To wonder about CSEs v O Levels

I remember that our school used different boards for the O levels, because the Oxford board exams were considered harder than the Joint Matriculation Board exams, so they put the kids who would definitely get a 1 at CSE, but wouldn't pass an Oxford board O level in for the JMB O level instead.

And when my dad was at school, you did Matriculation, for which you had to have a language. Over the year, in Latin, he got a mark of 10 out of 1000 - 1% - so he was put in for something called Alternative Lower French, where, as part of the paper, he had to translate Goldilocks and the Three Bears from French into English.

I still remember the shock of opening an O level paper and realising that we hadn’t covered one section. My school also did this at A level on the basis that we’d “still get a C”. My parents paid for a tutor for a few hours 😂to go through the text with me!! Fortunately I got a B which was required for my chosen university. I shared notes but it wasn’t really enough for the others All the rest got Cs/Ds 😟

Parents knitted cardigans and pullovers though. And made the summer dresses from material that was available.

Goodness, that gave me flashbacks!

We too had summer dresses that had to be made from a particular, not widely available fabric -- but in any style you wished. My grandmother's favoured style for us was 'baggy', and roughly sized to (fail to) fit from age 11 to 15.

True. And of course earlier on, there was the additional financial burden of a child not earning. My Mum was one of 6 children. She was born in 1924 so at school in the 30s and her dad died when she was 8. No welfare state then of course so they lived in genuine poverty. School leaving age was 14 in those days and like all her siblings, my Mum was expected to leave and start earning at that age. But apparently her teacher came round to the house when she was 11 and begged my grandma to let her go to the grammar school and do the School Certificate, which was the GCSE equivalent then. I think the teacher helped her get a scholarship of some kind which helped a bit, and ultimately of course she got better paid work as a result but it was still a huge financial burden on the family at the time. Mum was the only one of her siblings to get the opportunity and I think she felt grateful and guilty in just about equal measures for the rest of her life. For all our modern problems at least we don't send children to work in cotton mills instead of going to school anymore - well, not in this country.

I agree with this. I did 3 maths 0 levels (Maths in what is now year 10 then Pure and Statistics in Year 11). I did calculus. My son is taking his GCSE's this year and no calculus but covers lots of things I don't remember.

I was the last year of O levels and actually took one GCSE which was a test before they rolled them out across the country. That was in Biology.

I must admit I thought that GCSEs were supposed to get rid of this imbalance between CSEs and O levels but it doesn't seem to have done that as there are Foundation and Higher papers. If you take a foundation paper you can't get higher than a grade 5. If you take higher you fail with less than a grade 5.

For children who are around the 4/5/6 level it seems like a real gamble whether to go for the assured foundation pass or risk failing the higher.

@TizerorFizz my grammar wasn't like that. The only things that had to be got from the suppliers was pe top, skirt, and knickers. Everything else could be high street bought. We could even buy the blazer badge from school to sew on a high street blazer, although we didn't have to have the blazer.

It was very very common for DC not to take up the grammar place. 50% in poorer areas.

My Aunt didn't go because her sister hadn't passed. Her dad had a good job. Men were singled out in factories if dc went to the grammar. My DHs dad was. Getting above himself. A great crime in those days. Still is in some sections on MN.

My DM did go and the uniform cost money. Proud parents in those days would not take grants and grants are fairly new. My friend got one as her dad had died. Before the 1942 Act, I'm not sure they existed. The uniform cost 3x my Dads wage. Truly shocking. The coats were specially made for the school. Every item was from the local uniform supplier. Parents knitted cardigans and pullovers though. And made the summer dresses from material that was available. Different world!

In those days, you stayed on for a 7th term to do Oxbridge exams. I remember this rarity happening for a few (unsuccessful) dc. If you passed the entrance exam, you got the EE offer. I know you could go with fairly average A level grades. A very good friend of ours went with lower A level grades than DH. Did the entrance exam.

my mother went to a grammar school in the 1950s and their family of five children and two adults lived in a two bedroom council flat. At one time they were apparently below the poverty line, but they got grants for the school uniform.

@Rainydayinlondon

Parents were so grateful that dc were at the grammar, no one would complain. You would just be told to leave. We were just told that being able to answer enough questions was ok! My over riding memory of school is teachers arriving for lessons, teaching from the front and us taking notes. Where parents could supplement learning, dc did better. Where they could not for various reasons, dc really didn't achieve what they could have done.

I think that’s why Oxford used to offer two Es, because you had to get two A levels to get your tuition fees paid by the LA and any living grant.

Yes! What was this with only doing part of the syllabus? Can you imagine the furore now 🤣
It really was disgraceful

I think the reason this is relevant today is that a lot of people are again advocating for education to be differentiated between “academic” (ie O’Levels) and vocational (CSEs).

I was in the first year to take GCSE and some of my friends older siblings took a mixture of O’Levels and CSEs and it made life very burdensome for university applications to have this twin track approach.

As PPs have mentioned the previous system was riddled with class bias and prejudice about the expectations of people from different backgrounds. A lot of the time people were steered towards CSEs because of crude judgment made by teachers on the basis of how they spoke or which neighbourhoods they grew up in. It was laughably two dimensional.

GCSEs are not perfect but I think it would be a real mistake to go back to such a class ridden system. Children ended up basically locked out of the prospect of higher education sometimes because either they were at a school which didn’t cater for academically capable children or because of the prejudices of the teachers.

I’m all in favour of improving vocational education and allowing people whose skills are oriented toward trade to specialise but it should allow for more flexibility than that system allowed.

Yep - I don’t think the teachers were awful in my case, I just wasn’t engaged and as you say real life work maths is a different beast.

I like problem solving so algebra comes easily. But don’t ask me about angles or shapes as they don’t figure in my interest or work!

I started at a grammar in the late 70s. Most had disappeared by then, but my borough kept them. There was no tutoring then. My primary school did no tutoring. We had a very limited curriculum - I think it was normal. Mainly maths and English. An occasional bit of history and PE and art. The first we knew about the 11+ was sitting a practice exam one week. We took the actual exam the next week. Every child in the borough. Approximately the top 25% got into grammar school. I went to one of the girls schools. There was a real mix of backgrounds -working class, some office workers, a few nurses, lots of teachers, one or two doctors, solicitors etc. No one was really well off. I certainly wasn't - FSM.
Probably 2/3rd went into the sixth form, with about 1/3rd of them doing a secretarial course. The rest did 3 A levels, with a handful doing 4. Many went on to uni/poly. A few went to Oxbridge, a few did medicine.

My comprehensive school was originally a grammar. It started in 1616 and became a comprehensive in 1971.

@SpentAll
Teachers are not always good or correct. Many people can out perform school results. School is not applying maths at that level. Work does.

The discussion about exams and the education system is interesting but what I’m wondering about is why the OP seems to want to label her BIL and is interested in what exams he took when he was 16.

Mistake! 1423. Here's a picture of where it was until 1901. The doorway is my DHs old grammar. A much later school.

In the 80s I got a CSE Grade 2 in Maths as I was too shit at it to do the O level.

I am paid shedloads now and am very good at numbers. Go figure.

My Grammar was started in 1474!!! They are not necessarily from the 20th century. Many old grammars exist! More expansion was after the 1942 Education Act. Many started out as church schools.

even by the 60s, not many true working clsss were in my grammar

I went to a grammar in the 80s and there were. Although it depends what you mean by "working class" - I mean their parents weren't all bank managers and doctors - for example, one worked in a building society and one ran a TV repair shop.

It isn't like that now - superselective and takes from a massive catchment.

@ButterCrackers

Grammar schools (in the state system) were set up because of class. After WWII there were not enough people to fulfil certain jobs, so grammars were set up to allow some WC children to become managers and supervisors.

A lot of grammars were previously private that converted to grammars in the state system.

@Mycatsmudge

Check out the actual status of the schools they attended when they attended.

Harold Wilson went to the same school as my mother, she attended after passing her 11+, Wilson attended when it was private.

Not sure Callaghan went to a grammar. It's all very well picking up on a few politicians but even by the 60s, not many true working clsss were in my grammar. Definitely a few. Tutoring tends to mean paying privately. Tutors were not used because school work wax geared to the 11 plus. We had 2 maths papers, English including an essay, and verbal reasoning. We covered the type of questions we might get every day. Obviously we did a maths curriculum as well but other aspects, eg English literature, sciences and humanities were virtually absent. When I got to the grammar these subjects were a total unknown.

The grammar school system gave WC dcs a real shot at social mobility, 5 successive prime ministers: Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher and John Major were educated in grammar schools after that the majority of PMs were privately educated. I think because grammar schools were everywhere up to the 70s most dcs weren’t tutored as there wasn’t the pressure there is today to get into the few remaining ones left but there definitely dcs who were tutored by parents who were in the know and didn’t want them going to secondary moderns

i went to a comprehensive which had been the city’s grammar school. If you got into the top 3 classes you were known as the grammar stream and everyone in them did Olevels and most went onto do ALevels. I remember sitting English, Maths and science tests in my last year of primary school which occurred in one day and we weren’t told about them beforehand this turned out to the tests to stream us for secondary school.