Did you fail your 11+ exam?

When I took my 11+ (it was called 'The Scholarship' back then), in 1952, my family were living in a house on a new Council Estate in Essex. This had been designed and built to take on the overspill manly from East London. Myself and one other girl on that estate passed with a higher mark to get our (my parents) first choice of school. My Mum had researched and discovered that not too away was an excellent Girls School, only recently changed from being totally fee-paying school, and had put that at the top of the list.

The Headmistress there was horrified when she discovered that two Estate 'Gals', was down to come to her school and called in our parents, advising them NOT to accept the place.

My Dad, who until then had taken little part in anything to do with my education (that was my Mums role), was furious so I went.

Although we had been told that I had come 6th in the 11+ in the large County I was put into the B stream at that school, First time in my life I had ever not been in A stream!

I did get on pretty well with most of the girls there, but many of the teachers made it quite clear I should not be there, did not like my East London accent. Think I gave at least one of them a fit when, during a lesson on 'Politics', I happily volunteered the information that my brother was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the leader of that party was a visitor to our home!!!

When we moved back to London, at the end of my second year there, I left that school. Not sure how well I would have done had I stayed - gave me a life-long distaste for middle class snobbishness.

I passed the first part but failed the second so went to secondary school in A stream. My brother however just scraped through and got into Grammar School, worst thing that could’ve happened to him I can still see him now struggling with a huge satchel of books and him being not at all academic and when it came to the end of school he was told by his teacher you better be a chef Jimmy because you’re not fit for much else. My brother died of cancer aged 49. I’m sure that awful period of his life stayed with him…(this was early 60s)

Was borderline but went to a secondary school for girls in the ‘top’ stream, Because of family difficulties I left just after my 15 th birthday taking no formal exams .

We had no career advice but we all knew our place was to be employed in an office, shop Or factory. I got a clerical job in the civil service. We were not encouraged yet many of us proved to be successful despite the relatively poor start,

Decades later further /higher education opportunities allowed older people, who had missed out first time, to study. The first formal Exam I ever took was my Hons degree. Followed a couple of years later by a couple of GCSE’s just because I could. I am forever grateful for the chance.

There are only about 160 grammar schools left in the country, concentrated in just a handful of counties so most children go to non selective schools and can do very well. I am sure the standard of education is far far better now than the very basic education I received in a secondary modern so long ago.

My children went to grammar school and my GC has just started this year. As ever there are positives and negative in both systems, but children can succeed in either if they have sufficient motivation, support and teachers who encourage their pupils to do as well as they can,

OP we took the 11 plus the same year,

I passed, probably in 1960, but have no idea by how much. I don’t think we were told.

I still feel for the poor girl in my form who turned over 2 pages of the test booklet by mistake, and only realised when it was too late. She ended up at the very worst school in the area.

Because of her mistake, I was always very vocal to exam-taking dds about not doing the same, plus checking everything carefully - plus of course the old chestnut about ‘Answer the question! The one they’re asking, not the one you wish they’d asked!

As an afterthought I have noticed that grans who went to grammar school always mention it in posts about school and am surprised at the sheer number who did.

11+ wasn't around in Scotland when I went to secondary school as such, although we did have an IQ test in the last year of primary school which identified likely candidates for a fairly local private school. Secondary school was comprehensive. At the end of first year certain pupils were offered Latin in second year. That fixed their choices thereafter. I took Latin and subsequently french and German but wasn't able to take art which I was good at, or cookery. I have never regretted doing languages at school and studied Italian and Russian for fun as an adult.

I never knew what it was, or that i wastaking it.

I was at an army school in Singapore, Just arrivd there in the summer term from a similar school in Hong Kong.

A week or two into term a teacher put his head around the classroom door and said 'Anyone here not taken the Moray House?' I put my hand up to ask 'what is theMoray House?' 'Right', he said, 'You had better come with me'.

So I was taken to a classroom with half a dozen other children and did some tests: two maths, one English and Verbal reasoning and three weeks later my parents got a letter to say that I would be going to Alexandra Grammar in September. My parents were delighted, but it all still meant nothing to me. I worked it all out when I started at the school.

When we returned to England, all Education Authorities recognised that passing the 'Moray House' meant you had passed the 11+ and I went to the local grammar school.

That’s interesting Monica. I have never heard of the Moray House test.

No. I passed the 11+ and went to an all girls grammar school in Wales, in 1957.

silverlining48 Moray House was/is the School of Education at Edinburgh University.

In the past - perhaps it does still, it set 11+ equivalent papers that British children being educated at home or in schools following the British education systemt in far flung parts of the world could take at 11 that, if they passed, would be recognised as an 11+ pass equivalent in the UK.

As I said, my father was in the army, and I and my sisters went to Defence Forces schools in a variety of locations around the world and, I think, my youngest sister also took The Moray House. My younger sister was at school in the UK when she was 10, so she took the 11+ at her primary school.

I passed but I refused to go to the grammar school.

Why?

I sat the 11 plus in my 6th primary school, a week after arriving there. My previous school was in what I now know was a highly deprived area. We did a lot of country dancing there, definitely no prep for the 11+. I had no idea what select the middle one meant until I’d completed page 1. No time to go,back and correct, on I went. We moved again so I started in the A stream at a sec.mod. The head teacher said in his town, my 11+ Results would have got me into the grammar school.

Week 2, 1a was kept in detention for talking in line. The trainee teacher told us we were all failures. That the people who would succeed in life were across the road at the grammar school.

If anyone suggests ‘bringing back grammar schools’, I remind them that would involve bringing back secondary moderns. Telling the majority of 11 year olds they’re failures. Dividing children in that way is just wrong. Good comprehensives for evetyone

I passed. One DD didn’t do the 11+ as there were no grammar schools where we lived, but when we moved house, the local grammar school accepted her. My other DD passed. For my grandchildren there is an entrance exam for the Boys’ and the Girls’ grammar schools and you only take it if you want a chance to go there.

Slightly off topic, but I heard a few years ago that a local grammar had changed the 11 plus from an all verbal reasoning test, to one that included a traditional English paper.

Apparently some of the children who were scoring very highly in the VR tests could barely write a coherent sentence, and had to have remedial English lessons at the grammar.

Forgot to say, my sister failed the 11+, but went on to get a degree and a very good job. She said the choice between walking to her school with friends instead of my 11 mile bus journey made failing worthwhile.

I failed the 11+ in 1954. A short time before there had been an incident in my school where I was badly bullied - not by other pupils but by a teacher. It actually brought on a mini breakdown when I refused to go to school for 2 weeks. I blame that teacher and that incident for my failing the 11+.

Looking back on events it was just as well. My parents would never have been able to afford the grammar school uniform and I would have been a laughing stock. Several times my grandmother had to step in and buy me school skirts when my mother bought me skirts from army surplus at a second hand market.

As it happened I was one of the brightest children at a secondary modern school where we had a very progressive headmaster. Many of us did O levels and I could have gone on to do A levels, except that my parents vetoed it. All they wanted was for me to get a job - any job - and contribute to the family budget.

After a false start in the CS which I hated I went into the city libraries as a library assistant. At that point my life began to change. I was required to open a bank account for my salary and was issued with a cheque book. That caused a lot of hostility from my parents who complained I was trying to be "posh" and had "ideas above my station."

Yes - people still used expressions like that in the late 1950s and early 1960s. My parents had no aspirations for their children to have a better life. To aim to do something different from your parents was to disprepect them.

Fortunately I had a very kind manager who encouraged me to further my professional education and work towards becoming a qualified librarian. It was not easy and took three years. At the end of it I was immediately promoted and at last had the money to leave the parental home and get my own place - again helped by my grandmother.

One day my mother told me that I would have to "tip up more money" because my sister had an illegitimate child. I was expected to help maintain itwhile she sat at home. I will never forget the stunned expression on her face when I told her I had got a flat and was moving out a week on friday.

I was just past 21 and there was not a thing she could do about it.

Yes i failed. Both my parents were deeply disappointed. They went on about how i could’ve passed and gone into grammar school. That made me disappointed with my self. I was my dad’s favourite but he moved his attention to my younger brother. Even now i still think that if i pushed harder enough, studied harder and took things more seriously, i would make my parents proud...

I went to a mixed Grammer school as did my Brother.
How sad that such an stigma was attached to the children who did not pass.
My DH went to a secondary modern which was the best thing he as he took more practical lessons and has earned a good living all his life.
Both my Brother and I agree that we would have been better off doing the same as we are both practical people rather than academic.

No, I passed.

I passed and went to a mixed grammar school, I think quite a few of us passed but no idea how many.

In my 20s I found out that two of my "bosses" had gone to the same school as my old headmaster and that one of them sometimes encountered him in the village. They were all "grammar school" boys. I told him how grateful I was to the headmaster and asked him to pass on my best wishes if they ever met again. Years passed and I met the big boss at his leaving party. He told me that he had encountered my old headmaster a few weeks before and had passed on my good wishes and repeated what I said about him. The headmaster had recalled me immediately. Apparently he was near to tears when he said that one of the most humbling and fulfilling things a teacher can learn is that they "made a difference" in the life of a former student.

I failed in 1958 and went to the local secondary. I hated it, I was hopeless at maths but very bookish and just didn't fit in. I couldn't wait to get out and went to a Poly Secretarial course with GCE's, all was well in the end.

nope i passed with A Grade