Do you remember Direct Grant schools?

[complexnumber]

(Preparing to be flamed)

They were quite good weren't they?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_grant_grammar_school

[Butterbur]

Yes. I got a free place at one, and had an excellent education that many parents were paying for.

[AnnoyingOrange]

Butterbur - me too

[complexnumber]

I went to one as well, though my parents were fee paying.

Looking back it was a wonderful environment to share a classroom with other kids from a huge range of backgrounds.

One of my best friends dad was a bus driver, another's mum was a playwright. It made no odds in the classroom.

[meditrina]

Yup.

On abolition, our local one transferred to the state sector, the one in the next town went independent. Are Free Schools / Academies going to emulate them well enough?

[Yellowstone]

I was a free place girl too. My school is now independent (a GDST school) but its position on what was then the edge of London meant that girls came from the inner city, from the leafier suburbs and from the hinterland with its stockbroker belt too. It was an extremely healthy mix with no obvious ghettoization. I can't recall any snobbery, it just seemed an unforced mix. I'd like our grammar to be like that. I'm sure grammars could be, given the will - maybe then we'd have more of them then.

[Yellowstone]

Two thens. Too many thens.

[spanieleyes]

I'm an ex direct grant girl too ( although my old school is now private) I remember having to sit the 11+, then the entrance exam, then the scholarship exam and finally an interview with the ( very scary!) Head! One third of the girls were scholarship, the remainder fee-paying. The main difference was they went ski-ing for their holidays, we had a caravan on the East Coast

[bruffin]

My Mum was a direct grant girl as well, but I didn't know it was called that until today. She loved her school, but unfortunately she was pulled out of school at 15 by her mother so she never really got the benefit of further education which it should have given her.

[senua]

Another Direct Grant girl here. I have no idea who was fee-paying and who was LEA-funded, it wasn't really a subject that came up.
It was/is a fantastic school. Being an all-girls it didn't have any of that nonsense about 'girl subjects' and 'boy subjects', they just expected us to do well in whatever direction suited us.

[LondonMother]

And another one. I had a free place, otherwise I would have gone to one of the local comprehensives (which were also good, but different). At my school I think maybe 25% of girls were on free places and those of the rest who'd gone to state primary schools were eligible for means-tested places which gave very generous discounts, especially if you had more than one child at a direct grant school.

As others have said, some of the many advantages were:

1. It was a girls' school and there was no prejudice about girls doing science and maths. I think in my year group of about 85 girls in the upper sixth around 10 went to medical school, one to veterinary college, one to dental school and at least a dozen others went off to do maths, physics, chemistry or engineering. Almost all of of us went on to higher education or an equivalent standard of professional training. The same lack of prejudice about girls' subjects was in evidence at the boys' school down the road where there were plenty of boys doing languages and English. [Still evident at my son's independent school (all boys) now.]
   

1. Better social mix than the school had after 1976 when the direct grant was abolished and it became a fee-paying school. I have to be honest, though, and say that there were hardly any girls there who I'd have described as other than middle class. Most of those who went to university, though, were the first in their families to get that opportunity. I agree that in the classroom the difference in family income made no difference at all.
   

1. There was an expectation that we would all do well. It came as a huge shock to me in my mid-teens when I had a Saturday job and met girls attending comprehensive schools in other parts of the city to realise that most of them were going to take a few CSEs and then leave school. These were bright, capable young women but their academic expectations were pitifully low.
   

[Devil's Advocate popping out again, though - some of the girls who were struggling in my school also had an unrealistic idea of their capabilities - they thought they were thick because they were 'only' taking 8 O levels and not sure of passing all of them. It's not good to be at the bottom end in an academically selective school. Much better to be in a genuine comprehensive school where you can be in the top set for one subject, set 2 for another subject, set 4 for something else etc etc. Unfortunately there aren't many comprehensives about in inner London which have a mix of abilities that reflects the ability profile of the population at large, so the higher ability children are often very isolated and not stretched enough.]

Assisted places in the 80s/most of the 90s were intended to make up for the loss of the direct grant scheme but the funding was never on the same scale so the effect was less.

[Yellowstone]

LondonMother I can say that there were most definitely very disadvantaged but very clever girls at my school. Not even beginning to approach middle class, not in their wildest dreams. I remember vividly the girl who was probably the cleverest in our year, as able at science as latin, scoring full marks in nearly every exam, slightly diffident but incredibly well liked, who went home straight from school each day to put on supper for her four younger siblings because her single mum (unusual in those days) worked full time. What sticks in my mind more than anything else (because I'm sqeamish perhaps) is that more often than not the meal was heart. She could have gone anywhere but chose Imperial, to stay living at home and help out her mum (no disrespect at all to Imperial, I just mean her choices weren't free).

I wonder about her still, I hope that with all her natural talent and grace life treated her well.

[bruffin]

My DM certainly wasn't middle class. My GP had a small nursery and a flower/greengrocers. She would have started in 1948 and the uniform was very expensive at the time.

[edam]

My mother went to a direct grant school. From what she tells me, you had to get really good marks in the 11+. Most people who passed went to the grammar school, a very few got into Direct Grant schools. Her father was a shoemaker, her mother a pieceworker, yet my mother was at school with the daughters of MPs and minor gentry. It was a good deal for private schools because they got the funding, and a good deal for the handful of working class children who got top marks in the 11+. Not so great for the majority of working class kids, though. Especially not the ones who would have got in but whose parents couldn't afford the uniform (my mother was an only child so her parents could save everything for her education).

[Yellowstone]

I didn't know you had to score very highly in the 11+. And was nothing done to help pay for the uniform if you were in staits? Surely it was? I'm off to try to find out more.

[Blu]

I went to a direct grant school.
Yes, you had to do really well in the 11+ to get a scolarship place, which came with a free bus pass and a uniform allowance.
I think about 50% of places in my school were paid by the LEA, and there was a very comprehensive social mix.
There was some snobbery, though. About holidays and council housing - but also intellectual snobbery and some girls who were fee-paying (the lack of a bus pass on the school bus was the giveaway) were clearly being propped up by the system and struggling - and declared thick.

[Blu]

Oh, and my brother went to Grammar and my sister to comprehensive, and we all ended up with very similiar educational achievements in terms of higher education.

[edam]

Yellowstone, yes, most children who passed the 11+ went to state grammar schools. Direct Grant schools were private schools that took a few state funded children. Only those who got top marks in the 11+ were given the chance to go to Direct Grant schools.

It was also unfair because the government funded fewer grammar school places for girls than boys. So the 11+ pass mark was set higher for girls than for boys.

My mother used to tease my father occasionally because he 'only' went to grammar school... (although actually my uncle the 11+ failure has been the most successful - in financial terms - out of all of them).

[bruffin]

I think my mum had to take the 11+ plus another test called "the county" to get her place. From what I can gather there were 2 from her primary that passed.

[LondonMother]

From my primary school I passed the entrance test for the girls' school (the 11+ had been abolished in our city by then) and one boy passed for the boys' school. No one else passed. I put my success entirely down to having attended a very traditional Scottish primary school until the year before. If I'd had to rely on what the English school taught me I wouldn't have been at the required standard, as my perception when we moved was that my new classmates were way behind my old ones in maths and English. [NB - as far as I know, there was no tutoring then at all so it was a fairer test than now.]

Class issue: I suppose it depends on what you mean by middle class. I would say that a family that owns its own business, even a very small one, is not working class, but this is very subjective. One of my classmates was the daughter of an engineer (the kind that mends bits of machinery, not a chartered engineer) and a dinner lady and I thought of her as middle class. Her family's income was probably pretty similar to ours (mother a part-time teacher, father a shop manager), judging by the kind of holidays we took and that kind of thing. I'm searching my memory and if there was anyone in my year who came from a really poor family I wasn't aware of it. The uniform would have been an issue as it was expensive - but as we got free bus passes if we lived more than 3 miles or so from school, maybe there were uniform grants as well as there would have been for a state school.

[Yellowstone]

I've just looked at a yellowed scrap of paper which I found in my father's belongings when his house was cleared out and see that it offers me two 'County free day places' to GDST schools. I'd always thought I'd just had to pass the 11+ but now I do remember an interview with the head and some nice but strange man.

Anyhow, having produced my certificate of cleverness to my very dismissive kids and told them what you MN'ers have said, they're hooting with derision a) at the fact that it's typed and b) at the fact that it gives a 'Telegraphic Address' on the letterhead. It seems only to have re-inforced my ancientness, and done nothing to buoy any idea that I might not be unutterably dim.

[edam]

Darn those unappreciative brats, Yellowstone!

I went to a GDST school (then called GPDST). I think they had all been involved in the Direct Grant scheme when it existed. In the 80s when I was there some people were on assisted places - I have no idea who (apart from my younger sister) but I could name quite a few who very obviously were not!

[snorkie]

I went to one with a free place, just after the 11+ had been phased out - there was a replacement exam which was said to be for 'exceptionally gifted' children - but was just common sense and a bit of a lottery as far as I could tell. It was about 50:50 free:paying places, but you couldn't tell who was who & there was no prejudice that I was aware of.

It was a great school, but I don't think the selection for it was very fair - plenty of those with free places could have afforded the fees I suspect and I'm sure many children who would have flourished there ended up at the rather dire local comp instead more through bad luck in the exam than lack of talent.

[daphnedill]

Another free-place G(P)DST girl here. I didn't like it very much when I was there and didn't actually do as well academically as I should have done, although I still got a place at London Uni. I always thought of myself as a failure (and still do to some extent). I came to value its ethos afterwards and realise now how caring some of the teachers were. It was quite a shock when I hit the job market and people thought I must be bright when they saw my CV.