Yep that was it (pretty much anyway) You sat your 11+ and if you got the top or middle grade you had the opption to go to grammer school, if not you went to high school, but with the option to transfer to grammer school after 2 years. This was just the state education system, you didn't have to pay fees, although for some of the more exclusive ones you could pay to get in, even if you were thick lol.
Nowdays teachers time in the comps is spent with the under achievers, nowt wrong with that, except its at the expense of those who are bright and could get more out of education, but don't. Unless of course their parents can afford to send them to fee paying schools, not a great state of affairs. :-(
Do I sound like "I remember in my day" lol.... 33 going on 70
Having 'failed' the 11+, in 1967 I started at the local Secondary Boy's School. Most of our spare time was spent trying to get access to the Secondary Girl's school up the road Most of my teachers were ex-military, in fact most of us were RN brats as we lived on a new estate a few miles up the A3 from Pompey. One of my best mate's Dad was padre on HMS Victorious.
The system then worked like this: at the start of the fourth year everyone was 'streamed'. To put it nicely, those who were academically able took French...the rest did woodwork
To return to topic, my Dad arrived at HMS Ganges late one winter's night in 1947 at the tender age of 14 and a bit. The group of lads he was with were given a cup of tepid tea in an enamel mug and a cold pie......he told me many years later that that was the best bit
Derek ;-)
'My Auntie Mabel told me I'd make a great soldier, though I don't know how 30 years working in a biscuit factory had qualified her to make that judgement.....' Eddie Nugent
Thanks for the info everyone - interesting. I vaguely remember "streaming" and I think I was in the "B" stream with strong parental urging to make the "A" stream being a constant reminder of my academic shortcoming. There where also C and D streams if memory serves so I was not a complete dunce.
I have always found it interesting how the philosphy of education apears to run in cycles - maybe fads is a better, if less kind word. Educators latch on to a new theory or philosophy and hail it as the greatest thing since sliced bread - until a few years later when the idea is disparaged and a new method is found and hailed as....... ad infinitum.
Hey, how to hijack a topic, huh? Sorry about that!
Yes.. streaming. My Secondary Modern had A, T and G.. A being academic (or was that able??).. T was Technical (or should that have been t'others) and finally G, that being anything or anyone that didn't fit the first two I was T.. didn't do French but DID do woodwork and metalwork
