General Chat

well, I guess Mr Jones found giving us the test questions an easy way to keep us quiet for a little time while he dealt with the others :-D ........... we were a Junior 3/4 class. There were only the 6 of us in Junior 4, but Junior 3 was a big class.

I went to a CofE church school, and the classes were all held in the "school buildings' next to the church, in very large classrooms.

Junior 1 and 2 were in the same huge room, but with separate teachers, Junior 3/4 were in another large room.

We used to go into the assembly room in the next building every morning ......... that was the Senior School. They still had Senior classes in the time that I was there (late 1940s).

I don't know that the "tutoring" did us any good ............. we all reached our own levels later. There were 2 grammar schools in the town, 2 of us went to one and the other two went to the other school. It didn't seem to have too much to do with where we lived in the town, although one school was supposed to the the "east" and one the "west".

Two of us stayed on to A levels and went on to university (myself and one from the other school), the other two got GCEs and then left school, although one struggled. That was basically where we had been throughout junior school.

We weren't coached in the 50's and 60's neither did we have fixed catchment areas.

I had forgotten about the contract and £10 exit fee :-D

My BIL, who is 90 in January, was awarded a scholarship so he could attend the Grammar School. When he turned 14 he was commanded by his Father to leave and find a job.

I agree on all your points, Det! :-D

Why should there be a stigma now for something that happened 40+ years ago?

At the time, we went to the school which offered the best education for our perceived abilities. Although I was offered a place at a Grammar school, I chose to go to a Technical High school.
For students who developed later, there was the option to transfer from a Secondary Modern into year 9 (3rd form).

If you think things are better now, consider the grading system at GCSE. Until this last year when it changed, anything below a grade C automatically eliminated you from a variety of entry level jobs or Post 16 courses.
At least with the CSE & GCE, a young person could be proud of a CSE rather than be brushed aside with a E or F GCSE.

For what it’s worth, I feel it’s totally wrong to coach children for the 11+ or
Kent Test as in our area. They may achieve a ‘Pass’ mark, but would they be able to cope with school expectations?

As a friend who works as the Head’s PA at a Grammar school says - the child may have scored sufficient points, but we just don’t have enough space. Far better to allow natural academic talent to rise than let a coached child struggle.

I don't think that was the case when I was at grammar school. If it was it was waived when they expelled me.

I think we got value for money ................

we knew all about the 11+, were actually tutored in it by our form teacher ........... we did 11+ type questions every day from September until the day we sat them.

We were a small class of only 6, the 4 girls passed the 2 boys did not.

The 11+ was not really a good test of intelligence or whatever you want to call it, but it was all that there was from about the 1930s to the 1960s.

One thing that no-one has mentioned (or maybe it had gone by the time you all got around to it), but if a child passed the 11+ and was offered a place at the grammar school, the parents had to sign a form promising that the child would stay in school until age 16 (ie take the GCEs) OR the parents would pay a £10 penalty if s/he left at 15 (the official school-leaving age in the '50s).

That was a lot of money, as I was continually reminded by my father when I was trying to persuade them to let me leave at 15.

Still, I think the basic idea of the grammar, technical and secondary modern schools was great ................ there was even another exam at 13 which could be taken and allow a child to cross over into the grammar school. That was brought in to help the late developers.


I didn't enjoy sports, was not athletic ..... and was somewhat horrified when the headmistress at the school where I taught was replaced after 2 terms by a "sporty" woman, who insisted that there should be netball and field hockey "tournaments" between the staff and senior girls :-0 :-S

Fortunately she soon dropped the field hockey as not enough staff would volunteer ....... but the netball tourneys continued :-| :-P

Thank heavens I had a very good reason to leave at the end of her 2nd year :-D

Although I passed the 11+ it did nothing to improve my view about school.

I did just enough to keep the teachers off my back and to prevent them writing to my parents. It was skin-of-my-teeth time for me as school and I never hit it off. The best thing about it was the tennis courts both lawn and hard. If they were full after school my friends and I would head for the local park which fortunately had courts too.

I don't know how people say that school years are the best years of your life and those who cried on their last day .... well, I just didn't understand that at all, I'm afraid. It felt like freedom, I can still remember that feeling. :-D

I am sick to the back teeth hearing the old education system was not fit for purpose, it was.

The girls I was at school with were encouraged to nurture their skills and desire to learn subjects outside of the standard curriculum. Hence the expanded choices at year 2,3,and 4. I'll not bore you with some of their achievements.

Lads and girls who went to the tech became teachers, translators, draughtsmen, engineers, planners, designers and everything else between carpenters and Uni lecturers.

The secondary modern pupils (to my certain knowledge) were clerks, S/H typists, retail assistants and many entered FE to gain other qualifications than 'A' levels to become managers in all sectors after some years 'on the ground'.

I honestly cannot recall any unemployed in London in the late 60's through to late 70's. That's when the 'brain drain' began and the brightest were being offered huge sums of money to relocate overseas.

For some children formal education, delivered via any classroom in any class of school, just doesn't suit. You cannot lay problem that at the doors of a particular perceived level of education. They would have either been held back or pushed too hard.

The unhappiest friends were those at private school because their parents wanted value for money :-(

Actually, since the advent of League Tables, some children are told they're not wanted when it comes to GCSE's - as they aren't 'academic' enough - and the Education System has failed them.
This, of course, is not admitted - it's deemed the child's fault :-|

The 11+was never discussed in our house, and as I said before, I wasn't aware I was taking it :-S
So failing it wouldn't have meant anything to me.
I managed to get out of non-academic lessons I didn't like, by doing voluntary work :-D

I suppose they do, but maybe not as decisively as did the 11+.

Often, not passing the 11+ meant you would not have the opportunity to take other exams.

Here's a question then related to "People always seem only too pleased to believe they are not up to standard and this is what the 11+ told them."

Don't all exams tell someone that? Whether it's at 11, or GCSEs ( CSEs or O'levels as they used to be in my day) which tell you whether or not you will get to do the A levels that get you into into the uni of choice.

Doesn't school in general tell you that you are not up to a standard of some sort? I was never up to any standard at sports lol, where it hit my confidence to always be picked last, I probably regained some confidence from my ability in more academic subjects.

I didn't like school, for the above reason, while I would have been happy to do the academic classes all day long ( even maths which didn't thrill me) and had some great teachers in some places, the sports were a waste of time to me, I didn't enjoy any of the team games or gym etc, nor was I ever going to be any good at it despite the label "tries hard" lol.

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Ah, but he can't get it round to be about him maggie.

Sharron started the thread to talk about it.
If you don't like the subject - why don't you just keep away?

Strangely, it's not up to YOU to decide what people can and can't discuss. :-P

I came to bury the 11+ not to defend it.
Same for the rigid and boring education inflicted on so many people.

People always seem only too pleased to believe they are not up to standard and this is what the 11+ told them.

Fred's mate, who is eminently capable of almost anything, has always felt he was not good at anything.We often watch Pointless together and the scope of things they never covered at his secondary school is incredible.I think that song "Baggy Trousers" must have been about the teachers there.

I went to grammar school (the same one as Brucie, since you ask). I hated every minute of it and left at 15 to join the army. My friends who went to the local secondary modern all succeeded in life, and none ever resented me for passing the 11+. Someone spouted some claptrap about "half the economic failure in the UK 1950-1980 can be laid at the door of this stupid exam" earlier. What twaddle! I expect I will now be regaled by said person with some cut and paste article by Noam Chomsky or some other lefty proving me wrong.

I didn't like school either - apart from Mevagissey - where we didn't appear to do any lessons at all - mind you, that still didn't stop me feigning illness, like you, JoyLouise.
Worst school was in Arbroath, I was just 6. In this school, about 3 classes were squashed into 1, the teacher wore a blue overall, and threatened to cut the tongues off anyone who spoke, with the paper guillotine - the big guillotine with the sharp bit that came down with a horrific noise :-(
Our walk to this school involved walking past Walter's dad's pigs - 'Dinnea touch them, or they'll hae yer fingers off', through a field of raspberry canes (scratched my satchel something awful :-( ), then - joy of joys - through a field of Bullocks!!
We had a brolly to hand to open and close/hit them with if they came too close.

However, I was 'saved' from attending this school for too long, as I was carted off from the converted bus we lived in, to Banchory Sanitorium (otherwise known as Glen O' Dee - the place Somerset Maugham wrote about in 'Sanitorium').
I was incarcerated for 6 months, not allowed out of bed, no education, no TV I was force fed when I refused to eat, injection in one buttock in the morning, the other at night - and I think the family moved twice while I was in there!

No-one has been able to tell me why I was there. I've tried to get my records, to no avail.
Ian, aged 11, (in the next room - it had glass walls) was in for TB - as were the two old men with him - but I wasn't. I think it may have been Gastro-enteritis, but it seems a bit of an 'overkill'.

After 6 months, on the morning I was due to leave, I had my first attempt at walking (not very successful, but was forced to try to not fall over on my wasted leg muscles with the threat of a smack!), and my first bath and hair wash since I'd been there.
The bath water was shared - the boy who went in after me peed in the bath and was hit quite violently. This didn't 'encourage' them to empty the bath, and the next child went in....
I had to have my long hair (by now one mass of tangle) cut off to a virtual crewcut as soon as I got out.

However, this stay gave me good ammunition for saying I was 'sick' to avoid school, in the future - and, I could genuinely vomit 'at will' in the morning :-D :-D :-D

I think all children probably love to learn, I know I did and still do, but school does it's damnedest to turn you off it.

FIrst year infant class wasn't bad but after that ... Yuk. I was Mary in the third year infants' Christmas play and I think it was only because I had what was deemed by them as a posh voice. I lost it pretty quickly. Whether it was to spite everyone because I just didn't want to be there, I have no idea.

I went through the rest of school hating it with a passion ... feigning sore throats (which always worked with Mum) or simply wagging it. I was never bullied or anything like that; I just felt totally restricted I must have been a nightmare for everyone.

I admit, even when I was sitting 'unlearning' in the classroom, plenty of info got through because I surprise others and myself sometimes. :-D :-D :-D

I never, ever told my children or grandchildren how much I hated school - probably didn't want the worry that I must have caused my parents.