Eleven plus

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 😁

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!

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 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.

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!

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.

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

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".

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 took the eleven plus in January, 1961 at a village school where the other pupils had the day off! We had tests in arithmetic, English and Verbal Reasoning (IQ). I still remember the composition for which I wrote about a barbecue party!

The results came by post during the half term holiday. We immediately drove to my grandparents so they could present me with a travel clock as a reward for passing! My parents were not well off so money had to be temporarily taken from my savings account to fund the expensive uniform required for the grammar school.

I was very proud to be going but my confidence never really recovered from finding that, despite being top of the class throughout primary days, some other pupils there were brighter than me! A happy memory is meeting DH there although we didn't get together until many years later after he contacted me on Friends United but that's another story ....!

We had to go to a different centre for the 11 plus. One of our teachers was walking around during the exam, looking at what children from other schools’ were writing, and I still remember her telling us that a girl from another school was writing about her ‘boodgie’.

Also still vivid is hearing that a girl from my form had turned over 2 pages of the exam booklet by mistake, and only realised when it was too late.
She ended up at the worst local secondary, the one that was nobody’s choice. 🙁. Interestingly, it was the one attended by Mandy Rice-Davies of the early 60s Profumo scandal, as I knew since a friend’s mother was a teacher there.

Needless to say, I related this story to dds whenever they were facing an exam - make sure you don’t do what that poor girl did!

Marydoll

I knew I had passed, because I was sent to the school office to help the secretary sort out the letters. There were two piles, those who had passed and those, who were not so lucky. I didn't see the letters, but was able to work it out from the names in teh piles.
They were then given out at home time.

I remeber there was a maths and English tests, but if I remember correctly, also what were termed intelligence tests.

Yes, there was definitely an intelligence test. I think I heard I had passed by letter, sent to parents. I also seem to remember there were two parts. My sister only passed the first part and went to a secondary school, while I went to grammar school.

I remember the letters being opened by my parents. I'd passed to grammar school, my twin had not. It was a dreadful time and it was even considered to send me to the comprehensive school too. I believe it has effected my twin immensely throughout their life. Dreadful.

I knew absolutely nothing about the 11 plus. An army child, in my last year at primary school I spent one term in a school in Hong Kong. Then missed a term's schooling, a mix of quarantine for chicken pox and an unexpected move from Hong Kong to Singapore.

A few weeks into the new term at my new school, one of the teachers put their head round the classroom door and said 'Anybody here not done the Moray House? I put my hand up to ask, 'What is the Moray House?' 'OK' said the teacher, 'come with me. So off we went.

I was taken to another classroom and with half a dozen other children was given several test papers. One was English, two were maths and there was a 'verbal reasoning' paper.

I did them, quite enjoyed them, and went back to class and forgot them. A month later my parents got a letter saying I would be going to the army grammar school in the autumn.

Best way to do the 11 plus, know nothing about it, no practice, just being called out of the classroom one day and doing it.

I remember vividly sitting the exam, the Headmaster was going up and down the aisles, he stopped at my desk, and just pointed to something on my paper. He moved away, I studied what I had written and amended it accordingly. I found it fairly easy.
I found out when I was in my fifties, from one of my brothers, that I had passed, but it had been kept from me. They would not have been able to afford the uniform, although two of my older brothers passed and were able to go.
So i ended up at the local comprehensive, where I felt invisible most of the time, got through it and left at 15.
Not had a bad working life, never earnt big money, but insecurity has plagued me all my life.

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.

I took my 11+ in 1948 and failed. But I was apparently borderline and allowed to take it again a few weeks later, strangely, I passed that time and went to a truly lovely Grammar School where I was very happy.

We sat the exam in our own school. The results were sent by post - as were our O Level and A Level results later.

We were coached. This was not official. Our class teacher told us to put away our work when the headmaster came round. I think he knew, though, and might even have instigated the process.
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Incidentally, why did the local authorities stop sending exam results, including GCES and A-Levels, by post? Very hard on the students to have to go to the school to read them along with all their classmates, some of whom might have done better. We could of course contact our friends but that was our own choice.