11+

I'm from a poor area where there was a super-selective grammar school system.All of my parents' siblings passed the 11+. A grammar school education was the only way to improve your life in those days.

I passed too, but the school turned comprehensive while I was there. I did ok, went to university etc. However I do not believe my rather strict, rigorous education based on a narrow definition of "ability" is a patch on my dd' s state school education. She may simply have been lucky, but I feel the teaching is better, pupils are better-rounded and there are more opportunities for achievement both at school and extracurricularly (if that's a word)!.

I think the days of the Grammar School are over, and rightly so. Neither do I believe that state schools, in the main, are the awful places that they are made out to be.

J52, children who failed at 11+ were given the chance to retake at 13, my brother-in-law was one of the 13+ intakes and succeeded brilliantly in life.

It really comes down to teachers, a good teacher can instill a sense of achievement and pride in most children providing they have the support of a good set of Governors, a good Head and parents. This should be available in all levels of education, are we doing enough in training teachers?

And Anniebach if there were more Grammar schools then wealth of parents would be irrelevant, it's only because there are so few of them that they parents feel they have to pay for extra tutoring to give there children a chance at the few places available. And what does it say about primary education if it's necessary for extra tutoring to pass an 11+?

The selective system in the 30 or so years when it worked as the 1944 Act intended was very different from what we have now. It is true that the 11+ was a blunt instrument and many children no doubt ended up in the 'wrong' school for their interests and abilities. But it wasn't about fairness to the individual, it was about producing workers with the right kind of skills for the nation.

I am totally opposed to selecting children at the age of 11. Some are already at puberty and some are still very young and I read ages ago that children are mentally the age they are physically. If that is so then an advantage is given to some which has nothing to do with their intelligence.

At 11 I lived in an area where only about 5% of girls could get a grammar school place but about 20% of boys could. How is that fair? When I moved to another area 25% of children could go. Labelling children in this way was totally unfair and discriminatory.

In my opinion good comprehensive schools are better for all children. They can be streamed according to ability and possibly in different streams for different subjects. If there is an opportunity to be moved up or down a stream as necessary all children, of whatever ability, can get the best education for themselves regardless of external influences.

Life is not fair but we should do our best to make it as fair as we can.

Another thought; in the past one university entry requirement was O level Latin for some subjects and French for others.

This was another barrier to pupils from Secondary modern schools who wanted go onto further education, if their school did not teach the subjects.

At least now pupils can choose from a wide range of subjects, regardless of their ability.

x

I didn't pass 11+ and spent four years at a secondary modern, leaving in 1961. I went to a technical college and got GCEs and became a nurse. Many of my peers became teachers and civil servants, only one of our year ended up working in a factory and that was office work not shop floor.
You can't allow children just to study things they are interested in or good at, they need lots of skills to work. A mother I know says she just wants her children to be happy and is not interested in ensuring they get a rounded education

A tailored education to encompass all abilities was the original idea of comprehensive education.

I passed my 11+, all those years ago, but What about the poor souls who missed it by 1 or 2 marks?

They were considered and no doubt felt, failures and went on to a Secondary Modern school and left at 15.

What opportunities did they have? I know that some pupils did transfer to Grammar schools later.

x

Yes first class is the birthright of all children but in this country it means dependant on the wealth of parents

I was from a poor East End background and passed my 11+ to go to Grammar School, my brother passed but chose the Technical College. My school gave me a good education suitable to my needs and abilities as did the Technical College for my brother. I think what we have lost sight of is that Grammar Schools focused on Academic Studies whilst the Secondary Modern focused on more trade based education, e.g. working with your hands and the Technical Colleges speak for themselves.

The unfortunate outcome of a Comprehensive Education is that all children are lumped together whatever their inclinations and abilities are; the less academic are forced to study subjects that they don't want to instead of concentrating on what they are good at and can make a good living at and as a consequence often cause disruption in class making it more difficult for the more academically minded to progress in their own field.

First class education is a birthright for all children but it should be tailored to their abilities and needs, not a one size fits all approach.

The political journalist, John Harris, said:

"....... in a society as unequal as ours, if you carve up schools into one group held up to be excellent, and another acknowledged to be not nearly as good, the wealthy will tend to stampede towards the former, while the less well-off get the scraps – and inequality will either be perpetuated, or made worse."

What a blinkered view this is, it's not that a particular type of school is excellent whilst others are less so, it's simply that one provides a certain style of education whilst others provide from a different standpoint, it's the quality of the teaching that counts regardless of whether it's in maths, English, Foreign languages, motor mechanics, computer science, drama, cooking or anything else. It's time to ensure that our children and our children's children all had equal opportunity in the fields that suit them and not lump them all together as equal in abilities. I consider my English standards ok, but give me a spanner and I'm lost, I can add up and do simple maths but ask me to write a computer programmer and my eyes will glaze over.

It's time to get real and do what's really best for our kids!!!

Against the 11+, tutoring, prep schools give an advantage , number of places available , if 30 places and fifty are above the pass mark ! And so wrong the government can sneak in these schools by calling a school ten miles away an annex of a comp.

My grandchildren , three schooled at the comp, eldest went to university had 1st in economics , second child started at university this September , third just starting her two year A level course, she had 11 GCSE passes .

Put the money into improving comps not into selective schooling

I took the 11 plus but ended up at a central school which was in between a secondary modern and a grammar. I can't spell so that didn't help. Also they thought I was too shy to take the interview to see if I was good enough for the grammar school. I ended up as a Health Visiter, so not so shy. Also when I look at my fellow class mates, now retired, there are lots of engineers and teachers including head teachers plus lots of nurses I was very happy in my school so glad I didn't take the interview.

I live in an area with grammar schools and the problem is that they cream of the most academic so the comprehensive is not really comprehensive.

J52 Spot on those weres my thoughts exactly.

nanapug I totally disagree with your point. There are excellent comprehensive schools that don't put children through the trauma of failing this or that exam. With a comprehensive system children can find their own level not be subjected to one test at 11.

To claim they will go in different career directions because of this is just not valid.
If children are offered what was, certainly in my time, considered to be a "lesser system".
Your remark, A grammar school will probably lead them in a different direction to a comprehensive school however good the comprehensive is. has now defined your view is that comprehensive schools are a lesser system.
The child and families feeling that you have been written off academically by failure at 11 yrs old might well become a self fullfilling prophecy.

The main career differences may have something to do with predudices by universities towards comprehensive schools and possibly beneficial "old boy networks" between schools and particular universities.

if we hadn't passed we would have joined the great unemployed of those days
That's a very sweeping statement aggie I don't know what you call "those days" I went to a Secondary Modern in 1965 I and several of my class mates went on to very good jobs. One that springs to mind is head teacher. Even if you think of S. M. schools as 'factory fodder' those jobs were available when I left school.

I passed the 11+ and so did my siblings , I went on to third level , even though it was a struggle . My Brother got expelled twice and my next sister dropped out at 14 . Youngest went on to teaching . If we hadn't passed we would have joined the great unemployed of those days

J52 thanks for pointing out that passing the 11plus is an indicator of how many Grammar school places are available in any area, rather than an indication of ability in the children who passed.

Our town was one of the first to move to an entirely comprehensive system and local schools continue to offer excellent opportunities to our children. As has been said so many times when this issue arises on the forum, we need excellent schools for all our children, not some kind of elitist, separatist nonsense.

The link is interesting, thanks.

Passing the 11 + is not an indication of ability, it is an indication of how many Grammar school places there are.

There is no point in allowing 50 pupils to pass at 60% if there are only 30 places in the local Grammar school ( possibly only one for miles).

x

see here for eleven myths of 11+

Abolishing 11+ is one of the things that would get me out on the street with a banner!

I agree with you Iam64.
I utterly loathe the system- am appalled that a Kent grammar school is being allowed to have an annex and would get rid of all grammar schools tomorrow if I could.
Money gets you a place these days. Good luck to OP grandchildren but it isn't a level playing field - some of those children will have been drilled in technique for months- if not longer.

I was from a very poor working class family, passed my 11+ and went to Grammar School as did my younger brother. I went to university thanks to grants in those days and my brother started work as a lab technician in a university after A Levels. My next brother and sister went to a Secondary Modern and the two youngest to the same school which by then was a comprehensive. One of them went on to get a degree. All of us got reasonable jobs and now own our own homes (except one brother in a council house as he stopped work for a few years to care for my parents in that house)

I must admit that I (and a couple of others) felt like the poor relation at Grammar School. Even buying the uniform was a struggle for my parents. As a result I think that they should be totally abolished so that comprehensive schools can be truly comprehensive without the top levels of ability being creamed off.

It is not only some people on the left who do not support grammar schools and feel that an extension of the grammar school system would be a retrograde step. Paul Goodman, the editor of Conservative Home, made a summary of the case against them:

"Grammar schools are bad for social mobility. This is essentially the case put by David Willetts [Conservative] in his wave-making speech on opportunity during the last Parliament. “The chances of a child from a poor background getting to a grammar school in those parts of the country where they do survive are shockingly low,” Willetts said ....

"Grammar schools did little for social mobility in the first place. According to Natasha Porter and Jonathan Simons of Policy Exchange, only 0.3 per cent of pupils who left grammar schools with two A-levels during the post-war period were from the unskilled working class."

There are obviously individual cases where children succeed despite their background but the statistics show that admissions to grammar schools overwhelmingly consist of children from better off homes. As some posters have mentioned, part of the reason is that better off parents can afford to give their children a head start with prep schools, tuition and other extra-curricular activities that are beyond the reach of low paid families.

The political journalist, John Harris, said:

"....... in a society as unequal as ours, if you carve up schools into one group held up to be excellent, and another acknowledged to be not nearly as good, the wealthy will tend to stampede towards the former, while the less well-off get the scraps – and inequality will either be perpetuated, or made worse."

must say I agree- but surely it is totally unfair that some counties still do, and most do not.

The 11 plus remains one of the few things that raises my irritation and possibly blood pressure. I loathe it with a passion and I wish it didn't exist anywhere

Same in Surrey Mamie- kids pushed pushed and privately tutored to the hilt- sad. So glad our went to a Comprehensive (and did very well out of it).

The 11+ exists where my daughter lives and the children are heavily tutored, some from Year 3. It is the general opinion that tutoring is essential even for the brightest and many children go to independent prep schools where the focus is on getting them through the exam. I can't remember the exact proportion of children on free school meals but it is very, very small.