To ask what exactly is wrong with a '1950 s ' style education .

[mountford100]

I have just come across a thread on the Secondary Education board that suggests a couple of grammar schools are like travelling back to the 1950 s !

Does that mean they expect pupils to behave (not answer back) , work to their best of the ability do their homework, wear correct uniform at all times.
A school that has little or no time for a child seeking excuses as to why they can not abide with basic rules.

Why does there has to be a mitigating reason as why a child misbehaves other than just bad behaviour.

I am extremely grateful i was educated in a grammar school operating with many 1950 s principles (this is despite being near the bottom of the year) .

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

Are we going bk to a time when lots of children left at fourteen? When a female may need her dad's permission to stay on after that? When students were totally let down and may have left unable to do basic maths and english? When women were taught enough to just be good little housewives?

[BertrandRussell]

Sorry, oliversarmy, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that Head teachers were part of the selection process now.

[Moussemoose]

Creambun2

*Funny how many ardent supporters of comprehensive schools just happen go for grammars when they are avaliable"

I can't speak for others but I failed my 11+. I live in a grammar school area. Neither of my children took the 11+ they both go to the nearest school to our house which is an excellent school.

Don't make assumptions - didn't your school teach you that?

[mountford100]

Mousse. Are you educated to degree or at least to A level standard !
If you are educated to at least that level it reinforces my view of the lack of normally educated averagely aged 40+ plus posters on here.

N.B 75% of people under 45 did not study to A level , they certainly did not attend University.

Outside this world of PHD s and Masters educated people i am regarded as quite an educated person ! This is despite my writing skills being criticized by pedantically minded individuals.

The problem with this sort of approach, it must be terribly intimidating for a non A level educated person to post. The loss to debate is we only can read the views of people who are similar to ourselves in many ways.
Perhaps the worst thing is and this is common on many internet forums (an echo chamber forms) is that collectivism around ideas form. Any one proposing a different idea/view from the collective principal is rounded on from a great height by them.

[mountford100]

Is it must be terribly intimidating .

[BertrandRussell]

In my experience, Mumsnet is, regardless of education, firmly pro grammar and private schools. There is only a small group of antis- the same names pop up every time. And the same posting style even after name changes.

[Peregrina]

In my experience, Mumsnet is, regardless of education, firmly pro grammar and private schools.

I think this is, in part because it's Londoncentric, with some London Boroughs retaining grammars, plus Kent and Bucks, both within Commuting distance of London, retaining the 11+ as the basic system. I doubt whether there would be the same enthusiasm in an area where there are good comprehensives, which despite MN protests, do exist.

[InfiniteCurve]

And the same posting style even after name changes. 

Bertrand,as very intermittent anti I spend a bit of time on every one of these threads wondering if you used to be who I think you used to be.....

[mountford100]

I keep reading about posters Mums and Dads so here goes.

My Mum came to England from Ireland at age 8 and went to her local Primary school she passed the 11+ .
She went to grammar school where she bullied for having a strong Irish Accent . Mum learnt to lose her accent to fit in with the traditionally middle class other girls . Mum did exceptionally well due to the excellent education provided by the school passing 6 O Levels consequently was one of only a few that girls that stayed on to do A levels . The school encouraged her to apply to University or at least Teacher Training College (that was a good option or career at the time, despite the derision of it by some posters). Her dad gave the option of going to Teacher Training College , but was not prepared to support her through University for three years. I guess the reason for being prepared to support her for Teacher Training College was because there was a likely career though it. As Grandad pointed out to me your Mother had a far better education than most people from county Donegal in the 1960s.

This is one of the reasons she was able to get three daughters to University one to Oxford another one to Bath and me many years later through the O.U . This was enabled by the grounding in education and life she received from her school.

My younger sister quit teaching last year after 18 years , the behaviour of children had got to much , she could not take it any more . Constant disruption ranging from swearing to being threatened by 12 year old girls was the norm.

Fortunately she does not need to work and would only consider going back to teaching in a Private or Grammar school.

[mountford100]

County Donegal

[mountford100]

Sorry about the terrible writing. Its not that i need two glasses of wine to make mistakes ...

[Peregrina]

The school encouraged her to apply to University or at least Teacher Training College (that was a good option or career at the time, despite the derision of it by some posters). Her dad gave the option of going to Teacher Training College , but was not prepared to support her through University for three years.

I suspect I might be one who comes into the category of 'deriding' Teacher training. It's by no means what I feel. Of the 20 or so who applied for teacher training, out of an upper sixth of 30, about 6 genuinely had a vocation to teach. I have lost touch with what happened to the majority, but one I still know about, who I would have regarded as being one who had missed her vocation if she had not taught, had a very successful teaching career and ended up as the Deputy Head of my old school. I was not at all surprised by this.

So many others had no real desire or interest in teaching - quite a few dropped out of college, or only taught for a couple of years. Some of these could definitely have been encouraged to aim elsewhere vocationally, and aim higher educationally - these were the days when 5 O levels were sufficient to gain admission to a College of Education. I have not been surprised to find that some of these people later went on to gain degrees either via the OU or by giving up teaching and going to University as mature students and then doing something else.

Indeed, I think the push to send grammar school girls into teaching as the default option, was partly the cause of the lack of respect for the teaching profession e.g. those who can do, those who can't teach.... It's not a sentiment I agree with. In all I went to five different schools for my whole education - and some teachers were definitely cut out for it, and others most definitely not.

[mountford100]

My younger sister wanted to go in to teaching from 14 and has been a natural fit. She has managed to survive all the Bull shit thrown at her by Governments, Paper work, SLTs etc. In the end the very thing that brought in to teaching as destroyed her 'teenage children' . The behaviour that lets face it 19 years (when she began teaching was not great ) bears in to insignificance with today.

19 years ago if a pupil swear at a teacher in the classroom there was a 100% likelihood the sanction would be either a short term Exclusion or a Permanent one if the pupil had previous !

My sister told me the final straw came when a year 10 spat on her and the schools sanction was to give the boy a 2 hour detention to write a letter saying sorry .

Perhaps my longing for good behaviour from pupils (relative) has led me down a path not agreed by many.

[mountford100]

Has destroyed her worn her down .

[BertrandRussell]

"My sister told me the final straw came when a year 10 spat on her and the schools sanction was to give the boy a 2 hour detention to write a letter saying sorry"

What a very strange school she must have been teaching at.

[lljkk]

A Kestral for a Knave was my first thought. I'd be horrified if that school experience and set of life expectations was a realistic prospect for most kids.

I'm foreign so have no experience of grammar schools, etc. I have cousins who very nearly left school with no qualifications, though, they were so unmotivated in our system.... which was still wildly better than what AK4aK describes.

[woodhill]

In some households the dc were needed to go to work rather than stay in education so even if they were bright and at a grammar they had to leave at 16.

Perhaps there were better opportunities for young people even if they didn't go to grammars as there were more available jobs and training?

[Eolian]

My mother is a very bright woman. Highly literate, can do the Times cryptic crossword etc, interested in history, reads a lot. She was also a well-behaved, biddable child. Her 1950s grammar school was full of sadistic teachers who threw board rubbers at children for getting their sums wrong. Her shy, sensitive brother was bullied by pupils and staff. Both would have been capable of A Levels and university. Both left school as soon as they could, because it was a brutal and unpleasant place.
As a teacher I'd be the first to agree that something needs to be done about discipline in schools. But a return to 1950s attitudes is not the answer. If you believe that 1950s schools were havens of peaceful learning and happy, engaged, well-behaved pupils then you are utterly deluded, OP.

Do you have any suggestions of exactly what could be done about discipline in schools, OP (beyond some vague kind of policy like 'zero tolerance')? Because frankly, even if corporal punishment were brought back (God forbid), it wouldn't actually work, you know. The kind of kids who would deserve the harshest punishments would usually be the kind who would hit back.

[eddiemairswife]

Most girls at my grammar school left at 16. They went into nursing, teacher training, banks. There were plenty of jobs available for school-leavers then.

[mountford100]

Bertrand, because the boys spit did not make contact , with her and landed at her feet . The boy claimed it was accidental , he totally tried aimed the spit at her.

The other thing the boy was not even one of her pupils or even took French. He was sent to my sisters classroom because his teacher had enough of him.

The boy concerned has significant learning difficulties , but was quick enough to play on them for his excuse.

Not surprisingly the letter of apology was written by a teaching assistant.

This is in a school rated as good ! The inspection report noted that the school had significant strengths in helping children from disadvantaged and socially fractured families achieve !

[mountford100]

Sister is a MFL language teacher with a degree in French and A level in Spanish !

[Lunde]

Back to the 1950s?

• most people were not educated beyond the age of 14
  

• not many 16 year-olds took academic exams in 1953/54 just over 10% of children got 5 O-levels
  

• If you had a substantial learning disability then you had no right to an education at all until the 1970s. Most children with learning disabilities were institutionalised.

[Moussemoose]

Yep kids "playing on those learning difficulties". Shocking.

A bit like using dyslexia as an excuse for poor SPaG. Playing on that learning difficulty. Who would do that?

[mountford100]

No Mousse trying to spit on a teacher is not a learning difficulty, than hiding beyond a difficulty is wrong.

Because someone has a learning difficulty , whether that be dyslexia or a more profound issue does/should not give a person a get out of jail card.

[mountford100]

Hiding behind a learning disability for doing something that has nothing to do with it is amoral.