Grammar schools - 1960s/1970s

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.

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.

I attended an all-girls' grammar school in the 1960s. I passed the 11+ but a few girls entered later, at 13, from the local secondary modern. Our uniform was too elaborate and too dear. On the other hand, even my granddaughter's partially-selective comprehensive has a very expensive uniform list - to keep the plebs out?

I should say they both passed the exam but because there was a set number of places he was offered first.

My Father in law passed but didn't want to go so give his place to a girl, he went into to become a miner, which is what he wanted to be , she became a teacher. My friend always says how the whole family chipped in to be able to send her to grammar school, as her parents couldn't afford all the uniform, sports wear & leather satchel maths & cooking equipment. So much specialist from the most expensive shop in the town.

Not the point, I know, but I heard not long ago that the local boys’ grammar school was using traditional maths and English papers, instead of verbal reasoning, for the 11 plus.

Apparently although many of the new intakes had performed extremely well in the VR tests, they were unable to write a coherent sentence. The school was having to provide remedial English lessons.

All the grammar schools in my area were single sex.
They took a fixed number of students so I don't think anyone asked about the actual mark.

There were 2 Grammar schools where I lived and somehow I managed to get a place at the nearest to me ie about 3/4 hour on a school bus. It was a mixed school and we had quite a lot of opportunities to do different things in the upper part of the school. How I managed to play the piano in assembly I don't know as usually I was a bundle of nerves but I enjoyed singing in concerts at the school - The Mikado, HMS Pinafore and the like. I was made a prefect in the 6th form along with others and also learned a lot about handling people which was really useful when I left home.

Sorry about my mispost above . I was doing it on my tablet and between my dyspraxia and dodgy fingers, I find it almost impossible to type on it or get it to send or not send.

Anyway, away from the apologies, as I said I am another army brat, eight primary schools and two secondary schools. I took my eleven plus in an army school in Singapore.

In my final year in primary school I did one term at a school in Hong Kong, had no schooling the Easter term because of chicken pox and moving from Hong Kong to Singapore, and a new school in the summer term.

Sometime in the summer term a teacher from another class came into my class and asked 'Has anyone not yet done their 'Moray House. I put my hand up and asked 'What is the Moray House'? 'Right' said the teacher 'Come with me', so I went.

About six of us were taken into another classroom and given some test papers to do, maths, English and verbal reasoning. I quite enjoyed them.

About a month later my parents got a letter to say I would be going to the grammar school in the following school year.

Moray House was an eductional institute in Edinburgh, who set 11 plus type exam papers for use in British schools overseas. If you passed it, when you got back to the UK, whicheever educational authority you moved to had to recognise that you had passed the 11 plus and offer you a place at grammar school.

Actually, I think it was the best way to do this exam, no knowledge in advance, no preparation, no worry or fear of understanding of its significance, just sit in a classroom and do some tests.

Cyril Burt insisted intelligence was inherited, was fixed and was unchangeable. An IQ test taken early in life would reveal which children were bright and which were less intelligent. There was no point in trying to raise the performance of 10 or 11 year olds who did badly in IQ tests because their score would stay much the same throughout their lives.

Burt’s influence was enormous. He was called the father of educational psychology and he certainly fathered the 11-plus. He developed and publicised the IQ tests on which it was based and he was a consultant to the Committees that designed the examination.

Shortly after Burt died, his studies of inheritance of intelligence were discredited after evidence emerged indicating he had falsified research data, inventing correlations in separated twins which did not exist, alongside other fabrications. He claimed to have research assistants but this also proved false.

It’s absolutely shocking that our entire educational system was based on the made up findings from this man, yet the fact appears to be unknown to most people. I think there must have been some sort of cover up. It’s deeply concerning and has affected many lives.

Oh yes onlymedea that was what I meant when I first replied to Cariadagain. A boy wasn’t given her place because the number of boy/girl places were already decided.

It is true though that the girls who got places scored higher than the boys who got places.

I was a bit slow on the uptake of what growstuff was saying😳

I am sure I saw research on this years ago that suggested, at least in London there were more places for boys than girls. This was due to more single sex schools for boys. I went to a mixed grammar and every class was equally balanced with 15 girls and 15 boys. I went in the last year you could leave school at 15 and a few in my year did. A lot more left at 16 and not all those who stayed for A levels went to Uni. I think the unfairness of the system felt by some of those who failed 11 plus was understandable to a certain extent, but it was only the dedicated who benefitted greatly. There were also a good many who went to Comprehensives who did achieve a lot and went on to Uni, it's about more than an intelligence score in the long run.

Georgesgran

Durham City had both boys and girls Grammar Schools, so in 1962, I’d have no idea of any bias. I still have friends from my Grammar School days.
Sister-in-law started at the local Secondary Modern School when she moved. She didn’t like it and somehow managed to be transferred to their local Grammar School, despite failing the 11+.

I’ve often wondered about that.

In my area people were occasionally transferred from secondary moderns, if it appeared later that the 11 plus had somehow got it wrong.

A girl at my junior school ended up at the secondary modern that was everybody’s last choice - she’d managed to turn over 2 pages of the 11 plus booklet together, and didn’t realise until just before the end.
Which is why I repeated this horror story to dds before every exam! Make sure you’ve answered all the questions!!

Whether the girl was ever transferred I don’t know - there was another girls’ grammar apart from mine,

In my area there was one boys grammar and one girls grammar so no problem. All the grammar schools we ever had contact with for matches or other events were single sex, we were kept well away from the boys!!
The education system should raise everyone up not dumb down to the lowest.

My Grammar School was girls only with the boys having their Grammar School nearby.

The best thing I ever did was to fail the 11plus. Because the High school had good technical facilities for science, metal work, woodwork, together with maths, discipline was good. I enjoyed my school days we had good teachers, certainly a better education than most get today.