To think the 'Troubles Northern Ireland 1969-1997' ensured the Grammar system stayed in operation In Northern Ireland, thus is now the best education system in the United Kingdom.

[redange]

I do wonder if the Troubles that were ongoing in Northern Ireland between 1969-1997 meant that there was to much going on for the destruction of Grammar Schools to begin. Throughout, the 1960s and 1970s over 1000 Grammar schools were closed in England and Wales going from 1,296 in 1965 1 to the present 164 .The present 164 are in located usually in traditionally Conservative local areas in England. The Most Northern being Ripon Grammar in North Yorkshire, the most southern being Churston Ferrers in Torbay Devon. The survival of the current Grammar schools being down to local councils and County Councils such as Kent and Trafford acting against Government demands initially from Harold Wilson's 1965 Labour Government and then from across the political spectrum, with Margaret Thatcher closing more Grammar Schools than Labour.

However, it is obvious that with all that was going on in Northern Ireland political left wing dogma about Education in the 1970's was not at the forefront of discussion. The, result being that the destruction of the education system that was going on in England and left Wales devoid of any Grammar Schools did not take place in Northern Ireland. The result which is often backed up when i meet people from Northern Ireland being that the Grammar School system has advanced those from Northern Ireland to be the most educated in the United Kingdom. Therefore, it makes me quite sad that now Northern Ireland is politically 'stable' that Sein Fein are acting like any left wing political party and seeking the abolition of the Transfer Tests (known in England as the 11+). Why, cant Sein Fein except that one of the 'benefits' of the Troubles was an education system that has educated Catholics and Protestants greatly above those from say Wrexham. Indeed the Catholic and Non Secular Grammar Schools in Northern Ireland have ensured that only a very small Private Sector needs to exist.

I think the effects of the Troubles are overstated on the majority of the NI population. Most people had a reasonable comfortable middle class lifestyle, especially if your family had a public sector job.

That’s a pretty sweeping statement!!

@Mintypanda said "100% working class (unionist) boys are I think currently the most disadvantage in NI society." I would generally agree with that.

"This is a legacy of the troubles and associated reforms." I would very much disagree with this reasoning for it. The poor educational outcomes existed long before the late 60s. There was less of an impact in the past when there were more manual/industry jobs that recruited from that demographic. Those opportunities no longer exist.

There was less need for higher level education in the past, but it is increasingly important in the last 20 years. The area I'm from would have large numbers of families that never had students go to Uni, many drop out early, very poor work prospects, and it's clearly inter-generational.

I think the disparity is a legacy in part though? Money was pumped into certain communities and less in others. Catholics were more motivated to seek higher education levels due to the job discrimination in certain areas etc. I even remember seeing job adverts in the 90s / hearing of companies in the south that would only hire people from certain community backgrounds.

I do wish education was completely secular though, both sides of the border. That’s another thread though 😤

Definitely education was very important in Catholic communities; many jobs were only available to those that could show their own or their father’s LOL number. There is a reason why there are so many Catholic solicitors and accountants in NI.

Lisa McGee let Derry Girls’ Clare articulate it best. ““We’re girls. We’re poor. We’re from Northern Ireland and we’re Catholic, for Christ’s sake!””

Yes, exactly that

Any evidence for that?

😂I suppose gerrymandering never happened either.

Oh and yes, as someone whose great great grandfather worked as a blacksmith in East Belfast, I can assure you that there was discrimination in the shipyards (he was a non subscribing Presbyterian but didn’t agree with it and wasn’t a member).

Exactly @Dysonquery

Everyone knows Catholics were historically discriminated against. The attitude to education and parents’ support of teachers and strict attitude to working hard and achieving academically in the Catholic community came from a place where you got yourself out of poverty through education.

In my grandfather’s generation, people tried to find out your religion in job interviews and woe betide you if you tried to progress in somewhere like the civil service as a Catholic. Police? Forget it.

As an aside, also love how Derry girls shows how gentle parenting definitely wasn’t a thing in 80s/90s working class NI, while also showing that family as one that was close and loved eachother. In my home, a regular question was “So, you came second in the test? Who came first and why wasn’t it you?” Several of my compatriots in similar schools had similar. Academic pressure definitely weighed heavily.

You got 96%? What happened to the other 4%? 😂

I went to the school that shares its name with a popular television show, so we had a non-violent but still pressured, academic environment.

There’s a sense that discrimination has gone the other way now, that working class catholic communities was where all the big bucks were pumped - community regeneration and early intervention projects etc. Don’t have any official figures on this.

I’m not doubting at all that there was rampant discrimination against catholics, I was querying that it resulted in more Catholic solicitors and accountants.

And yes - huge sums of money are clearly evident in Belfast. Your public spaces, facilities and transport are light years ahead of anything we have across the water, and I get cross when people in NI say they are hard up. NI hasn’t seen anything like the decimation of parks, leisure centres and education budgets that other places in the U.K. have.

I can’t think of anything in my region in the last decade that compares with the new Andersonstown leisure centre, for example. All of our parks round here charge for parking - never seen that in Belfast.

Key word here is in Belfast. Large parts of the country, especially west of the River Bann are still severely neglected in terms of investment and far behind what they should be. As an aside.. have you seen the state of our health service? Makes things in the rest of the UK look like luxury!! I couldn’t believe how modern and organised the hospitals were when my DD had to have surgery in England (funnily enough as the waiting lists here were too long..)

I remember the old 80s Andytown leisure centre, which we visited basically every Saturday and stayed there much of the day!!!! I think it was British policy to build leisure centres in Belfast to divert recruitment of young men to the Provos: only to have the provos use the gyms in said leisure centres to train. 🤣

This is from the 2021 census. They don’t have the SIC codes for lawyers and accountants but this is a decent proxy.

Speaking of the transfer test, I have a very able child who is awaiting his results.

Out of his class, all but a handful (say 3/4) of the children sat the tests. From what I can tell, almost of all these children were tutored privately. My own son was tutored privately from Christmas in P6.

When I did the old 11+ in the 90s, only the struggling children were tutored.

I paid £50 per week, others in and around that but I think the lowest was £30. Plus the summer camps/revision classes.

If we had to fill out a form, we’d claim a Unionist background - but in reality none of us have set foot in a church except for funerals, and we live in a very middle class area with doctors, surgeons, pilots etc.

High hopes for my own children, but I do feel sorry for the able children who come from environments that cannot support their ability.

I went to a NI Catholic Grammar School in the sticks during the 80's. We were all prepped for the exam at our primary school. The Grammar was not high pressure, they still got good results, kids were bright and their parents expected them to work hard, the teachers had a reputation for being very lazy.

The Grammar School I attended did get a makeover a few years later - a new HT cleared out all the well known "lazy" teachers and she relentlessly drove up standards across the whole school not just in the academic subjects. It's brutally competitive now - one of the best for results but it's not for everyone - even if they are the brightest, not everyone thrives in a pressure cooker.

I did not want my kids to go through the grammar system so we moved to an area with great comps. My kids would say they were expected, amongst their peers, to work hard at school - failing was definitely not a badge of honour. I like to think they had space to breathe whilst working hard when needed. I did not want them to have a pressure cooker experience. The culture of a school is what matters, imo, but not the easiest thing to fix.

The secondaries in my area are very, very poor. This may not be the case for all of NI - I don’t know - but the ones around here are dreadful.

My DC did the Transfer Test. DS1 did the old style separate exams and DS2 did the SEAG the first year it was introduced. Both were reassured by us that they didn’t have to do the test. I didn’t want them to feel under pressure at such a young age. But they both wanted to do it. I didn’t have tutors for either of them. Their primary school gave them practice papers - two a week in class and some to take home, but no pressure to complete these. I didn’t make them do any tests at home during holidays. DP and I helped them in any areas they struggled with. I felt the primary school had a perfect balance of being encouraging but relaxed. Three quarters of DS1’s class went to grammar schools, some tutored, some not. DS1 did extremely well. DS2 did extremely well too (slightly better than his brother, much to his delight!) but his best friend didn’t get a high enough score for automatic acceptance to the grammar school he wanted. This was despite the fact that they achieved similar scores in practice papers. DS’s friend went to pieces in an exam situation even though he was very bright. He will always do well because he’s a little grafter and sharp as a whip, but I felt so sorry for him. I strongly dislike the system of categorising children at 11 years old, but it’s what we’re stuck with here for now. I had no choice but to get sucked up into it. My eldest desperately wanted to go to the closest all ability integrated school, but the only way he could be assured a place there was to do well in the transfer test and enter via the grammar stream, which is what he did. Otherwise it would have been a complete lottery. The fact that this essentially comprehensive school (albeit with a grammar stream) is the most oversubscribed school in NI tells a story of its own.

I do believe in selective education, but why we would hark back to a system designed for the conditions of the 1940s is beyond me. Grammar Schools training liberal professionals and managers for industry; Secondary Moderns training people for guaranteed jobs in coal mines and steelworks. How outdated.

We'd be better looking at systems that educate for longer, stream at 14 and then provide both high quality technical or high quality academic education to meet the needs of the future economy.

But that would require moving away from our pernicious class system so we probably won't bother.

Delicious irony that a thread about the best education system in the UK should have a grammatical error in the title.

@ScholesPanda there is an area in Northern Ireland that does academically select at 14. Craigavon has had the Dickson Plan since 1962.
Somewhat dated but comprehensive (boom tish) article Craigavon Historical Society

Delicious irony that people who are trying to look like smart arses apparently wouldn’t recognise a logical fallacy if it leapt up and bit them.