11 Plus

[Polly]

Ok, I too got bored and zoned out of the question.  I did pass 11+ my clever brother didn't. It had a significant impact on our life chances. 11 is too young for that selection. That is why comps were introduced.  I don't think these have worked though as they levelled down rather than up.

1944 Education Act intended there to be three choices, Grammar, Technical Schools and Secondary Mods, by and large the Techs weren't built and the system was  much to poorer as a result. Grammars didn't suit the practical learners, who drifted down the streams and then out too soon. The techs would have nurtured engineers and designers so much more successfully. Sec. Mods were labelled as second rate, although many did heroic jobs, the kids already had dented self esteem in many cases, and that's hard to overcome.

i think selection at 13 and that triple pathway would probably have been better, in fact really good. Maybe we should suggest it?

Edited October 17, 2015 by Polly

[Polly]

https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

Looking to the future, you might like this clip.  I use it quite a lot.

Edited October 17, 2015 by Polly

[johnb]

I blame Norfolk!! Our first "proper" holiday was in a caravan in Mundesley when I was about 10. We did this for three years. So from the age of ten, I spent all my school life looking out of windows and dreaming of God's own county. I don't remember taking the 11 plus, although, if I was in school at that time (quite a possibility I wasn't as I preferred my day dreaming in the great outdoors of a London suburb) I certainly failed it. I took my ability to daydream and slope off to a secondary modern school ( now demolished and doing something useful by housing people in flats) and started learning when I was about 15. Of course, almost every annual holiday since has been in Norfolk and all our money spent on the boat!

[TheQ]

I'd hazard a guess you didn't get enough questions right. See, I'm not as daft as you think.

Something like this thread has since occurred on another web site and while TYPING the replies to that, I remembered the main reason. 47 years ago when I did the 11 plus, all answers were written out long hand, with up to twenty percent of marks, even in mathematics or arithmetic, being for neat, clean, handwriting, using dip in the inkwell pens, no multiple choice questions.

I had gone to two primary schools,  the first in Northern Ireland taught copperplate hand writing, the second primary  school in Wiltshire taught straight up and down writing and tried to force me to change, beween the two schools they wrecked my hand writing.

Even today my hand writing is awful, 33 years ago, when taking my Open university degree, my course marks went up quite significantly when I was was able to buy my first computer printer and send in course work that was readable.

The Q,   Bachelor of the Arts.

 

[Polly]

Hooray for the OU!

[Warp]

I had a proud father (colleague) come over to me today clearly releived that his daughter had passed (by quite a comfortable margin). This was not a surprise to me as he went to Cambridge, has a doctorate and his wife is a senior teacher with a similar level of academic ability. So I just made light of it with him but he had been genuinely worried... When the questions are this sloppy I guess everyone should worry that their child's future options may be severely curtailed by inept exam writers.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Warp

[Polly]

The exam is one devised in something like the 1930s testing IQ, supposedly. It's way out of date and out of step with what we now know about intelligence. 

[MauriceMynah]

What was the question again?

[grendel]

my daughter failed the 11 plus, and was placed in a school rife with bullying- which was strenuously denied by the staff, we took her from this school and put her into the only alternative in our area, at that time it was in special measures - where the bullying was admitted and firmly dealt with, and was reputedly in the bottom 5 performing schools in the country.

here she thrived, being in special measures meant more staff who actively helped any pupil that showed ability, she passed her GCSE's with good grades, and single handedly pulled up the schools grades that year, as they didn't have a sixth form, and her grades were so good, she moved from there to the local grammar school (among the top 10 in the country that year), although she didn't thrive as well there (due to the curriculum for grammar stream being different from the curriculum she took) she managed some results.

she has since gone to university and passed a law degree - it was only at this stage they spotted her dyslexia (at primary school her reading age was off the primary charts- but her spelling was ( and still is) atrocious).  This should have been spotted and allowed for at primary school with her 11 plus and would have raised her grades enough for her to have gone to the grammar school from the start, she was only 1 point from the cutoff - even an appeal (which the school refused to do) would have got her there.

Grendel

[Polly]

Shameful

[Arthur]

I took the 11 plus over 55 years ago.

II have resisted taking part in this discussion as for various reasons I am still very bitter about the so called selection system in this country and the way it destroyed opportunities for me.

Like many others in the 1980’s I found myself out of work and after making over 2000 job applications and getting nowhere I decided to apply for university and try to enter the teaching profession as a mature candidate.

I wanted to become a teacher many years earlier but the school had advised me that if you failed the 11 plus then you were automatically banned from professional employment.

At the time I had no reason to disbelieve this statement and it was some years later I discovered it was not the case.

Anyway whilst at the university interview the matter of school records was brought up and I was advised it may be worth me investigating what had been recorded about me.

During my investigations into my time at school I discovered a great deal about the so called selection process.

To start with the 11 plus was not a straightforward pass/ fail examination.

There were a lot of other criteria taken into consideration.

Much emphasis being put on belonging to the right organisations (scouts, Guides, Boys / Girls Brigade, Church Choir  etc)

Social and professional status of parents was also a significant factor.

 

There was also the matter that there were only a finite number of Grammar school place available.

 

I know when I took the examination  at a local school there were around 600 people there sitting the exam.  This was only one of several centres in the area so at a guess there must have been a few thousand competing for the few places available at the only two grammar schools in the area. (1 boys and 1 girls)

 

It also became obvious in hindsight that the selection had already begun long before the 11 pus.

At the primary school I went to there were massive gaps in teaching.

I lost a whole years teaching in the final year at primary school as we  were simply split up among the younger classes.  Not even the same one every day.

The 11 plus then was an academic type examination and involved a whole day taking various papers.

At the time we had still not covered decimals in mathematics and were never taught how to multiply and divide pounds shillings and pence and yards feet and inches. Not so relevant now but essential in pre metric Britain.

Science had not even been included on the curriculum.

So don’t think if you failed the 11 plus it was down to your ability there was a lot more involved.

 

As Polly has said had the 1944 education act been  implemented as it should have been then the majority would have ended up in the Technical schools.

The original proposal of the act provided the three types of school, Grammar, Technical and Secondary modern.

The secondary moderns were really just a new name for the previous elementary schools and were intended to provide a basic standard of education until their pupils left at the age of 14.

Unfortunately the act was never implemented properly and we ended up with the disaster of the Grammar and Secondary Modern.

I can of course only speak from personal experience  as I do know that in some areas the Secondary Moderns did provide a good standard of education.   Despite receiving a fraction of the funding directed to Grammar schools.

 

However,  the standard of education  in the secondary modern I went to was appalling.

From the word go all ambition and self esteem was destroyed by being constantly told how you had failed and would have no future.

Serious bullying was a regular occurrence and there was even a drug problem.   Staff were just not interested and the Headmaster denied any problems.

Class sizes were usually between 40 and 50 pupils.   All with one teacher trying to keep order.  (no teaching assistants to help in those days)

Text books when we still had them were usually shared between 4 or 5 pupils making homework a nightmare.  (After the 1^st year textbooks disappeared and we only ever had badly duplicated worksheets.)

In some classes we were even three to a desk meant for two.

The headmaster at the time had commented publically in the papers that he did not think secondary modern pupils should take examinations and had he had his way nobody would have left with any qualifications at all.

At the time it was still possible to leave at 15.

I wanted to leave with at least something in the way of a qualification and did not leave at the end of the 4^th year and stayed on until 16.

What a waste of time.

When we returned for the 5^th year we were simply thrown in the classes with the 4^th years.   No progress at all and although we took the then CSE exam at the end of the year we did it with half the course missing.

Not that it made that much difference as I like many found that CSE’s were not held in much regard by employers anyway.

 

 

So much could have been made of education in this country if when the so called Comprehensive system was brought in the emphasis had been on raising standards rather than perpetuating the idea that all are equal and bringing the level down to the lowest common denominator.

Education  was not supposed to be an entity in itself it was supposed to be preparation for the real world where competition is the norm.

 

As I say these are only my own comments based on personal experience over 50 years ago.