Did you fail your 11+ exam?

I loathe the elitist 11 plus idea. Good comprehensive schools should be available for all children. It’s simply wrong to tell 11 year olds that they’re failures

My GS and GD attend the local grammar school. It seems common practice to be ‘tutored’ to help you pass, I’m pleased that they didn’t have tutoring, and passed without it. They say all their friends had it.

I was recently talking to the chair of governors from the school, and was astounded when he said that some children in the first year had poor reading skills, and needed to have their reading listened to by volunteers. I thought that only happened at primary school. He felt it was a result of the pandemic, and their parents hadn’t listened to them reading enough.

I would have thought that by 11 years old, children who were classed as bright enough to attend grammar school and pass the 11+ would be fairly confident readers.

The 11+ is so different now, of course.

My middle grandson has heard about the 11 plus and is very keen to do it. I don't think he's bothered about what school he goes to, he just wants to see whether he could pass.

Looking back on it my parents could never have afforded the uniform for the grammar school and I would probably have been laughed at or bullied. We did have a uniform in the secondary modern but it was much less strict and we were allowed to wear the equivalent of store and supermarket clothes.

I passed (1970), but we'd only just moved house and money was tight, so my parents couldn't afford to send me to the grammar school. I went to the bilateral school and was in a grammar stream class throughout

I failed mine as I was really bad at spelling. Went to a secondary modern school. Sailed through the maths and Physics but still struggled with English. Made it into college and then did well at university. Still poor at spelling but it does not matter much any more with computers and spell checkers.

I passed the 11+ in 1966. I loved the academic nature of the Grammar School; it was relatively small, and felt friendly and safe, although it didn’t occur to me at the time how traditional and sexist it was. The girls couldn’t choose Woodwork; the boys couldn’t choose Domestic Science. In 1968 everything changed when Comprehensive schools were introduced in our area. We were merged with two local single-sex Secondary Moderns, creating a much larger school, where everyone was just a number.
I was so disappointed when my own children went to the local Comprehensive. There seemed to be many behaviour problems; our daughter was bullied for a while. I would have liked them to attend a Grammar School, but the only ones in our area were fee-paying.
In contrast, my future husband failed his 11+ and attended a much more progressive Secondary Modern, then Comprehensive school. It suited him as he is much more practically minded.
I still think there is a place for Grammar-type schools for academically-minded children, but there should be a fairer system of selection.

I was delighted that I passed the 11+ ( always known locally as (the scholarship) in 1954. Particularly as borderline cases were sent to ‘the interview’ and when I was not called for an interview I was convinced that I had failed. Basically I quite enjoyed it, but had I been able to drop Physics, Chemistry and Biology I would have been happy as Larry.

nope i passed with A Grade

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.

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

No, I passed.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Why?

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

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.

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

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