It is Speech Day season at Secondary school level so there will be much excitement, anticipation, celebration and recognition in the air. There will also be much razzmatazz, ululating, cheering and clapping. We will hear accounts of incredible achievements, proud moments, sterling efforts and we will be inspired by a successful speaker (ideally a former pupil) urging us to follow in their footsteps and do great things. And we will come away thinking “What an amazing school!” The thing is this: go to any school’s Speech Day and you will hear the same message – they are all the best! Surprise!

Rather than just go to any school’s Speech Day, go to every school’s Speech Day and you will see a pattern and fall into a trap. Each school will be selective in how they wish to be rated or judged; they will naturally put their best foot forward, their claim to fame through the achievements in the academic, sporting and cultural fields. They will persuade us that they are the best because they had so many A*s, so many Top in the World or in Zimbabwe in the Cambridge examinations; they will reel off the number of pupils who have gained Zimbabwe Colours (not mentioning how many of them were ‘bought’ with scholarships) in so many different sports; they will proudly mention the Honours in Allied Arts competitions, the many compliments from parents and visitors, the exotic tours and exciting trips.

The thing is, though, that much of those ratings are grating – they become irritating, annoying, scraping or unpleasant to your feelings, mainly because they have echoes of what the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, said: “Being powerful [and for ‘powerful’ read ‘successful’] is like being a lady: if you have to say you are, you are not”. Or in the words of another powerful lady (this writer calls her ‘powerful’; she does not), the mother of Hamlet in the Shakespeare play ‘Hamlet’, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”. Oh, yes, we may be protesting our excellence too much.

There is no question that there are incredible achievements; all schools have them, by the way, but it is still fair enough to celebrate them. However, we should not rate or judge a school by them. It is what is happening at the other end and how we treat such that is more revealing and determining.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist, allegedly said that “A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals” so perhaps we should apply the same test to schools; a school should be rated not by how it treats its outstanding pupils but by how it treats its troublemakers and regular thorns in the flesh – the latecomers or the absentees, the slow or slovenly, the bullies or backstabbers, the shirkers or the shriekers, the scruffy or the scroungy. How are they treated? Are they despised and dismissed? Are they berated and belittled? Or are they encouraged and strengthened? Are they counselled and equipped? Are they heard or hurt?

Equally, we may also look to follow a similar quote, widely attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, that says that “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members”. He is saying that a community’s strength relies on protecting those who lack power, voice, or resources. We praise and honour the mighty, valiant, successful pupils but what about those who struggle academically, sportingly, culturally, socially? What about the loners? The bullied? The misfits? How do we treat them? Do staff and fellow pupils look down on those in slower streams? Do we prize some sports more highly than others?

Instead of asking what the school’s Pass Rate is, we should perhaps rather be wondering what its heart rate is – how the school cares for the welfare of all the children. The Chief of the Australian Army, Lieutenant-General David Morrison, put it slightly differently in the wake of a scandal in the army when he said that “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” We are always quick to mention the good and great things, but do we just ignore the unacceptable behaviour and hope that no-one notices or mentions it? Do we say there is no drug problem, for example?

It is often said that we should not judge a book by its cover so we might be tempted to say we should not rate a school by its Speech Day. But Speech Days will tell you a great deal about each school, more so by what it does not celebrate. Go for that walk – not onto the stage but behind the sheds.