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

[Jumell]

My ex went to an all boys’ comprehensive school in London. It’s been slagged off to the ground on here as being rough, not being the school of choice for MC parents, results are dire etc etc .

However he did leave the school in one piece and with 2 CSEs no less!! (OK showing his age a bit!) But the pearl clutchiness about his school on MN is immense !! 🤣 - I didn’t do CSEs btw so don’t truly know how good 2 CSEs is.
He left school in 1986 FYI - I was still a young school kid then, Dunno - was 2 CSEs good for 1986?!

FWIW the comp I went to wasn’t short for ‘comprehensive’ - more compost heap - but that’s possibly the subject of another thread. !

I’m of the GCSE era, but I think CSEs were for students that weren’t academically suitable for O levels.

Apologies Einstein, if we aren't all academics...

I agree we haven't got vocational education right in this country but it's depressing that some teenagers can't reach even a very basic standard in the core subjects and a few others after over ten years of compulsory education. Not only that, but now as 40 years ago a fairly large number of them (and their parents) can't even see the point in trying. Education is not just about getting the pieces of paper necessary to get a job or progress to the next stage. It's sad that schools fail to develop a love of learning, reading and thinking for their own sake in so many children - in fact, quite the reverse in some cases.

Yes, they were the next level down. You could get A, B or C as passing grades for O levels, and CSEs were graded on numbers I think, with 5 levels if memory serves. And the top mark in CSE was considered equivalent to an O level grade C. But I think they were designed to be slightly less academically rigorous. What is really funny is that once I passed A levels and got to uni they were meaningless. And now in my career, the grade I got in my degree is pretty meaningless too. I know lots of great people who are very smart who did poorly at school. And lots of people with lots of qualifications who are idiots!

Your ex...? Is this that 56-year-old - who may or may not be in a relationship - you are obsessed with?

What is wrong with you 😵

My very small SEN boarding school only offered CSEs, so I sat six and passed them all, four at grade 1. But I was advised that it would be a good idea to get some actual O' Levels - not everyone saw CSE grade 1 as on a par with O' Levels. The local FE college offered me a place, on condition that I got at least 4 passes at grade 3. On that basis alone, 2 CSEs is very minimal and not much of a leg-up to the next tier. If your passes were in maths and English, they'd offer a measure of your literacy and numeracy, but even then, you might be advised to go for further basic skills training, especially for the more sought-after apprenticeship schemes. If you had your eye on A'Levels, as I did, you'd need a lot more than a bit of paper confirming you could string a sentence together and add up. As to the latter, I couldn't. I had a horrible maths block (possible dyscalculia) so my written work in everything else had to be really good. I don't think a bare pass at CSE would have done me a lot of good - fortunately, it wasn't an issue.

Over 90% of people had at least 1 CSE or O level.

Many of those who didn't have a single pass had already left school before the summer exam period (including a couple of my friends) or were in special schools - which often didn't enter kids into exams at all.

If someone took their CSE and passed 2, that's fine. But it's not great.

It's sad that schools fail to develop a love of learning, reading and thinking for their own sake in so many children - in fact, quite the reverse in some cases

I’d agree with this except I’d say it also starts with the parents. Some kids don’t have a single book in their home and their parents don’t make an effort to get to a local library. I grew up in a working class area and sent books to two childhood friends (separately) for their kids. They both marvelled at the range of books and asked where I got them from as if it was some mystery. I was baffled as they both had 3 kids and their oldest kids were around 12.

How did they not know you get lots of children’s books from Amazon or Waterstones or your local indie? Had they not bought their kids books before?

I was able to read from age 4 and loved visiting the library after school from age 5. I was one of the first in my street to have a computer and dial up internet in the 90s and I loved trawling through the CD encyclopaedias to read about history 😆

Schools are so restricted by the curriculum which unfortunately has become too focused on technical stuff like grammar etc from what I hear, so it’s parents who have far more creative freedom in this respect.

The OP isnt quite sure how old she is ( if even a she ) because every thread shes something/someone different

Her relationship history varies WILDLY too 🤣
This is her 3rd or 4th thread today alone

I can barely keep up. I think she's the one who has a crush on a Findus Crispy Pancake, right????

And Fray Bentos. She also asked for advice on what 56 year old men are like-when she herself is at least 52 going by the majority of her threads

As far as I can recall, by the time I was 16 you had to stay at school till the end of the academic year, but I'm not convinced anybody bothered much if a pupil just stopped coming during that year. Earlier it had been possible to leave at the end of the term after your birthday, I think. The change was supposed to ensure that everybody who could took exams at the end of their final year of compulsory education. Didn't have a lot of effect back then. Changing to GCSEs and judging schools by their results has had more effect, but not necessarily in a good way.

I did my exams in 1982. The law said that you had to stay until the summer but I had one friend who left to work with his dad as a roofer and remember a teacher saying that that was probably a better use of his time.
I had one friend who left to have a baby and another who just stopped coming to school.

I agree that league tables and the need to report on all students' results at specific points has changed many things and not all students have benefited from that approach.

Its worth noting that the old GCE/CSE system was designed in the era of grammars, secondary moderns and a school leaving age of 14/15.

'O' levels were targeted at the top 20% (so mostly the grammar and near miss cohorts), CSEs at the next 40% and the bottom 40% were assumed to be leaving school pre exams or taking vocational qualifications. As @Grammarnut points out there were less places for girls at grammar schools than boys and they could miss out on 'O' levels if placed in one of the secondary mods which did not teach both sets of exams. I also remember girls not being allowed to take a place at grammar school by their families, as the incremental cost wasn't merited for a girl (who would only marry anyway).
In practice when the school leaving age rose to 15 and then 16 most schools shoehorned the bottom 40% "vocational pupils" through a few CSEs but the exams were not designed for them.

When I was a child and even when my DC were small we all eyed the Scottish education system as the quality to aim for. That seems to have changed dramatically over the past 20 years and I don't know if that is due to the changes in education policy.

That passion for learning needs to come from parents and be reinforced at school. My parents always encouraged us to learn and do well at school. They also used WEA opportunities and evening classes to pursue their own education as there was simply no opportunity for higher ed when they had left school. (Even with the school grades, higher ed cost money and families needed them at work).

When I was at primary school we all knew that education or a skilled trade was the route to a secure future and potential better things. This wasn't just a minority culture attitude, the white kids/parents at my school were equally aware of education as their child's big opportunity. I think the "too cool for school" mindset ascribed to white working class children its a more recent phenomenon.

This is an odd thread.

Tripartite system: secondary grammars, secondary technology colleges, secondary moderns. 'secondary' means education after the age of 11, as mandated under the 1944 Education Act.
Secondary Moderns did CSE. Except for a few, which did 0 level, as did the one I attended.

O levels graded 1 to 6 (1 was highest) and later A to E. GCSEs graded A to E. O level grad 6 was equivalent to grade 1 CSE.

This thread has proper cheered me up.😂

Same 😂 I’ve honestly been crying with laughter.

Agree with you so much. A knowledge-rich curriculum is so needed, but we still get fed the 'skills' curriculum which includes teaching unteachable things like resiliance and critical thinking. Fwiw critical thinking needs a knowledger-rich curriculum because you cannot think about or analyse what you do not know. My thoughts on the Special Theory of Relativity are worthless - I don't know anything much about it. My thoughts on Richard III probably more worthwhile since I studied medieval history and in particular the Wars of the Roses and the usurpation of Henry VII (there, I showed where I stand on that lot!).
The point is you have to have something to think with and about - you cannot 'think' in a vacuum.

Not true. After doing A levels, King Charles attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Archaeology & Anthropology and then History where he obtained a BA in 1970.

I don’t think he would have got in if he wasn’t the POW do you?

It was very difficult to actually FAIL a CSE. They were graded 1-5, with a 1 being equivalent to a C at Olevel. You could technically get an Unclassified but it was usually part coursework and part exam so to get an Unclassified you would have to a) not do any coursework at all and b) not do the exam.

So passing only 2 CSEs wasn't great, even for the worst comprehensive!

Oh and I doubt the King sat CSEs. They were generally only available in comprehensives. My brothers, for instance, went to an independent school on an assisted places scheme, and it wasn't an option there.