Girls grammars in the 60s (and beyond)

Magenta8

welbeck

I supposè non grammar school types are only allowed in to this discussion if they sit at the back quietly with raffia.

I am a non grammar school type so perhaps I should have known my place and kept quiet.

Magenta, you’d be welcibe to join wellbeck, Tenko and I for a rebellious, probably common, meeting behind the bike sheds for a Fag and to plan a rebellion. I’m such a rebel, I suggest we plot for a government that sees the discriminatory basis of grammar schools, bans the b…p things and opens excellent comprehensives to ensure we all get a good education

I started this thread because a couple of us made comments on a thread about migrants. We said about undesirables being mentioned at our schools. So as not to hijack that important thread, I started this one.

No nasty intent was made, just light relief and to move the discussion over to an appropriate thread.

For those who complain they’re being excluded because it’s about girls’ grammar schools, why not start your own? I’m sure others will join in and we can learn more experiences that we didn’t have.

Silvershadow - if you don’t ’get It’ by now, the exclusivity of the grammar school system I surrender.

I think that the reason why my classmate got into such trouble for speaking to her uncle was that the staff couldn't imagine that a grammar school girl should have a relative who was so clearly a member of the working classes. I don't think they gave her the chance to explain. The older teachers had started their careers at the school when most of the pupils were fee-paying - before the 1944 Education Act - and that was probably why we had still had so many silly rules to make the school look 'exclusive'. By the 1960s it definitely wasn't!

Iam64

Silvershadow - if you don’t ’get It’ by now, the exclusivity of the grammar school system I surrender.

I wish there was a like button

We weren’t allowed to talk to boys in the street when wearing uniforms, even if it was your brother.

I was in detention every week for talking to the boys over the ginnel wall. BTW I went to the same school as Liz Truss - much earlier of course.

At my all girl secondary modern school in the early 60s, I don’t recall ever being warned about ‘undesirables’.

silverlining48

At my all girl secondary modern school in the early 60s, I don’t recall ever being warned about ‘undesirables’.

My sec mod was mixed so boys and girls made friends, We were never warned about ‘undesirables’ though one student teacher made clear we eleven year olds knew we were in that category.
He gave detention for talking in line. 4 pm we all arrived for detention, he spent the hour explaining to us that we were failures, would never achieve or amount to anything. We should have been at the grammar school across the road if we were any good.

I missed my train home. Got back at 6 pm not 5 as expected. This was week three of high school. No phones so my mum was really worried about me. I told her about detention. Ignore all that she said, it’s nonsense, you can be anything you want to be.

I did 🌞

The GS. I attended would seem to have been more relaxed than others posters are suggesting. Our school started off as co-ed but separated , due to numbers. We joined together for drama events and dancing classes in 5th form.
I remember our headmistress saying " Every lady is a woman but not every woman is a lady" She did try to bring us up as "Ladies" I often have a smile to think what she would have made of me being a "Fellow"
The joint schools had an Old Students association and both schools had Old Student dinners or lunches until quite recently. We always stayed loyal and proud of our school

My all-girls RC convent GS was 20 miles from home, in Moss Side, Manchester in the 1960s. Moss Side then was a lovely working-class community of terraced houses with back yards and working-class couples doing their utmost for their kids. They all had pristine little homes with snow-white net curtains and donkey-stoned front steps.

I loved the area - and still do.

My school was selective and I met girls from walks of life I never knew existed - daughters of diplomats, army hierarchy, even overseas royalty and I (from a very working class family) fitted in at once. Nothing fazed me at all. The rules were strict but sensible - and most of the nuns were lovely people.

I never encountered any snobbery, we were all just girls. Some had been to private primary schools (which I had never heard of) and played violins and the like.

We had quite a few male teachers, which was fine.

I got a wonderful education, loved every minute of it and am convinced it gave me an experience I could never have got had I gone to the local grammar school.

The posh girls were just girls, like me.

I didn't stay on after 16, the teachers were appalled, but my parents coudn't afford to let me. Nevertheless I qualified as an Accountant after a lot of hard work and I only learnt that my dad was proud of me when his workmates (all builder's labourers) told me at his funeral.

If I got wolf whistles from a building site. I would wolf whistle back I was actually shy but my cheeky nature liked to shock. I often wish that I was more out going when I was young instead of being naive.

BlueBelle

By the way I loved getting wolf whistles and felt very hard done by if I didn’t get one and I didn’t see it as an insult I saw it as appreciation 🙄sorry if I m so wrong

I used to count them, I thought they were an expression of appreciation,too ! If I didn’t get one I thought I must be looking bad that day . How times change.

My all female grammar school was also in London- just roads and pavements and a Victorian building. Looking back, I wouldn’t have chosen that school because it was hideous. The teachers were very dedicated but the science labs were so old fashioned it would make you cry. Not to mention all the flaking asbestos mats under the Bunsen burners.

Well done all who got to Grannar Shoil as I beer took the 11 plus exam I supposed due to having been carted off to a boarding school where I would never put any child but our parents tought they were doing the best for us kids in those days as both my brothers went away to school from when they were aged 8 yrs of age.

Excuse mistakes. the messe was sent before I had completed it

I find it interesting that so many GNs still define themselves as 'Grammar School Girls.' The exam we sat at 11 sorted us for life it seems. Lovely for the elite minority who went to 'The Grammar School' but no so good for the rest who quite often proved just as clever and intelligent in later life but still feel the stigma of having failed the 11 plus. Thank goodness it has largely been abolished and only a handful of grammar schools and selective high schools still exist.

My all girls’ grammar was terribly strict; red gloves in winter and white in summer, all the uniform ordered and bought from one shop, no shopping/eating in the street in uniform etc.
And definitely no boys.. we had to complete a diary so that the head knew we had enough time for our homework every night and we trembled if we were sent to her office.
Strangely, many girls developed a religious streak aged about fourteen - so that we could attend the local church youth club where there were boys!
It was all terribly unhealthy and my mother said she’d never send her children to same sex schools if she had her time again.

Magenta8

I find it interesting that so many GNs still define themselves as 'Grammar School Girls.' The exam we sat at 11 sorted us for life it seems. Lovely for the elite minority who went to 'The Grammar School' but no so good for the rest who quite often proved just as clever and intelligent in later life but still feel the stigma of having failed the 11 plus. Thank goodness it has largely been abolished and only a handful of grammar schools and selective high schools still exist.

I wouldn't say I define myself as a "grammar school girl" but I can't help the fact that I went to one. I think this thread has been more about the effects of going to a single sex school - irrespective of whether or not it was a grammar school.
I know my experience made me determined my children should go to mixed schools.

I was accosted by the form mistress one afternoon as I enterrd the form room after lunch.
I was fourteen at the time. The teacher marched me to my desk, the lid was thrown open to reveal, pinned to the lid, a photograph of a handsome navel officer.
The form mistress tongue lashed me, including calling me 'a slut ' for having a boyfriend old enough to be my father!
I waited until she had finished before informing her that the photograph was of my much loved father who had died when I was ten years old.
I did not receive an apology from the form mistress.
I remember her as an excellent English teacher and a very spiteful, bitter and twisted woman.

I was at a girls only convent grammar school in the heart of central Liverpool in the 1960s . The school buildings were self-contained including the netball courts so no-one was leering at us on school property. No-one gave us particular school-centric warnings about "undesirables" because there was nowhere for them to loiter.We all had the general societal warnings about what to do if followed and never using dark, dangerous shortcuts etc.We were mostly taught by women , some of whom were nuns but also we had male biology and history teachers.The history teacher was our favourite( a man !! Who Knew!!!) and was more in danger from us than we were from him. I enjoyed my Grammer School enormously. I learned very quicky in life that there were people with much better brains than mine who had had less formal education. No question of denigrating anyone with different or less formal education at all. There are disadvantages to "girls only" but also considerable advantages. Girls don't deliberately pipe down / hide their brains or achievements for fear of scaring off the boys and they don't suffer the distraction of the boys either during the school day. You can meet boys anywhere , socially. You don't need to do it during the school day.Obviously of you can learn to debate in a civilised way with men then that is a huge advantage. Many other advantages of "mixed" I'm sure that I haven't thought off but also advantages of girls only.

Incidentally a specific piece of (possibly) Liverpudlian-specific advice from one of our friends' mothers as I recall in how to deal with with Men Behaving (very) Badly

reach for the crotch and twist...............

I didn't go to a grammar school as there were none in my area by the mid-seventies but I hope you don't mind me joining in the discussion l.

I have sometimes wondered what happened to flashers. We always had warnings about them but I have not heard anything about them for years. Even then, I think that most of us knew that, even though they were filthy perverts, they were also pathetic old men, who were unable to get their kicks in any other way. I never actually saw one but I was ready to laugh at them and make a rude comment about chipolatas should I ever need to.

My GGS had a moment of fame...I think it was the Daily Fail or some such rag popular in the early 60s. I'll explain...we were not allowed to eat or drink whilst wearing our school uniform out of school, ie. on the journey home. For most of us the journey home involved half an hour on foot and then two bus rides, finally arriving home near to 6pm. Our nasty Headmistress would drive around peering through the split window of her Morris Minor trying to catch us out with our mouths full. Of course the day came when she spied a pair of 'sinners', hauled them and their parents in and suspended them, with a view to expulsion That was when our school got its 15 minutes of fame in the national press.
We were forbidden nail varnish, jewellery, make up, mini skirts. I got kicked out for smoking and drinking my pals fathers gin at the back of the hockey pitch.
St Trinians had nothing on THISTLEY HOUGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS! The school finally folded, of course.

I'm happy to be a grammar school girl. We weren't remotely posh, I just happened to surprisingly pass my 11 plus. It was a brilliant school with an inspiring headmistress whom I have never forgotten. Sadly I had to leave when I was 15 due to economic pressures, but I consider that I had a really good education. It was fairly strict, but not unduly. I liked the uniform except for the hats. Eventually berets were allowed instead, thankfully.
I loved my grammar school and cried buckets the day I left. I was there from 1947/or 8, not sure, and left in 1953.