, including committing facts to memory, that work most effectively for us.
I hope that through our education here at HGS, we learn how we learn best, as well as learning which subjects best play to our strengths. Some of us hear material time and again and it sticks in our memory – rather like the gunpowder treason and plot poem; we might devise mnemonics of the kind Roman Men Invented Very Unusual Xray Guns or TV MANS RED PRAM (hopefully those two examples might mean something in a science and languages context). We might find that colourful diagrams of very condensed summaries are helpful and most of us find that drafting essay plans or tackling past questions test whether we can apply our knowledge. The more time that we put into our work, the more we grapple with challenging topics, learn from mistakes and particularly engage with feedback, the better we will grasp the material and develop a secure, lasting understanding. But, occasionally, however hard we try and having tried all the various approaches, it doesn’t seem to stick. What should we do then?
I hope the answer is that we keep going, but seek help and advice – particularly given that we have teachers who have seen student after student succeed. We might well seek those teachers out at the end of a lesson, or at lunchtime or go along to a support session. Hearing pearls of wisdom from a member of staff might sometimes make everything clear or it might well be that they suggest that we try working in a slightly different way – a way that works a bit better for us.
So, as we move towards the end of term and this year, having had our first set of Progress grades, all of us will have an idea, I hope, of where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Many of us are performing really well, others will simply need to work harder and more carefully…but there will be some who are doing their absolute best and the results are not yet coming. If that is you, keep going; don’t give up and do be prepared to try a different approach. Use all the resources at your disposal including the help of your teachers who do of course want you to fulfil your potential and remember that we don’t all work in the same way – but we do need to find the way that works for us.
Stay well and safe.
Be kind to yourself and others.
Best wishes,
Dr Bird
