Did you fail your 11+ exam?

welbeck

but what about the unfairness of it all, how it is so weighted in favour of the middle classes.
that's the problem, not the schools themselves, but the system.

I don't know what the craic is now with grammars(!?) But in mid 60s it was a way for bright and gifted children from ALL "classes" to achieve their full potential! My cousin, council estate Born and bred then her little brother 5years later went different paths.she passed EVERYTHING with top top marks went to grammar then university then researched biochemistry then taught in Portugal then met loaded hippie type!! Live many years I beautiful Portugal on Quinta with horses etc teaching then doing.....nothing really just bringing up 3kids. Now lives in beautiful Austria works in family roofing company and has half a dozen horses.whew! Her brother did not pass but went to grammar for A levels. Now? Works in computers(! Don't ask!) For himself very hush hush earns a fortune lives in luxury in sunny Wiltshire countryside. Moi however passed 11+ went to Manchester all girls' grammar school , same as my cousin year later, didn't get on with it at ALL! Travelled badly (1.5hours each way on bus and train) suffered from not being taught maths at my first PRIVATE CONVENT SCHOOL that assumed us girls would all marry diplomats....!?!(and subsequently sciences were denied me) left school at16 without a single qualification, had to BS work and fight my way into jobs after going back to work in1989 as civil service would not have us back without a degree(yep) earned under £20k always despite being exemplary in my field of International Credit Management. Oh and my ex? Same unqualified and even less qualified in same field always offered massive salaries up to£100k .......because I was told by agent that employers assumed I was a mumsey type working for pin Mony and wouldn't be able to put the hours in!!!!!!!!!! Nothing Ever Changes and oh! The anguish of failing at just about everything else since 11+ !!!! It is NOT for everyone neither is university

Anneeba

The 11 plus was based on work published by the UCL psychologist Cyril Burt. He had very right wing ideas about intelligence and fiddled his research results to back his theory that IQ is fixed by age 11 and will never change. He believed the wealthy classes endowed their offspring with an innate intelligence that needed to be safeguarded and kept apart from the lower classes. His work was not debunked until after his death, by which time a lot of damage had been done to some who 'failed' this totally flawed method of assessment. Shame on him.

That's really interesting, Aneeba.

His work was debunked by my friends and I who did not come from wealthy backgrounds but passed the 11+ and went to grammar school.
It was distressing that some friends "failed" the scholarship and went to secondary modern school. However, it was a very good girls' secondary modern school which inspired many girls.
Conversely, if our grammar school taught us anything, it was that we were all innately stupid!

Consequently many of us couldn't wait to leave and go to college at 16 where we met up with some of our friends who'd "failed" the 11+!

railman

welbeck

the policy planning was for only 25-30% to go to grammar school. so in most classes, only 3 -4 pupils could go, and more boys than girls overall.
so even if the whole class seemingly passed, the acceptable mark would have to be moved up that year.

I seem to recall that there was a "second chance" if you failed the 11+ first time around - when you were 13.

I also recall that if you moved from one part of the country - i.e. south to north, or maybe vice versa - priority for places were also given to those who had attended 'local' primary schools.

Wonder if that's true.

Like most exams, they are simply a measure of your ability to answer questions on the day, and do not reflect consistency of performance, which is generally required in business.

Just imagine if a train driver passed a test to drive a particular type of train one day, and only that train, and could not be assigned to driving duties on other trains or routes.

Yes, I know it's not a brilliant analogy

Well, it is a brilliant analogy and there is much truth in it.

Drivers had to learn a route before being allowed to drive on it. It was not like someone driving a car and just driving on roads previously unknown to him or her. There were signals that one needed to know about. There is a lot to driving a train safely.

Some time ago I read an account by James Lester, who was the fireman on Winston Churchill's funeral train in 1965.

I have been looking for it, but can only at present find quoted bits.

The full account includes that as the route from Victoria station in London went to Reading, and then onto Western region lines, at Reading they were joined by one or more people from Western Region so that they could learn the route on a rehearsal. I cannot remember whether those people joined them on the day of the funeral too. Quite possibly as a safety measure.

I didn't pass but I was in the highest form all the way through at our comprehensive school. 1966-1970
We didn't have to stay on and take exams then. I just wanted to leave, get a job and earn some money. I've never regretted it.

I passed and went to the local girls grammar school. Those who failed went to one of the local comps which had an awful reputation. No one wanted their children to go here & it was all quite sad really.

I had a fantastic education & experience at grammar school. Amazing teachers.

Yes I passed the 11 plus; only 7 out of a class of 35+ passed (3 girls and 4 boys) - it was a (not very good) Catholic school and looking back, focussed too much on teaching religious studies. I went to an all girls C of E grammar school and was surprised at the knowledge of the other girls in my 1st year class - their education was far superior to ours, although fortunately, we were quite bright and soon caught up. The school was very strict and some of the teachers were really scary, but despite this, I quite enjoyed my time there and as a girl from a single-parent family on a council estate, I did feel quite privileged to have attended the school and it certainly helped improve my low self-esteem.

I passed but where I live there was a 3 tier system. As part of the 11 plus there was an extra test . If you excelled in it you ended up in a technical school . Mine was called a bi- lateral school which later changed to a grammar school. I was always surprised by the fact that this technical school didn’t allow girls to do physics or technical drawing. I was the only girl in my year to go to university but didn’t have a technical subject to my name despite the title of the school.

Thanks Anneeba That somehow makes me feel less of a failure.

BTW I passed and went on to read psychology myself, hopefully with more integrity than old Cyril.

The 11 plus was based on work published by the UCL psychologist Cyril Burt. He had very right wing ideas about intelligence and fiddled his research results to back his theory that IQ is fixed by age 11 and will never change. He believed the wealthy classes endowed their offspring with an innate intelligence that needed to be safeguarded and kept apart from the lower classes. His work was not debunked until after his death, by which time a lot of damage had been done to some who 'failed' this totally flawed method of assessment. Shame on him.

Yes I passed, but my brothers didn't. Which was not really surprising as none of my brothers were even slightly academic. They all went to the nearby comprehensive school and went on to have good jobs.

I remember the grammar school with affection, unlike the school I later attended in Wales when we moved. I hated it so much that half way through my A levels I decided to leave and never went back. I had wanted to go to university, but we couldn't have afforded it anyway. I later had two very different careers, both of which I loved and went to university as a mature student at the age of 40.

Like others have said the careers we were pushed towards were nursing, teaching or typing. I took great pride in going back on a visit to the school at one point and telling a particularly snotty teacher that 'the stupid English girl' (as I once heard her referring to me) was neither English nor stupid, now managed major IT contracts around the world and was working towards a PhD.

I passed to go to a very good grammar school, Harrow County Grammar School for girls, but the we moved to Saltdean near Brighton after one termand I was sent to a newly built and newly formed co education grammar school. It was wonderful, superb sports facilities which I loved and looking back I’m so relieved not to have been stuck in a girl’s only school where the teachers desks were raised on a little dais.

I passed but chose not to go to local grammar as I wanted to study more technical and commercial subjects available at secondary school. Never regretted it. On leaving school with all qualifications I went yo technical college for a year full time, gained more qualifications then went into nursing. Once children came along studied at night school fir business and law qualifications and gained a jib with local authority who gave me opportunity for day release to study for more qualifications. Had I gone to grammar would probably have followed the same path.

passed and regretted it, had only one friend at school. Education was good but in my day people of my background didn't go to uni so rather wasted.

I passed the 11 plus in 1958 and got high enough marks to get me to the county girls school, rather than the local mixed grammar school.

When I was about 32 I had to do psychometric tests as part of my interview for a job. They were very much like the 11 plus exams. I came to the conclusion that some people just have the ability to do such tests but that they weren't necessarily a measure of intelligence. When I was about 50 I had to another set for a job interview. This time I didn't mange to complete the papers within the given time - my brain didn't function as quickly. Apparently there is an optimum age for doing these tests accurately and quickly and it is late twenties and early thirties from what I remember.

I passed my 11+ but my best friend in the village didn’t and she and her mum didn’t speak to me for ages. Rather took the shine off it.

I passed my 11+ in English but failed in Maths, this was back in 1958. But I was so lucky to attend a brand new secondary modern school that had ballroom dancing on the curriculum. I went on to win many medals and appeared on TV twice. Once in the school's formation team and another time in a BBC documentary. I enjoyed a good education, the proudest moment in my career was being elected Assistant Vice President of an American Bank. So, not going to grammar school wasn't so bad after all.

Having read the posts on this subject it seems that selection at 11 was not fair based on a single day snapshot and the availability of places in local areas with more grammar school places for boys and the pass mark varied accordingly in their favour. I was lucky, although I failed the 11+ I went to one of the first comprehensive schools in London and was soon moved to the top class. I went on to become a teacher and then a headteacher.
In the 1960s only one girl in ten went to university. Careers advisers recommended teaching, nursing or secretarial work. How I envy the career opportunities of girls today.

Dad was v.v. keen for me to do well (he was bright but his parents couldn’t afford for him to go to the local grammar & he left ASAP without even his School Cert’) to that end I had some pre 11+ tuition. It paid off - my results were good enough for a County Scholarship to the local public school inc’ boarding fees when Dad’s job moved us to a different county - my O & A levels then got me a place at Vet School - all because of a bit of tuition for the 11+.
Lucky - Yes. But parental help and encouragement help to make your good luck even better.

I passed but none of my friends did. I started Grammar school not knowing anyone and I remember (even now after 53 years) feeling scared and intimidated. It took me a long time to settle down and feel okay. I’m glad the 11+ no longer exists in this area.

No, I failed in 1961. The significance of that was totally lost on me at that age. My Mum wasn't disappointed either. She never passed any school exams whereas her sibling did and she always felt inferior to her, so she didn't want me to be an achiever either.

I went to a secondary school in the next borough and did very well there. Like me most of my school friends had good jobs and satisfying careers when they left school, so failing the 11+ didn't hold them back.

I think ^far too much^ pressure is put on children to meet targets and pass exams. They should be able to enjoy their school years without getting over-stressed about exams. I am astounded at the amount of homework my GC get, even those at primary school. We never had homework at primary level. The eldest (14) often has to work all weekend to get through it all, and it will get worse next year as she begins her GCSE courses. No wonder so many young people have mental health issues.

I passed back in 1957. A very small primary school so only me and a boy took it that year and we both passed. The grammar schools, single sex, were a car and a bus journey away. The only person I knew was my sister, two years older. The boy I have never seen since because we come from a very rural area and he took a different route.

I was happy there but always an under achiever and never really understood how to study on my own. My father left school at 14 and so never really rated education. He saw confidence as a negative trait, to be discouraged. My mother was well educated, but gave up her career as a nurse to marry a farmer and had a hard life with four children and poor health. She was too busy to check on homework but always went on her own to parents’ evenings.

My friends were very scattered around, coming from a large, rural area so I didn’t socialise much out of school time. I was not aware of anyone being better off than others but I have always felt different.

However, I passed a reasonable number of O and A levels and went on to teacher training college, 400 miles away. What an eye opener! I loved it, met my husband and taught all my working life.

Looking back, I think more was expected of Grammar School pupils than Secondary School ones but some of our teachers were very uninspiring and poor. Mum said she had to sign a form to say we would definitely take our O levels, though a few did leave before, some to do hairdressing. We were the last year who could have left school at 15 before the school leaving age was raised to 16. ROSLA kids.

A few girls left after O levels and went to work in a bank or to local technical college to do Childcare or secretarial courses, or Nursing.
After A levels, most applied to teacher training college or University. Such were the options open to us. I was not uni material, my sister was training to be a teacher, so I did too. A good choice in the end.

Being a teacher, my first job in the Comprehensive system was an eye opener. The huge year group was divided up into an 11 stream intake, each group getting smaller as you went down so the lesser able got more attention. Teaching practical subjects, I enjoyed getting the most out of the lower groups. It just felt so awful being judged so early on in life, but just because you are not academically able does not mean you will not achieve in life.

Comprehensive education is different nowadays, thank goodness. Less labelling at an early age. Some of my son’s most successful friends were not at all interested in education at school but have gone on to run their own businesses.

Wow Lilyflower - but you may be right.

"On the other hand, I taught with quite a few colleagues who were eleven plus 'failures' and saw at first hand how embittered they had become because they had not passed. It made them anti grammar, anti elitist and anti academic education. "

Is the implication that selection for grammar schools was to ensure both the class system and right wing elitism prevailed?

welbeck

the policy planning was for only 25-30% to go to grammar school. so in most classes, only 3 -4 pupils could go, and more boys than girls overall.
so even if the whole class seemingly passed, the acceptable mark would have to be moved up that year.

I seem to recall that there was a "second chance" if you failed the 11+ first time around - when you were 13.

I also recall that if you moved from one part of the country - i.e. south to north, or maybe vice versa - priority for places were also given to those who had attended 'local' primary schools.

Wonder if that's true.

Like most exams, they are simply a measure of your ability to answer questions on the day, and do not reflect consistency of performance, which is generally required in business.

Just imagine if a train driver passed a test to drive a particular type of train one day, and only that train, and could not be assigned to driving duties on other trains or routes.

Yes, I know it's not a brilliant analogy

Failed but didn't want to go to Grammar school as my older friends went to Secondary Modern. I was desperate to go there too.
I stayed on to do my O levels and CSE's you could leave at 15 yrs, no idea what to do once I left. However I had qualifications to enter a Student training course in local Hospital. Donkeys years down the line. Have all the professionals qualifications, FET cert so can Teach my subject and added a Masters, and became Head of Dept.
I had a great time in School, for me the right pathway, no pressure do it your way, its never too late.