To be surprised you mumsnetters criticised my ex’s school !!

And if you’d failed 7 of your exams and only gotten 3 GCSEs would you really think that was pretty good going and the sign of a good school? If not I don’t know how you can think only passing 2 out of 7 exams was good for your ex. Even if it’s a different exam system you must understand the point of exams and qualifications is to be passed!

Ah ok @Jumell there isn't too much lightheartedness on here these days unfortunately

Thank you :) I was just a little girly swot who kept myself to myself. There were a handful of us who did well enough to go to the local 6th Form and THAT was an entirely different world as we were in with some of the incredibly privileged kids from across town! I think growing up in an incredibly strict household also helped - I'm still a disappointment to my mother than my first grade that wasn't an A was a 2:1 at uni 😂

op, this is why it helps to understand what you creat3 a thread about first, then your better educated to know your information, its like attending a cobra briefing or a security services intelligence update and every question is mmmmmm etc

Also want to point out that dyslexia was not recognised until the 1980s (I think) and even in the early 90s there were still lots of people questioning if it was a real condtion or something the middle classes had dreamed up to explain why their children weren't doing as well at school as they thought they should. In earlier generations there would have been large numbers of children struggling with basic literacy and numeracy, with minimal support in school. The most severe cases would have been sent to special school and the rest would have had a miserable time being labelled as lazy and thick in mainstream classes of 40+. No wonder many left school with nothing much in the way of qualifications. Some were lucky and from being round pegs in square holes at school would have found a career where their talents and strengths could be used. A lot wouldn't.

I was in the last year to take O levels and I’m 53, so by my reckoning the OP is 50 or 51 - on this thread, anyway. Certainly old enough to know what 56 year old men are like.

I hope you know now that you are very definitely not thick. I saw this at my own school. It's natural to judge yourself by the standard of those you know and not realise that if you looked at the whole school population you'd get a very different picture. For a start, only about 25% of the population passed the 11+ so how your Headteacher could think you were of sub-standard intelligence is beyond me. 6 O levels and 2 A levels was really excellent in the 1970s (my era) and was still pretty good in the early 80s. Would easily have got you onto a degree course or equivalent. I totally agree that exam results are not the be all and end all (have said as much above about a branch of my family - not my own children!).

Colin Robinson. What We Do In The Shadows.

If you know, you know....

“You Mumsnetters”? If you’re posting here you’re one too.

I know nothing about this school BTW

You are surprised a violent school is criticised?

How can you possibly think coming out of school having failed 5 out of 7 exams is good!? Even if you don’t understand the CSE system you must understand that the education system is never going to be set up in a manner where coming out having failed more than twice as many exams as you passed is good. How many GCSEs did you sit and how many did you fail?

What a weird post!

Of course, academia is not everything and many people struggle with exams for a variety of reasons. Also, a lot can change in 40 years at a school. It won't even be run by the same people anymore.

However, 2 CSEs is pretty poor. I don't think you have said what grades he actually got.

I was at school (a bog standard comprehensive) during the GCE O Level and CSE era. GCE O Level stood for General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level and was the highest tier of qualification you could usually take at age 16. The pass grades were A - C if I remember rightly. I got 7 O Levels in 1982. The very first GCSEs were just starting to creep in by then and they were the combining of the GCE O Level and the CSE system. The birth of the system we have today.

Then there was a lower tier which was the CSE, which stood for Certificate of Secondary Education. It was aimed generally at those who were less academic or would struggle with O Levels. I think it was graded 1 - 7 (?). Grade 1 corresponded to O Level grade C, so a pass a Of Level. The rest were just CSE grades. I did take a couple of CSEs in subjects that I had to take but was not great at. They were alongside my O Levels.

Two CSEs was not great even back in 1986 unfortunately, so you are being very disingenuous trying to suggest that it was.

2 CSEs is really really dire. CSEs are below GCSEs (or O levels as they were then) - if you got the absolute highest grade in a CSE it was equivalent to a scrape of a pass on GCSE. However there were about 9 grades at CSE and if you were likely to get the top grade you would have been sitting the GCSE instead (or as well). Most people took between 5 and 10 CSEs or GCSEs so to only get 2 is shit. It's virtually impossible to fail a CSE.

I am old and went to Grammar school as it was still the 11 plus for all back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I was considered "of sub standard intelligence and not really grammar school material" ( I saw this on the reference they wrote for me when I applied to college) and I left with 6 O levels and 2 A levels and this was thought to be poor. For the whole of my adult life I have carried an inner belief that I am thick and this is one of the reasons that I think we should look at the whole person rather than the exams they may or may not have passed.

I know, but I think it's always been patchy. There's been a culture in England of not getting above yourself, not showing off, knowing your place. Far less of an issue in other countries. I possibly see this more clearly because I come from a Scottish family.

HOW did you do that??!!

That sounds amazing! Were you the only one, or were there a couple of you who were just head down, ignore the riots, fires, stabbings, verbal?

Its GCSE that has coursework and exams throughout the study period

GCSE's were bought in because it was thought that some of the brightest pupils weren't getting the results predicted because they didnt do well in exams, so final exam on the day was a very small percentage of total mark. Hence I could have answered about 5 questions on my paper for geography and still got a top pass because I had the marks required from the coursework and the mid term exams

White working class people since the 40s I think. During the 19th and early 20th centuries white working-class people were very keen on education. Who do you think set up the Workingmen's Education Association, the Mechanics Institute etc?

It depends on when you're talking about. I went to a very academic school in the 1970s and it was extremely rare to get all As at either A or O level. By the 1990s it was a lot easier, possibly for the reason I've tried to explain upthread about the change in how the grade boundaries was established. There was a lot more teaching to the test by then, the National Curriculum had come in and schools were being judged by their exam results in league tables and by Ofsted.

Princess Diana left school with about the same qualifications as your husband and was famously dim, so - unless your husband is dense - it is not a great reflection on the school! Pretty hard to be as dense as a royal though...

I'm sorry all, I'm going to cross threads.

So @Jumell if you were second year of GCSE's, it means you are, what, 52? So what on earth were you on about asking what 56 year old men are like, as though they are a different fecking species?

Whatever thought pops onto her head will be a new thread