Eleven plus

Gin

I remember very clearly the day we took the exam. We all ran out of the assembly hall into the playground to be greeted by everyone telling us that ‘Kings dead’. Mr King was our headmaster and not a very nice man, so I was not dismayed but then someone explained, it wasour King, George VI. The date 6 February 1952 ( yes I am ancient!).
When we got the results everyone thought I had failed as I was in floods of tears but it was because my neighbour and best friend Monica had failed and we, usually glued together like peas in a pod, would be separated.

You aren’t as ancient as me. I took it in 1951! I remember the King dying in 1952 very well.

I remember sitting the 11 plus and thinking that I'd done well. I was totally crestfallen when the results came and I hadn't passed. It was awful to feel a failure at 11. My mother tried to console me by saying that it would be better to be top of the class in the sec. mod., than bottom at the grammar school. She wasn't really very helpful as all my friends had passed and I had to make a whole set of new friends.
The worst part of it was that the girl I thought was my very best friend totally ignored me whenever we met in the small town where I lived.
It wasn't until I was an adult with a good career in nursing that my mother told me she had gone to ask the headmaster about my 11+ result.
Apparently, that year there had been more children passed than there were places at the grammar school. In another year I would have passed.

I'm still wondering what a second meaning for "envelope" could be.

Same here. There’s ‘envelope’ and there’s ‘envelop’ …

I don't remember a thing about the exam or being told I'd passed. Even though I got a high mark, I didn't go to the High School as the places ran out before they got to my name on the list. I went to what was called a "Central School", which I presume was the next one down from the High in the pecking order. I loved it there and thanked all the gods that I wasn't allocated to the "Sec. Mod.". It was a really rough place and a couple of my friends were marked for life by having to go there. Just another example of the lottery of life, I guess.

My 11 plus Woukd have been 1959 but I don’t really remember doing it. I was a borderline case, so went with. 3 or 4 other girls for an interview at the technical school. Now an elite grammar.
None of us were accepted so we went to the same sec mod.
I left school in 1963 at the end of 4 th year starting work in London at just 15 with the civil service.
Many years later I did a degree, graduated late 30 s, a while later a 2 year social work qualification, then an A level and an O level. In that order. So my first ever ‘exam’ was my degree.
It’s never too late.

Envelope as in “she enveloped me in her arms”.
I passed. ✔️

Yes, but that is just the past form of "envelop", so I'm still confused. As Barleyfields says.

I don't remember much about it except that three of us were taken into the next classroom (with the 1 year older girls) and given papers "to have a go" alongside them.

The papers had some odd questions on of the sort that I'd not seen before - sort of puzzles.
I enjoyed it (whatever it was).

The next academic year we went to the Grammar and must have missed out the "top class".

OK, I've found several meanings but I wouldn't expect a ten year old to know them, and certainly not in the 1960s

envelope. noun

1: a flat usually paper container (as for a letter)
2: something that envelops : wrapper the envelope of air around the earth
3a: the outer covering of an aerostat
b: the bag containing the gas in a balloon or airship
4a: a natural enclosing covering (such as a membrane, shell, or integument)
b: a lipoprotein unit membrane that forms the outer layer of some virions
5a: a curve tangent to each of a family of curves
b: a surface tangent to each of a family of surfaces
6: a set of performance limits (as of an aircraft) that may not be safely exceeded. also : the set of operating parameters that exists within these limits
7: a conventionally accepted limit ...new computers that push the envelope

We definitely took some kind of IQ test at my small village school shortly before my 11 plus in 1965. Based on the results of that, four of us took the 11 plus a year early, and we were the only children to pass from the school that year. One of us (not me ) had a late August birthday and still went straight into the top class at grammar school.

It was a large school with a six class intake in the first form, and after that there was a class specifically for girls who joined after passing their 12 plus or 13 plus, so there wasn’t just one chance of getting in in my area. DH doesn’t remember any boys joining the grammar later where he lived, unless they’d just moved there.

I'm vague about the exam but Ashcombe is right... It's hard going from being a "big fish" in a small pond to realising you are very ordinary in a bigger pond!

I had to put a lot more effort in at my grammar school. Can't say I always did though!

I took my 11+ a year early in year 5, all alone in the headmaster’s study. I had a terrible cold that day and the teacher sitting with me gave me her own hanky!

It came out of the blue, I had no warning and was several months after the year 6 pupils had taken their exam. I was the only one to pass and was 10 when I started at the grammar school.

It was a small village school of 60 pupils and only 3 girls went on to grammar school whilst I was there, and just 1 boy.

We were given the letters and took them home to be opened by our parents. My friend opened hers on the bus home 😁

Does anyone else have such clear recollections and how was it for you?
Vague recollection of the tests but a much mors vivid recollection of what we had for pudding that day at the Secondary Modern school where we took the exam.

I remember my parents buying some tutoring books beforehand to help with the intelligence test bit and my Dad going through them with me.

I also vividly remember the day of the test - your name was called out and that corresponded with the question number you had to start with. The later your name was called the higher your starting question number. My cousin was in the same class and he started on about question 15 and then there were eventually 5 of us and we started on 45.

4 of us passed to the Grammar School and 1 to the High School which was considered to be only for the super intelligent!

JackyB

I'm still wondering what a second meaning for "envelope" could be.

Slang term - pushing the envelope? However, that wasn't in use in the 1950s as far as I know.

I think that would be a large ✖ too 😁

NotAGran55

I took my 11+ a year early in year 5, all alone in the headmaster’s study. I had a terrible cold that day and the teacher sitting with me gave me her own hanky!

It came out of the blue, I had no warning and was several months after the year 6 pupils had taken their exam. I was the only one to pass and was 10 when I started at the grammar school.

It was a small village school of 60 pupils and only 3 girls went on to grammar school whilst I was there, and just 1 boy.

Some of us took it a year early, we were only 9 at the time.
My friend passed, I didn't pass the first time so she was always a year ahead of me at High School.

The pass rate was dependent on the number of places available in any one area so it was very unfair.

I think all those definitions of ‘envelope’ are the same, Jacky, just different uses of the same word rather than different meanings.

I must have taken the ll plus in 1958 not 1959 and would have been 9 then, one of the youngest in the class.
I remember only one, from a class of nearly 40, passed the test, while so many on here did.

I took the 11+ in 1964. It was just part of my last year at junior school.
We received our results on a school trip to the Isle of Wight.
I passed, second out of the girls, and went to a very good girl's grammar school.
It was a struggle for my parents to pay for my uniform but I think they were proud of me.
None of my 3 brothers passed.
There was no 'coaching' for the exam like there is these days.

I remember sitting the 11+ exam - although we did not know beforehand; it was announced during registration in the classroom and we all had to walk into the school hall where tables and chairs were set out in rows.

The length of the exam fails me now but I do remember answering arithmetic questions and comprehension questions too. Afterwards, we were allowed out to play and of course the topic of conversation was the horror of what we had just endured apart from the class swat who stated "that was SO easy"!

The results, I seem to recall, came in the post to my parents. I did pass and went on to grammar school but a couple of my close friends failed and went to the secondary modern school.

I vaguely remember taking the test and I remember taking the envelope home to my parents.

My mother was so chuffed that I had passed because it meant that i had a uniform with a hat and everyone could see, therefore, how superior we were. My best friend from next door failed but it didn't stop us being great friends to this day.

Allira maybe lots of us took it "early". I'd never thought about this before.
I was one of three or four in my class - out of a class of just 21.

My husband took it and failed. He is way brighter than me!
(And twice as funny and better "read" too).

Allira, where I live, this test continues. The children take the tests in early September.
The papers are English, Maths, and two "IQ" tests - verbal reasoning and non verbal reasoning.
I would go to a nearby school to observe, to ensure that the regulations were followed.
The last few pages of the non verbal test were a total mystery to me.

I remember having to go into the class above mine to sit a test or exam with them. I don’t recall any details of it or hearing anything further about it. I only remember being scared because I was frightened of that class’s teacher. Thankfully she left before I moved up to that class.