Grammar schools - 1960s/1970s

I was considered very bright at middle school, I took tests and finished them faster than anyone else and still came out top of the class. But that was it. I was socially inept, terribly introverted and outside of maths pretty poor at anything else. I went to grammar school and from being top of the class at middle school I became fairly average. Outside of maths and languages which I excelled at (strange I know for an introvert) I was fairly poor at everything else.

My parents did nothing to encourage me to study and I soon became lazy. I did manage to pass all my ‘O’ levels. All at Grade C!

When people hear I went to grammar school (not from me) I say ‘I was just good at tests’

My DiL was the first child from her Secondary modern to go to University. This was in the early 1990s

All girls grammar so no problem

Some years after my children had taken the 11+ I was told that the primary school was informed that x number of children had passed and it was left to the teachers to choose which ones! I don’t know if this is true but for my children it felt like it. My son was bright, handsome and likeable. My two girls were also bright and attractive but both were left handed and I have since discovered dyscalculic, and disliked by the teachers. Guess who went to the grammar school!

I went to a single sex grammar school. No 11+ but had 3 interviews for maths, English and with the head. I think I got a place because my dad died when I was 8 and the headteacher kept a number of places for girls like me.

all same sex in our area. I wish I was allowed to have gone to a comprehensive as there was a greater variety of subjects to study..n

I was looking forward to moving on to the girls grammar school - at our primary most girls in the top class each year went there.
Then our stupid local authority changed the system so had to go to the new junior high school which had been a secondary modern but systems weren't in place for the more academic children. It was awful. I was so unhappy there.
Fortunately at 14 you could choose to move to senior high and it was wonderful (eventually everyone had to go)

I didn't have the 11+ exam as I think it was abolished the year I was supposed to sit it. I still went to grammar school, first 2 years at a girls school then brightest went up to the big old red brick grammar building. I was in top stream 1.1 my class was called. Loved school but left at 15 due to bad home life. So with a job I could leave school at 16. Grammar school was very progressive. Girls could learn woodwork or Metal work, and we were taught about racism and apartheid.

Probably explains an injustice that's made me cross all my life ... Which involved my Mum , not me .
Born in 1933 she was a bright child who passed the 11 plus easily and should have gone to the Grammar school like her big boy.
Unfortunately she was told there " wasn't a place" for her and she went to the local secondary modern.
A year later a place miraculously came available for her at the Grammar school. My Mum was always feisty and had settled so refused to go , on principle.
My grandparents obviously didn't have any high expectations of girls because they didn't encourage her to move.
She left school at 14 , becoming a window dresser and then learning typing and became a typist.
She was always highly intelligent.
The year I went to uni she was also accepted into Durham University to study to be a priest.
She was one of the first women ordained into the priest hood at, Durham Cathedral in about 1993 and worked as a priest until her retirement.
After retirement, with the support of my Dad , she followed an Open University course and managed to finish this after Dad died .
I had the great privilege of walking my Mum , in her cap and gown, across the stage at the Sage in Gateshead on the day she graduated and earned her degree.
She was 82, the oldest graduate they'd had and she was a bit wobbly on her pins.
Sadly,she died in 2018, still holding on to her dreams of completing her Masters.
How I miss my wonderful Mum .

In Scotland the equivalents were Senior and Junior secondaries. I was brought up in Edinburgh where even today a higher percentage of pupils go to fee paying schools than anywhere else in the UK. About a quarter of children. In the fifties these schools were boys or girls schools. But the corporations two free senior secondaries were co-educational and took children from a wide area across the city, many from working class homes. I had an excellent academic education in the one that covered the south side of the city. Boys of the privileged classes got an academic education in historic schools in the city. Some academic fee paying schools for girls had been created by feminists in the late nineteenth century but many privileged girls from middle class families went to small private girls schools where they were taught nothing much but how to be ladies. . So I was lucky in a way being a girl whose parents didn't have the money to pay for a private education. Women of my own age who went to these schools are often bitter about it. Most of these former boys schools are now co-educational and education and careers for girls are as important as for boys among the Edinburgh bourgeoisie. My former school is now the top performing state school.

Sheila11

Girls are always top of the class up to year 6. Boys are slower in reaching their potential, so more girls would always get higher marks, I think until they’re 13. I think that’s the age when boys level up.

Hence the attempt, some years back, to make the change to a first (5-8yrs), middle (9-12hrs) and Upper (13 onwards) educational system.

Lots of LEAs made that change but the introduction of the National Curriculum with its different age points put a stop to that.

No Cariadagain, I didn’t get any presents. The opportunity of a good education was considered a reward and privilege in our family.

I had to manage University without any parental contributions. But we did get tutition and a room and a meal in those days🙂 Like a lot of students these days I had a part time job to earn what I needed.

I find it depressing that my single sex grammar school in Liverpool is still single sex and that they have a surprising number of girls with head covering. I’m thinking of suggesting they might like to have Posie Parker go to give them a talk. @Georgesgran your grammar school may have had a 13+ intake.

I went to a girls’ grammar school. All the grammar schools in the area were single sex. However, I came top in the 11 plus in our school and the HT was quite put out because they always gave a prize to ‘the top boy’ so that year they gave two prizes. One to me and one to the boy who came second. Even at 11 I knew what was happening.

growstuff

All the grammar schools in my area were single sex, so there was no question of giving more places to boys to make sure there was a 50/50 split.

Just what I was thinking, it just seemed to depend on places available. If you were at the lowest end of the passes and there were no spaces left then you didn't get to go to the grammar school. unless you were prepared to accept a place at a different school that did have places. I went to an out of area school simply because my sister was already there and it saved on the exhorbitant cost of the uniform as I wore her out grown clothes.

Girls are always top of the class up to year 6. Boys are slower in reaching their potential, so more girls would always get higher marks, I think until they’re 13. I think that’s the age when boys level up.

At least in the 60s and 70s entrance to grammar schools was free - the same as secondary modern schools. My father was the top boy in a good grammar school having won a scholarship. His parents wouldn't even let his two sisters take the scholarship exam as they didn't believe in education for girls. Both left school at 14 without qualifications which limited their career choices. Of course back then university was not funded either so my dad paid for his own articles and became a chartered accountant. Had he lived in my generation he would probably have gone to university and got a degree. In fact he probably could have gone to Oxford or Cambridge, but his parents wouldn't have funded it. Many pupils from his school went on to Oxbridge! My mother went to the same school a few years later, and her father sacrificed hugely to enable her to go to teacher training college. Education grants came in during her course but her dad would have financed all three years if he'd had to. He belived in giving her the best chances so she ended up with a good career unlike my two aunts.

Nowadays there is slightly less unfairness in the system than there was back then. I'm hugely grateful for the funding I received for my university education and feel for students leaving with huge debts now. However in my day I knew fellow students who dropped out of my course as their parents did not pay the contributions they were supposed to and the grant they were allocated wasn't enough to manage on. My parents paid their full share and let me keep everything I earned in the holidays too! No system is perfect though. It's sad that financial considerations prevent some from reaching their full potential.

I'm also interested to know how many people got that Major Present (ie a bike) for passing the 11 plus - as I do remember noting that was the norm...but I didnt get given one (mind you - I didnt get an Age of Majority present either. When it didnt turn up at 18 I thought it would turn up at 21 - but it didnt then either....just a standard level present...).

Am guessing from the comments by some posters on the difficulties paying for the grammar school uniform that that meant there were a noticeable number of other people who also didn't get their bike (or something equivalent)?

Shadowdancer

Iam64

Abnuyc123

I failed the 11+ and attended an awful secondary modern school. I grew up believing I wasn’t very bright.

Subsequently I was lucky enough to go back into education. I did GCSEs and A levels, achieving As in every subject. I have a diploma in nursing, a degree in public health and a post-grad in teaching.

I’ve also learned how flawed the 11+ system was. The exam itself was based on the work of Cyril Burt who later was discredited for lying about his studies. The system was biased against girls. It also very much depended where you lived, in terms of grammar school availability. You may have passed the 11+ but limited places resulted in a fail.

Your experience is similar to mine. It was such a divisive, flawed system.

Same here I left school at sixteen with no sense of a career being possible and spent years working for low pay in unrewarding jobs. I took my GCSEs in my twenties; gained an OU degree in my thirties and a professional qualification.
(2.1 degree) in my forties. After further post graduate work, I became qualified as a psychological therapist.
Failing the 11+ has had a lifelong impact on my financial standing and my sense of self and my mental wellbeing. I discovered the different pass rates for boys and girls when I was studying with the O.U and was outraged.

The fact some secondary mods were ok doesn’t mean many were not awful.

It also doesn’t take away the impression many of us shared, that we simply weren’t very bright.
Like others, I used nightschool as a route into higher ed and professional qualifications.

During My 1st year, first week at a decent sec mod, my class 1A was kept in detention for noise in the classroom queue. The teacher sat us down and told Up1’s we were failures as we weren’t at the grammar school . He said none of us would ever amount to anything.

Certainly been interesting to see just how many places seem to have had single sex grammar schools. I was aware that existed to some extent - but thought there would be very few single sex ones.

So I was lucky that the area I was meant one secondary modern (for both sexes) and one grammar school (for both sexes) - and I wonder how different things would have been if they'd had single sex schools. I'm glad they didnt.......

Looking at peoples comments too re it depended on what time of year one was born as to whether you landed up with an extra year at primary school or no. Can anyone say what would have happened for a January baby (as I was)?

I was also a forces child and education was a tad hit and miss I only managed four primary schools. I was lucky and passed the eleven plus however it then went rapidly downhill ,in my first year at Grammar School I went to four different schools the last being a boarding school,which was traumatic to say the least, educationally I never recovered going from being top of the class easily to the bottom but that was life then.

Lathyrus3

growstuff

Lathyrus3

It’s not quite accurate to say that your place was given to a boy who hadn’t passed. He had passed. It was just that the pass mark for boys was lower than the pass mark for girls!

This is why there were equal numbers. The system ensured that.

Not true in my area. It was single sex, so the pass mark depended on what was needed to fill up the places. We were never given the pass mark anyway.

Nationally boys as a group scored lower than girls.

So if there were an equal number if single sex places boys could get into a grammar school with fewer points than girls.

So say you needed say there were 100 places for each. The highest hundred of girls would get in. And the highest hundred of boys would get in.

But girls got higher marks so that 100 would be getting say 95% . But the 100 boys would be maybe those who got 90%.

So there would be a group of girls who got 90-94%, who scored higher than the boys, but who would wouldnt get a grammar school place, even though they beat the boys.

And in some areas there were more places for boys anyway, so those boys maybe nay scored 75%, but still got a place though the girls at 94% didn’t.

I don’t think I’m explaining this very well😳

I get what you mean and think that was probably pretty common a method of robbing some girls of their rightful passes and handing those passes to boys who didnt deserve it instead. I guess they wouldnt get away with that these days - as there would be girls who would say "I self-identify as a boy - so the mark I've got is good enough for a boy to get into grammar school - so give me my place then or I'll have you for something-or-other (ie not "recognising" me as the sex I self-identify as).

Me - I'm just longing to see a group of women come out and tell these home equity release schemes that they "self-identify as men - and so stop paying us less than men then". That should remove the last trace of sex discrimination....

It was divisive. It banished many children to dreadful sec mods
Iam64
My father taught science in a secondary modern school in Stockport.
He was dedicated to his pupils and nothing delighted him more than one of them gaining an O Level, as they were then.

In Stockport in the 50’s and 60’s there were 3 high schools for girls and 2 for boys. There was also a 13+ exam which pupils could take which allowed those who passed to transfer to the grammar schools.

I went to a co-educational direct grant grammar school funded by my local authority, where there was an equal number of places for boys and girls.

growstuff

All the grammar schools in my area were single sex, so there was no question of giving more places to boys to make sure there was a 50/50 split.

Mine too! I went to the girl's grammar, while my brother went to the boy's which was on the same site. The unfairness for our family was that despite being on the same site, only separated by playing fields, I lived less than 3 miles from school while my brother lived over three miles away and got free transport. My parents seemed unconcerned at having to pay for me but my brother thought it very unfair that I could wald to school and save my bus fare to top up my pocket money while he didn't have the same option!

All grammar schools in Liverpool were single sex in the 1950s. I attended the first Girls Grammar School to be built as a purpose
school. It is now apartments. Aigburth Vale High School for Girls.

Grammar schools in this area are also single sex today.