Did you fail your 11+ exam?

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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+!

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

Well the idea that a persons IQ is “fixed” at the age of eleven may have been debunked BUT that idea certainly fixed quite a few children’s futures.

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.

Wow - never knew that.

Britain truly has had, and still has, many shameful people in its elite, and entitled class.

I failed my 11+. I was so disappointed, as all my friends passed and went to the Grammar school.
At the Sec Mod I had to make a whole set of new friends. My old junior school friends thought themselves above me, and none of them ever spoke to me again.
Little did I know, but my mother had been to see the junior school headmaster, and was told that the Grammar school that year had more pupils pass than there were places, and any other year would have seen me pass.
I am perhaps glad I didn't pass, as it made me want to work harder to prove myself. I passed my RMN finals, and never looked back

re IQ and Cyril Burt.
Having administered hundreds of IQ tests in my job I soon realised it's nothing more than a statistical artifact. There are various methods of calculating, Burt's was only one.
There's no test that can quantify a person's potential.

I too failed my 11+. I remember one of the questions was "what is the plural of box" I put lid. Noone had ever taught me what the word plural was.

Smurf52

I too failed my 11+. I remember one of the questions was "what is the plural of box" I put lid. Noone had ever taught me what the word plural was.

There was a lot lacking in education standards when we were young. It was very hit and miss as to what quality of teaching children had, not to mention class sizes - my first primary school class had 46 children - and no teaching assistants. A knock on effect from WW2 perhaps.

And was it necessary to actually have teaching qualifications? DH went to a Dame school and I doubt the ladies who ran that did. Nor my lovely, elderly head teacher at the little village primary I eventually went to. I learnt a lot from her - but not necessarily the right things (Obviously, as I failed!)

NfkDumpling but were you happy in school, up until that point ?

Some untrained teachers were very good. My MiL was an untrained teacher of a reception class. The local teachers training college always wanted to place students with her when they did classroom practice because she was such a good and effective teacher.

Remembering my school days, a degree in the relevant subject and a post-graduate teaching qualification was no guarantee of competent teaching, I can remember some truly dreadful teachers, who had every qualification possible but still couldn't teach.

Granmarderby10

NfkDumpling but were you happy in school, up until that point ?

In the school with 46 in the class I was as miserable as hell. Didn't learn a thing and was terrified in the playground so apparently just stood by the door. Going to that village school with two years in each of the three classes was bliss. But I had lost over a years schooling. My parents had scrimped and saved like mad to get out of the city and away. I owe them a lot.

I can honsstly say that failing the 11 plus drove me to achieve, because I wanted to find out "how good" I was.

I was expected to pass the 11+ but failed it due to a traumatic event when I was 10 which caused a mini breakdown. I wont go into that.

One of the teachers who taught me in junior school was shocked when she saw me in the secondary modern I went to.

On the whole I did well out of going to a secondary modern school as I found myself one of the brightest kids in the school. At a grammar school I would not have ranked so high.

We had an inspirational headmaster who was well ahead of his time. He believed that all children should be encouraged to reach their potential. However he was struggling against my parents working class prejudices and suspicion of the middle class. The school awarded me a bursary to go to France but my father vetoed it.

I never forgave him and often reminded him of it in later life.

Ambition drove me to qualify in a profession (Librarianship) although later I found myself being disadvantaged by not having a degree. I went to a RG uni in my 40s and got a 1st, followed by a masters and Ph.d. Needless to say I went into academia and never returned to Librarianship.

I was expected to pass and didn’t.

I went on to a school in a rough area,where I was in the top stream.

I went on to be an Army Officer.I actually did much better than my best friend who went to the single sex Grammar School.

I did the Moray House test overseas in Malaya, and then went to grammar schools

I passed my 11+ then went to the local girls' grammar school.

Learning by rote and swotting for exams suited me.

Throughout the seven years I was there (sixth form was an assumption, not a separate college) I was routinely a good average, apart from maths, where I was in the D Stream and unashamed: I was very good at mental arithmetic but couldn't see the point of the other bits apart from algebra, which was a bit like a foreign language, a thing I Was good at. I still don't know what calculus was for but I suppose I could Google it.

Looking back on my subsequent achievements, from academic (B.A., PGCE, Cert. Theol.) to career (linguist, teacher, priest) "good average" about sums it up, really.
"Could Try Harder" in personal relationships, though.....

I scraped by in my 11 plus exam, to qualify to go to the local grammar school in 1971. We'd just moved to a new house, and because money was tight, and because I'd only just managed to pass the 11 plus, my parents decided to send me to the school nearby. It was a bilateral school, so had grammar stream classes. I did alright there.

Bossyrossy, fail? Of course not! The pass mark was much higher for girls than for boys - otherwise the grammar schools would have been overwhelmingly female. There was a 13+ too, so more boys could be let in.

I have always felt a failure and below par because I failed my 11+ but was on the borderline of passing. I was offered the chance to go to Grammar School at 13 but my parents wouldn’t hear of it as I’d got all the uniform for the Sec Mod by then obviously.

We had no preparation at all for the exam (I didn’t even know where it was taking place and turned up to my closed junior school on the morning) and then somehow found this school I’d never even seen before. I was obviously a bit late, totally in a state, was greeted by questions which I’d never come across before so actually I think I did quite well getting on the borderline.

I did ok at senior school, in the top class and I may have struggled along in the bottom set at Grammar. I feel the people you meet at school etc can set you up for life so I may have missed out there. There was no expectation whatsoever of me or any other person in my circle of going to university. If I thought about it at all, I assumed only rich, very clever people went to Oxford or Cambridge, I’d never heard of any others. I know of schools now who teach the expected questions and tutor pupils in how to pass the exam. How wonderful it would have been to have been in that position!

And yet, I did alright in my college year, got good jobs, worked with lovely people and excelled myself as far as I could. When I worked at a university in my last job, I felt very inferior to my colleagues whereas, given the chance, I could have got a degree myself. I know I could do an Open University degree or go now on a course but I was always busy earning a living and looking after my family. I don’t honestly think I could have had much of a better life though, I’ve had a good one.

I passed mine in 1976 ....I went to one of 2 all girls grammar schools in my city