Last edited by Sammy Ambrose (2013-07-29 14:39:52)

Only to say that the Grammars probably had the best education for some & that the Secondary Moderns did for others. It depended on what suited.

The Public Schools are all about Networking for later life, not education. The 'Independents' are just a waste of money.


Be aware of the world in which we live and consider all the reverse-snobbery out there too. Hard to say who is looked down on more out there - Poshies or Plebs. It depends on where you are hoping to work.

Last edited by Sammy Ambrose (2013-07-29 16:06:04)

Last edited by Sammy Ambrose (2013-07-30 05:02:38)

From my perspective of anecdotal evidence based on a number of family members and school teachers, the grammar school system certainly opened up the doors to university education for quite a number of working class kids who would otherwise have gone onto be dockers or shipyard workers. I am talking about post WWII and into the Sixties. Indeed, we scoff at primary and secondary school teachers now, but it was once a serious middle class occupation with a lot of respect. So average job as we see it now, it wasn't back then. But the fact that the child had passed the 11+ seems to me to have brought prestige and inspiration to the family - that at least our Johnny/Sally will go to university and become middle class.

The other trend I notice - which gives credence to Sammy's postings - is that everyone of my family who was born in the war years or immediately after up until the mid-50s have all done extremely well for themselves, including all those who went secondary moderns and came up in the school of hard knocks and university of life. Certainly for them, failure of the 11+ did not relegate them to factory and dead end jobs, on the contrary.  Those born after 1960 have on the whole not progressed so well.

When I went to secondary school the grammar school system was effectively dead in my area and I am not sure I would have passed the maths part of the 11+ anyway, but my brother went to a different secondary school which happened to be the old local grammar school and there was a different academic vibe going on there. Certainly they had better A Level results than my school.

Here in the Netherlands there is a tripartite system of segregation at 11/12 based on a similar testing scheme to the 11+. It doesn't sit well with me, as I am not convinced that excluding or kids to a different kind of education at 11 serves any real purpose: genius flowers extremely late and child prodigies fall at the wayside. But this may be the case, I am still going to make the necessary moves to ensure my kids go the top school.

Academic prowess is not the best measure of life success anyway, if that was the case, all college and university professors would be millionaires. So much else comes into it. Indeed, I remember an old colleague of mine telling me that the chief reason for going to university was to get yourself a cushy and easy job. Witj that attitude, you are not going to get ahead of the game.

It is my conclusion, that regardless of going to grammar school or secondary modern, those born in WWII and immediately afterwards belong to a golden age of opportunity and class mobility, that has not been repeated since 1971. There are stats out there that show - like the USA - class mobility in the UK has become a closed shop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg0jziNJAKg&list=PL0E4C0538192F84AF