Girls grammars in the 60s (and beyond)

I passed the 13 plus but did not move to the local grammar school as it had a poor reputation. I couldn't go to the one I wanted as it came under another education authority. I stayed at a very small secondary modern with only about twenty in a class and excellent teachers.

😀

Me too, JenniRen. I must be about the same age as Cumbrianmale’s parents.

I am old! 👵

JenniRen

When posters say their parents went to Grammar School in the 1950s I suddenly feel very old!

This was my mother. My father attended a technical school in the fifties.

When posters say their parents went to Grammar School in the 1950s I suddenly feel very old!

Not all grammar school girls stayed on for 'A' level

My grammar school had an influx of girls from elsewhere in the 6th form.
They were presumably those who did well at 16 and wanted to take A levels.

My parents passed the 11 plus in the 1950s and about 20% of pupils went to Tynemouth High School( grammar school). The other 80% went to secondary moderns and mostly left at 15. Luckily the LEA set up a technical school in 1958 for pupils who were borderline between grammar and secondary modern and could take O levels in craft subjects, English, maths and physical sciences. Those who attended the technical school often ended up as engineers, skilled craftsmen and in scientific trades.

No, sorry, but have a friend from over there.

NotSpaghetti I think it was at one time but was there some scandal or Ofsted enquiry? I'm not sure.
Are you ex THSG? Or a fellow Stokie?

specki4eyes

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.

Isn't it an academy now?

Cressy

Reported

What? Why?

Reported

When I left primary school in 1958 no one in my class went to grammar school. We all went to the sec modern , though I was a borderline case so had an interview at the tech, which is now a grammar school.
There never was a time when nearly half the children went to grammar school, there simply were not enough of them around.
As first PE teachers, our gym teacher used to watch us in the showers as we were pforced to run through the showers. I hated it so I hated games of any kind and would hide in the toilets.

mum2three

It was the PE teachers who were our main concern. They were two ladies, one large and 'butch', the other small..and apparently they lived together. They used to stand and watch us in the showers after games, which made us very uncomfortable.

I had a male PE teacher who was like that, used to watch pupils showering and used to make you go through the showers again. A lot of them struck me as rather weird and used to enjoy humiliating unathletic pupils.

Mum2three was your school in South London?

Brilliant Iam64!!

I hope he learned a lesson.

That's a really interesting point, nanna8, about the percentage of pupils who went on to grammar schools years ago.

In the late 1950s early 1960s, where I lived about 20% to 25% of pupils passed the scholarship to go to grammar schools. The other 75% to 80% "failed" and went to the secondary modern schools.

The pass rate was entirely dependent on how many grammar school places were available in any particular LA area, not on the child's level of intelligence.

We did not realise that at the time, of course.
It was upsetting if your best friends all through primary school "failed" and went to a different school.

I never even think about being a grammar school girl being as how about 42 % of the kids in London went to a grammar school in those days.Everyone except one girl in my class went and I felt sorry for that lovely girl because her mum went right off at her for not passing. I went to the headmistress and complained about their attitude and wanted to know why she had ‘failed’. My first ever protest.

My Girls' Grammar was next to a large inner London park, we were told not to walk at one end where there were a lot of trees. We also had boy viewers from another local School and we were not allowed to wear skirts over our navy knickers when playing hockey outside !!

It was the PE teachers who were our main concern. They were two ladies, one large and 'butch', the other small..and apparently they lived together. They used to stand and watch us in the showers after games, which made us very uncomfortable.

Iam64 You make a very good point about flashers' behaviour escalating. Wayne Couzens, the police officer who murdered Sarah Everard, was a known flasher and it is thought that she may not be his only victim.

Magenta8

Musicgirl

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.

Don't worry about not being a grammar school girl. Several non GSGs have got away with posting without being reported.(Yet!!)

With regard to flashers, the world seemed to be teeming with them when I was a child in the 1950s. The drill was that you pretended they weren't there and you certainly didn't tell any adults or you would be accused of being a dirty minded little girl. This meant, of course that they were never reported to the police or anybody else. I don't think the police would have done anything even if you supplied the name and address of the flasher. As for laughing and joking about chipolatas, I never spoke to flashers as I found them too scary even when I was an adult. I occasionally wonder how many adult willies I had had waved at me by the time I left school.

I grew up in East London so it was probably not the same everywhere.

Flashers as they used to be known, were also we were told no threat, just pathetic men. This nonsense has been demolished as research and theory developed. Sex offenders may start their career by indecent exposure but as the thrill dulls with practice, their behaviour escalates

When I was 13 or 14 I did a paper round, on my bike as we covered a big what’s now known as a middle class, even posh area. I used to often see my best school friend who was paper girl in a nearby area. One night she was weeping and very scared after seeing a man exposing himself in the same street a few times. We agreed I’d meet her there the following evening, not least because I couldn’t imagine any man doing this.

Sure enough, we cycle together and the man walks towards us, Penis exposed. I nearly fell of my bike - what’s the matter, he said, never seen one of these before? No I responded and I never want to see one again. I agreed with my pal I’d go home and tell my dad. He was a CID sergeant. Dad listened calmly. Don’t worry he said, I’ll meet you and J tomorrow, Bob C (our next door neighbour, a DC) will be with me and we will have a word. I’m confident you won’t be bothered again. Guess what, dear reader, this proved to be the case.

My school was a convent and it was directly across the road from a boys college.

Some of the girls had the idea of having a dance at Christmas and our headmistress said it was fine but when we conveyed our idea to the headmaster of the boys college (a very dour and sour priest with a mouth pursed up like a cat's bum) he stamped on the idea straight away and banned 'his' boys from having anything to do with us girls.

What on earth did he think we were - St Trinians?

Doubtless the boys were probably at more risk from certain religious members of staff than from us girls.