11+

There was a film (made by Kotex?) which our embarrassed science teacher had to show us because presumably he was the only teacher who knew how to use the projector. It told us about menstruation, but nothing about what that had to do with sex! I learnt about periods when our boxer bitch came into heat for the first time and we were besieged by boy dogs.

I think you and many others have totally misunderstood what I was saying nelliemoser. I worded my thread very carefully as no way am I against comprehensives as we have excellent ones which I would be more than happy for them to go to. I was merely stating my thoughts about the fact that their direction and choices in life could be different as there are differing attitudes and possibilities at the two types of school. As it happens both my grandchildren did actually pass their 11 plus yesterday, (and neither of them were tutored for it) and one of the major choices my grand daughter needs to make now is which grammar school to choose. If she chooses one she will be encouraged to do more music (which she would love) as that is something that that school offers more than the other one which is more science based. The boy has to make the decision to choose a grammar school that does more sport versus one that is also more science based. This proves what I was trying (maybe not as well as I could) to say that whatever school they go to their direction in life could be influenced.

We had 'the birds and the bees' lesson taught by our gym teacher, an unmarried, grumpy woman who particularly disliked girls. We were 13 and had been waiting for several weeks for this lesson as the rumour was it was 'sex education'. Miss was embarrassed from the outset and proceeded to show diagrams of pollination of plants. She made a couple of references to birds and bees and that was it.
My mum did tell me about periods but the sex advice was to repeat what her mum told her. Don't let boys 'go down there' because they won't be able to stop. Stop what we wondered…..

That wasn't until the Fourth Year, though - or was it the Fifth?

We did have a grainy black and white film shown in the school hall at my all-girls grammar school, supposedly about 'reproduction'.

Apart from the clips of a wedding day and the voiceover 'when a man and a woman love each other very much...' the rest consisted of diagrams of the male and female reproductive systems and only a very vague explanation as to how the sperm actually got into the woman's body!

I think the final bit was a woman sitting up in a hospital bed holding a baby, with doting father looking down at them rather sheepishly

Whitehaven and annodomini......same school then.

I don't think schools should allow parents to choose to remove children from sex education sessions.The subject needs properly prepared staff to deal with it.
I have no idea what happens and whether or not this would take place in single sex sessions. I can't help feeling it would be better to start off these sessions in single sex groups as early teens are often very shy about this, particularly if you had parents like mine.

Such sessions could be taught by properly prepared staff from the local young peoples health and support services.

My parents never have me any chat either can't remember how I learnt. Must have been on the job as it were!

Oh yes, pollination! I thought our science teacher seemed a bit embarrassed!

Oh yes we saw that film - nothing about sex though just periods if I remember correctly

Non existent in London in 1960s . It did seem only plants had sex. We did see a film about Mary not going swimming all done in the dark with a film reel........No discussion girls!!!!

Sex? In the Scotland of the 1950s? Don't make me laugh!

I appreciate we are getting a bit off topic here but...... my mum is/was so prudish that there was no way she was ever going to tell me anything herself, so it seemed really stupid for her to ban me from the sex education lessons. I was a bit of a laughing stock too as you can imagine.

gillybob

DM was truly embarrassed to talk about anything too, as was our biology teacher.

I had no sex education at all rosequartz although my classmates did. My mum and dad wrote a letter forbidding me to take part in "that" lesson saying that they wanted to tell me themselves when the time came. They never did and I learned all I needed to know behind the garages at the other side of the estate where I lived.

Do you think the problems encountered in some comprehensives are simply because they are too big?

gillybob
Mine was a single sex grammar school and very stuffy about teaching sex education, in fact taught hardly anything at all.
Which is perhaps why I didn't manage to get pregnant until I was 28

I can't believe we are still having this argument. I thought selection at 11 purely on the basis of if you had a good day and managed to do better in some random tests than the rest of your year group had been well and truly sunk. How can anyone think that someone who scores 49% in a test is less academic than someone who scores 50%? Selection at 11 discriminates against late developers, children with specific disabilities such as dyslexia, clever children from poor backgrounds and many others. Of course ability should be encouraged and developed and streaming in comprehensive schools does this. So a child may be in a top set for maths because they are really able but in a lower set for literacy because they are dyslexic. Lets continue to strive for good levels of education for all children and not for a privileged few. Oh and I did go to a grammar school, passed my 11 plus and all, but I had very pushy working class parents who believed passionately in education and made me practise tests before hand. I have no doubt that there were brighter children in my primary school who failed because they weren't pushed.

In the whole thread I see no mention of Technical Schools. When I took my 11+ you either went to S.M. or you passed for the Technical School or the Grammar. All of which were single sex. By the time I reached 6th form the huge new comprehensive opened this school amalgamated the two S.M., two Tech, and most of the Grammar pupils I spent my last year of school in "the zoo" as it was known locally. You were only entered for the 11+ if your parents could afford the train fare. You couldn't get a travel pass as you were going there by choice.

Did anyone else have Technical schools in their area ?

Just interested to see the new grammar school extension is in Sevenoaks. It was hardly a town with too many problems in 1975; I did teach there for 2 years after several years in the East End. It was a different world.

I think the days of grammar schools have gone. Went to one myself and must say it wasn't perfect by any means.

Looking at all the replies and comments it leads me to believe that there is no easy answer, without a doubt it's teachers who provide the excellence regardless of the type of school they teach in, if a teacher is good it will make a difference.

To go off on a slightly different tack did anyone watch the documentaries where pupils from a private school went to a comprehensive for a week and vice versa, the thing that struck me was the head of the comprehensive was quite on the defensive about state education versus private at the beginning yet by the end of the experiment she could see benefits in the way the private system worked. most markedly, it seems, in the way that private schools encourage self belief and confidence in its pupils.

This argument could go on for a long time methinks!

Mine was a single sex grammar school rosequartz which is why I probably ended up pregnant at 17

ps I should add that both the grammars and the secondary moderns in our town were single sex schools.

Now - does that make a difference, do you think?

aggie I don't agree. I don't think there were many unemployed in 'those days' for a start.
I did go to a grammar school, but lots of my friends from primary went to the local secondary modern and did very well indeed in their careers.
Some people are just later developers, or just missed passing the 11+ by perhaps a point.

Not many people went on to university in those days- about 5% of girls I believe - and many of us from both the grammar school and the secondary modern school ended up at the same technical college anyway, for A levels and other courses.

I passed my 11+ and went to grammar school in 1973. A waste of a good education though as I wasn't encouraged to stay on and do A levels I was encouraged to get a job. Pregnant at 17 a mother at 18. My own fault.