Grammar schools verus comprehensives

Just been watching tonight's 'news' and I am sooooo, soooo angry, so obviously need to have a bit of a RANT!

Apparently 'Theresa May' wants to reinstate Grammar Schools.  Or at least that's the rumour.

As someone who has experienced both the 11+ system and the comprehensive system, I would just like to add my views into the mix..................................

Firstly; life is not fair......................

Secondly; there will always be people in life who are cleverer/stupider/richer/poorer than you.

Thirdly; life is not a dress rehearsal.

.....................When I was 11 years old, I failed the 11+ exam.  Now I am 57 years old and yet I can still remember the shame of failing this exam.  From my very first day in infant school aged 4 years old I was being groomed to pass the 11+.  When I started school we didn't have uniforms but for most of my time in the infants I wore 'green' clothes and when I asked my mum if I could have a grey skirt or a blue skirt (because that was what all the other kids were wearing) she said, 'When you're 11 years old you'll go to the Grammar school and will have to wear a blue uniform for 6 years. 

I'm sure at 4 years old I didn't know what a grammar school was, but I knew, in that moment, that it was where I should aspire to go.  From that moment onwards there was never any doubt that I wouldn't follow an academic career.  It was ingrained into me.

I absolutely hated school.  Apparently when I was in the infants my mum used to drop me off in the playground and I'd just run home after her.  Can't imagine that happening these days - someone would have been sued. Lol!  And Junior school was even worse.  I hated every minute of every day.  I wasn't clever, I couldn't do the work, there were more than 40 kids in the class, there was no individual teaching, no caring or concern for anyone and if you couldn't keep up with the majority you just got left behind.  I remember vividly being asked to stand up in front of the whole class when I was 7 years old and spell 'September'.  I'd just moved from an infant school where we had been taught in phonetics and yet all the kids in my new class had moved on from 'baby language' (as they called it). I can still remember the humiliation I felt because I could only spell it phonetically.

I'm not sure whether my parents actually realised just how thick I was? For my first three years at junior school, I always got sat in the second row.  Not really quite sure why.  Maybe my mother had kicked up a fuss.  But then in fourth year, with almost 40 kids in the class, there were four rows and then me and 3 others in a row by ourselves.  I remember going home on the first day in fourth year and the first thing my mum asked was, 'Which row are you in?'  I said I was sitting with Diane by the window because there wasn't any room in 2nd row.  Whether she actually knew I wasn't in 2nd row, I'll never know??!! 

..................Perhaps she did.................. because for the whole of the time I was in 4th year juniors she used to make me do IQ tests every single day after school.  Years later she told me that the headmaster had told her that I was 'borderline' for the grammar school.  However the whole point of IQ tests is that they are testing your intelligence.  They're not actually relying on something you have learned via rote.  Needless to say I failed the 11+.

But what is really interesting is........................  out of about 40 kids in the class there was only a handful of us who failed the 11+.  Obviously there were no league tables in the 1960s but most of the kids in my junior school were predominately from a 'middle class' area.  And when I say 'middle class', we didn't have fathers who worked down the mines.  From the other junior school in the village, only a handful passed the 11+.  But those kids came from council houses and were deemed to be of 'lower class' than us (according to my parents).

...................So off I went to the secondary modern school aged 11 years old and I absolutely loved it.  For the first time in my life I LOVED school.  We didn't have to wear a uniform like they did at the grammar school because we were being taught life skills.  And who wears a uniform to look after a home and a family.  We didn't have to carry a school bag like they did at the grammar school because school bags weren't part of real life.  Us girls took our books to school in a basket with a plastic cover in case it rained.  Can't remember how the boys carried theirs. Us girls were being taught how to look after a family. We were taught how to cook, clean, sew, shop, budget.  Real life skills which to this day, more than 45 years later, I've never forgotten!

By the end of the second term at 'secondary modern school' us girls could cook a three course meal for a family, the boys could do woodwork & metal work and mend stuff.  We all took part in PE classes and regularly ran the 3 miles back from the sports field without any supervision.  It was called 'cross country running'. Lol!  And in the last term we swapped - the girls did woodwork & metalwork and the boys did cookery & needlework.  We made pendants in metalwork and I can't remember what we made in woodwork but whatever it was I really enjoyed it.

The school that I went to in 1970 has now been bulldozed to the ground and there is now a housing estate in its place.  However, I will always remember it with fondness for the skills that I was taught there.

..................And at the end of my first year, at the only school I have ever enjoyed, we moved out of the area and I got moved to a 'Comprehensive School'.............................  And had to endure another six years of hell!!

I wasn't academic, but I was made to be academic because 'comprehensive schools are for all'.  Lets all see how many exams we can pass. Whoopeee dooo!  My parents loved the idea of me going to a newly built comprehensive school.  They loved the idea that everyone was equal except we all know that everyone isn't equal and even though I'd already failed the 11+, here I was going to a comprehensive school where I could shine!  The list of academic qualifications I could take were endless - Chemistry, Physics, Biology, French, German, Russian, Spanish.  In my secondary modern school we did 'science' (which consisted of mixing a few different coloured things in test tubes) and French (which consisted of colouring in cartoon characters wearing stripey sweaters with a string of onions round their neck.)

...................And then when (at my horrible comprehensive school) we had to choose our subjects to take for 'o' levels, us kids didn't get a choice in the matter.  Our parents went to a meeting and chose for us.  I wanted to do typing, shorthand, business studies, food & nutrition and art. My parents chose Chemistry, French, German, History, Geography.  Needless to say I failed everything apart from the geography and history.

Oh dear, this RANT seems to have turned into a bit of a reminisce about my horrible school days.  All I'm really trying to say is..........................  I agree with 'Theresa May'. I personally think it would be a good idea to bring back grammar schools.  People aren't equal and never ever will be.  If I had stayed at the secondary modern school that I went to in 1970 I'm sure my life would have turned out a lot different to how it is now.  I probably would have been a lot happier and a lot more content with my life, a lot sooner than I was.

I don't regret how my life has ended up.  I love my life.  I never have regrets.  You can't change the past.  You can only shape the future.  Educationally, I would have liked to have had a better experience at school.  However, if I'd breezed through school loving every minute I wouldn't have turned into the person that I am today.

'Teresa May' is right in bringing back the grammar schools.  Give the clever kids a chance to shine without the disruptive ones bringing them down.  .................And give the ones who are not so academic a chance to shine too.

Let's bring back the teaching of a few 'life skills'!!!

...................And perhaps then we won't have to watch 'Jeremy Kyle' on TV for an hour every morning. Lol!!!