[OT] The three Rs

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The grammar school I went to was rather different than those around now. For a start, it had a primary school too. And all those who went to that carried on into the secondary part regardless of passing the 11 plus or not. The secondary side was larger though. First three years had 5 classes streamed on merit (A,B,C,D,E) with some moving either up or down. And some kids being transferred from a secondary modern if it became plain they'd failed the 11 plus wrongly, as it were. 4th form onwards was streamed by subject.

The beauty was you got a good social mix of kids based mainly on ability - rather than where they lived.

[damduck-egg]

My Primary School teacher was fairly pleased but I do believe (it was a long time ago) she had to sort out books that were actually simple stories rather than a picture of e.g a Cat with the word written underneath and I was already beyond the Janet and John range.

Down to Mother teaching me from very young and buying books simple reading books at the time that were "Mine" so could be browsed anytime. I still have one of them on my bookshelves now .

I suppose she must have taught us a quite a bit but the only thing I really can pinpoint to her are the words to Waltzing Matilda which being a young Australian she sang to the class a lot. Tragically she got killed while riding her large Motorcycle, probably the first death of someone I actually knew quite well. The Head Mistress had to announce it assembly and then we all carried on with another teacher who turned up. Today we would probably have to have trauma councelors at the ready.

G.Harman

[Ash Burton]

It had to be but the real question is was there any link between 'passing' the 11+ and academic ability?

[Bod]

[The Natural Philosopher]

Very much so.

The real point is how much academic ability is a useful trait

[Martin Brown]

Not to the nearest secondary school by a long chalk. Plenty of my friends had secondary schools a long bus ride away from their home.

The longest was over half an hour by bus each way.

[Martin Brown]

We had to do calculations in Imperial weights and measures at primary school that were tedious in the extreme. Metric is much nicer.

ton, cwt, quarter, stone, pound, oz mile, furlong, chain, rod, yard, foot, inch gallon, quart, pint, gil, floz

OTOH it did provide an introduction into working modulo bases !=10.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Good grief. All of us kids ended up doing over half and hour train rides to school.

Mine was 45 minutes

[Martin Brown]

This was inner city Manchester. Several nearby secondary schools within easy walking distance of under 10 minutes but either full or dodgy.

The most extreme child commuters then travelled to Manchester Grammar or Bolton School and musicians to Cheethams.

[Huge]

[22 lines snipped]

IMPE, no. But that's hardly statistically significant, is it?

[Jethro_uk]

Same way I learned English, I guess.

There are loads of non-metric units in other countries that are in common use too, despite metric being mandated there.

I guess it's only the English that struggle ...

[whisky-dave]

iros were not allowed (but Berol rollerballs were).

ool, not secondary.

Why would they ? we import people to do those 'manual jobs' and as for for tran better off getting your kids learning Swift.

[Terry Casey]

I started infants school 4 months before my 5th birthday, able to read and write.

My mum was a bit pissed off though, when she went to see the head mistress and got a rollicking when she produced a sample of my handwriting.

Why? Because I followed my mum's style of writing with loops on the tails of my ys and gs and that was strictly verboten!

After my teacher discovered that I could also tell the time, I would sometimes be sent to the adjacent classroom to read the clock there and report the time on my return.

It was many years later before I realised that she was doing this to send a subtle 'He can tell the time, so why can't you?" message to the rest of the class ...

[Harry Bloomfield]

Terry Casey brought next idea :

I got some of that and had to teach the rest of the class to tell the time. My uncle had bought me a cheap pocket watch, so of course I had to learn to use it.

I was much slower at learning to read and write, no incentive was provided - I was stubborn, plus a bit 'letter blind' and at school they had tied my left hand behind my back to force me to right handedness, which made me even less responsive. I ended up in special classes to get me reading and writing in junior school. Which rather suggests reading and writing was expected well before the end of junior school.

[dennis]

Passing 11+ didn't guarantee a place at grammar AFAIR.

The exam was like O levels, the grades were adjusted so 45% failed.

This was because you knew 45% were never good enough to pass so it made sure the questions were not to easy or hard.

Just look at the current stuff where the questions are set to be the same difficulty but an ever increasing number of kids pass. Do you really believe that teachers are that much better or that kids are working harder?

[dennis]

Given your rather limited view on life shown here I wouldn't put that mix down as a success.

[Max Demian]

Secondary Technical Schools were set up at the same time as Secondary Moderns, though, apparently, few were built.

[Max Demian]

But, presumably, "elsewhere" could mean a "respectable" comprehensive rather than the dreaded Secondary Modern.

[Max Demian]

At the Grammar I attended, those in the top streams (science or arts) skipped the fifth form so they could leave with A levels at 17 rather than 18. No idea why.

[dennis]

8<

Mine was 2.5 miles for the first year and then the school moved to make way for a new road and it was 3 and a bit miles away.

There wasn't a direct bus to the new school so I biked it for a couple of years and then they put on a bus.