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) .

The mere fact that almost everybody posting here attended a grammar/selective school proves a point. A load of middle class people discussing the problems of the working classes. Very Bloomsbury indeed.

How many posters on here still have limited academic qualifications in adulthood. These are the very people who should be posting stating what they believe would have worked for them or their children.

I imagine though if these people could get the courage up to post, some poster would seek to ridicule them, if they posted something they disagreed with. This most likely would be their spelling or grammar.

I'm bored with people who state shit as though it's a fact because they couldn't even spend two minutes finding a verified source . I'm bored with pussy-footing around people who actively pursue their ignorance and seem to wear it as a badge of honour. I'm bored with not being able to call out people who are too lazy to actually research the grounds of their wholly erroneous belief system.

"The mere fact that almost everybody posting here attended a grammar/selective school proves a point"

And that's bollocks too.

mountford, inside your head, it's the fucking pre-Renaissance. I've always adhered to the idea that one cannot point to a particular period in time and label it 'modern/pre-modern', etc. but you are really confirming my belief that modernity is unevenly dispersed and perhaps even intermittently realised.

you are really confirming my belief that modernity is unevenly dispersed and perhaps even intermittently realised.

You entertained that exact thought inside your head?

**

I've clearly reached some sort of end-of-tether-point because, reading that back, I can see my objections have become fairly niche.

Generally there was more social mobility during the 1950s. There was also a bigger working class.

Just because x happened at the same time as y does not make x causal.

The trade unions were a powerful force during a similar time period. I like the argument it was strong unions that forced social change. Doesn't make me right though.

I worry about all you grammar school educated posters, sometimes you seem unable to grasp how arguments work. Perhaps my secondary modern wasn't all that bad.........?

mountford100

Do you just not read my posts? I keep mentioning the issue in UK education is with (predominantly) white, working class boys.

Secondary modern educated. Dyslexic. Able to put forward an argument.

"you are really confirming my belief that modernity is unevenly dispersed and perhaps even intermittently realised."

Sometimes it's almost as if the Enlightenment never happened.......

'Having it so Good' by Peter Hennessy is about life in Britain in the 1950s. In the chapter on Education he says, that when universal secondary education was implemented after the 1944 Education Act many middle-class parents, who had previously paid, were delighted that their children would be getting a grammar school education for free. (Apart from those whose children failed the 11+.)
He also goes on to say that at that time 75% of the population were classed as working-class, so it is no wonder that many of them were upwardly socially mobile.
With regard to university admissions, comparatively few grammar school pupils went to University then, because it was a completely new idea to most families; the school-leaving age had recently been raised to 15, and there were a growing number of white-collar jobs available which offered a good salary and gave opportunities for promotion.
In a way it was a Golden Age; war over, new Queen, country thriving, education opportunities for the bright, full employment. We were the New Elizabethans.
But you can't turn the clock back, nor should you wish to. Overall, life today is better for the many, and I think we are now a more caring society.

The 1950s were brilliant compared to what came before.

The 'New Jerusalem' of the 1945 Labour government gave us a lot to be thankful for.

The mere fact that almost everybody posting here attended a grammar/selective school proves a point. A load of middle class people discussing the problems of the working classes. Very Bloomsbury indeed.

It proves nothing; the topic was 1950s style education, not specificly the problems of the 'working classes'. Maybe, by being part of the selective system, we can see its flaws and don't wish to perpetuate them. I have lived in Scotland for many years, where no-one even mentions selective education, so joining mumsnet has been a bit of an eye-opener; all the angst about the 11+, getting the right tutor, or getting the right workbooks for diy tutoring, going to appeal if it doesn't go right on the day. It really doesn't sound great!

I have to disagree Bertrand. I have mentioned this discrepancy before and others have confirmed that the HT did have a say on who went to the grammar school.

I remember another thread where a particular poster had said they failed the 11+ but the Head had asked for them to go when their parents appealed to him and they did start at the grammar school instead of the secondary modern. So why not the other way round.

You cannot compare the amount of people going to university today to the amount who went in the 50s-70s because a university degree was either because you needed the degree because you wanted to do a specific job where you actually needed a degree (remembering a lot of the jobs and careers years ago that you now need a degree for you could start at 16 straight from school without qualifications or just with a specific number of CSEs or O levels)

I attended a comp in the 1980's. It was a rubbish education in many ways (working class area of traditionally low aspirations) but a 50's education would have been worse as due to illness/missing a LOT of time off school between the ages of 9-11 I only started to achieve my potential from the year of 13 onwards when my health improved. (Severe Asthma)

I've just taken Ds out if a traditional indie grammar type school into a comp & he is SO much happier. The grammar was 2 years of hell.

"I have to disagree Bertrand. I have mentioned this discrepancy before and others have confirmed that the HT did have a say on who went to the grammar school."

They did. They don't now.

Mountford I certainly did not go to a grammar school nor am I middle class.

As for being Very Bloomsbury. Yer Aving a laff.

I think Mountford you seem to obsess with education as being the only way out of "poverty" or just earning money. As though if your dc do not go to the right school or get the right number of gcse's or A levels or a university degree their life will be over.

When those championing the 1950s education start singing the praises of Sec Mods, to which 75% of children went, then I will revise my opinion of it being a good system. Not that there weren't some good Sec Mods, but on the whole they weren't. There is a reason that the system was hated.

I imagine though if these people could get the courage up to post, some poster would seek to ridicule them, if they posted something they disagreed with. This most likely would be their spelling or grammar.

I think people have raised eyebrows regarding your spelling, punctuation and grammar because on the very first page of this thread you were singing the praises of your brilliant "very 'strict' and often sarcastic English teacher" with her "strict discipline her attention to detail and in no small way to what today be labelled her 'belittling' attitude to my work."

I know that on other threads that having nothing to do with education, some posters pick others up on spelling and grammar, but I wouldn't, and hope others on this thread wouldn't either.

Bertrand I was referring to then not now.

The number of areas that have only grammar and secondary modern are very very few.

Even some schools where you can take the 11+ to get in are still populated by those that just happen to live close by.

I have to disagree Bertrand. I have mentioned this discrepancy before and others have confirmed that the HT did have a say on who went to the grammar school.

You are both right/wrong. At different times and in different areas the 11+ selection process was run in different ways. When I took the 11+ in London, we had exams in English, Arithmetic and Verbal Reasoning, marked externally. The primary school took no part beyond invigilating the exam which was marked externally and parents informed by letter. The following year, the process changed and the primary HTs did recommend who should be selected and who not. However, this was also backed up by a series of IQ tests. I would imagine this kind of scenario taking place in local authorities throughout the UK.

I imagine though if these people could get the courage up to post, some poster would seek to ridicule them, if they posted something they disagreed with. This most likely would be their spelling or grammar

Well if little old 11+ failure, secondary modern educated me can get the courage to post others might feel able to walk with the intellectual giants who passed the 11+.

Ffs

If my son had been in the 1950's I think he would have had the cane on a regular basis because of his Spld

Mountford are we talking about 1950s education, or grammar schools? Those are two completely different things. Current grammar schools do not use 1950s teaching methods. 1950s secondary moderns did.

Are you saying you want a modern grammar school education to be accessible to everyone, with excellent facilities, small class sizes, but with extra academic support for those who need it? We would all like schools to be that good, but it takes cash and no government wants to pay for it. And it has nothing to do with the 1950s.

Or are you saying you want a 1950s secondary modern education for all? And if not, maybe you can understand why people are not in favour of a system where that is what most people got.

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

I remember another thread where a particular poster had said they failed the 11+ but the Head had asked for them to go when their parents appealed to him and they did start at the grammar school instead of the secondary modern. So why not the other way round.

There was actually one girl in my grammar school class who had failed the 11+ but the circumstances were exceptional. She had taken the exam in another area but had not received her result by the time secondary school choices had to be submitted so, presumably, the choice had to be made of the recommendation of her primary HT. I think it was school governors who had the discretion to award these places. I can't see how it could work the other way round; if someone had passed an exam the primary school HT couldn't really appeal and say that they shouldn't really have done so (although in some cases, it could well have been appropriate!)