Lower 4th? Upper 5th? What did these historic form/year group names mean?!

[Erebus]

OK, I know about 'lower' and 'upper' 6th (though don't really understand why you now go from Y11 to the lower sixth...)- but I was listening to CE on R2 yesterday a.m. and he was asking about a school reunion of was it the upper fourth in 1965 ish! But the point is, what was the lower fourth? Why were the forms called this, what was the historical reason? Was there an upper fourth? Was movement from lower to upper automatic? I recall being issued with books like an atlas in the first form (yes) of a GS in 1973 whose previous keepers had been in the upper third or lower 5th, too.

I believe my dad told be that you started GS back in the early 1940s straight into the third form for some reason- but at 11, surely, as it was very much the 11+ back then.

And do you now start real public school at 13 into Y9? (disregarding the 'Shells' & 'Remove' year group names at was it Harrow?!)

Anyone know?

My DB's prep school (only back in the 90s) had Transition, Shell, Remove etc.

I think its all based on some farcical Edwardian reform system in the public school. Think Colonial service but for educating children. Upper this, Lower that spread over a couple of years - with an added bit of remove (removed from what exactly).

It's probably a way of confusing parents whose children aren't in that particular system, so they have no idea of the childrens ages. If some one says "oh mine are in year five" I have no idea... my school system was infants 1 & 2, junior 1-4, secondary 1 - 5. If someone says to me secondary year 3 I'd go "Oh! year around 12-13".

Also its a good way to differentiate which type of education system you went through state or public/private/independent. See a good old bit of Edwardian class divide.

Yes, we started secondary in the upper third (private school). Same numbering system as havingastress. I went to state infant and juniors and had a different system there, but I think the private prep school which was a feeder school for my secondary school had kindergarten and reception (not sure what order) then lower and upper firsts and seconds, then lower third which took them up to the final year of the juniors.

To confuse matters further, the boys secondary school started in the lower 4th, and had a middle 4th before the upper 4th (but only upper and lower 5th and 6th). I'm not sure why their system was different to ours.

I know of one private girls school which still has Upper third, lower fourth etc.

But then there is at least one other private school that has much much weirder names!

I went to an independent day school with this. It was as stress says.

But before I started in UIII (Upper 3) I went to a proper prep school that was a feeder to a public school and the year groups were numbered Prep 1, Prep 2, Prep 3 etc with a Reception as well.

Public schools don't tend to use the UIII, LIV numbering system. Apart from the fact most of them start at 13+ anyway, they often use school specific names for each yeargroup like 'playrooms' or 'shells' or 'remove'. The Upper/Lower X system tends to be used by the day independents and grammar schools that start at 11+.

my class list same as others listed - upper 3 was first year secondary
upper 5 was O levels

I know that both Radley and Harrow call their first years (year 9s) Shells and their second years (year 10s) Removes.

Billy Bunter was the fat owl of the Remove.

My old school used this naming system too.
Upper 3 was Y7
Lower 4 (Y8) and Upper 4 (Y9)
Lower 5 (Y10) and Upper 5 (Y11) were the 2 O level years
and (just to be different) Lower 6 and SENIOR 6 were the A level years.

At my brothers independent day school.
Shells were Y7 and Removes were Y8 and then they reverted to Upper 4 etc. system.

Ahh Remove.

Harrow seem to have (from 13) Shell, Remove, Fifth Form, Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth

whilst Westminster have Fifth Form, Lower Shell, Upper Shell, Sixth Form and Remove.

The Lower Fifth terminology still seems to be in use in some private schools.

well we had a "Middle" too (private school for Naice gels)

so:
Lower 4 (Y7)
Middle 4 (Y8)
Upper 4 (Y9)
Lower 5 (Y 10)
Upper 5 (Y 11)
L6 & U6

Other local school of similar ilk did

L4
U4
L5
M5
U5
L6 & U6

coming from a state Junior I never did get an explanation as to why we started at 4

The two nearest private schools that I know about it have different systems:

One is a former boys' grammar/ the other is a former girls' grammar.

Both were founded in the 17th century. I don't know how long this system has been in operation.

Year 7--> 3rd form/ Upper 3rd
Year 8--> 4th form/ lower 4th
Year 9--> lower 5th/ upper 4th
Year 10--> middle 5th/ lower 5th
Year 11--> upper 5th/ upper 5th
Year 12--> lower 6th/ lower 6th
Year 13--> upper 6th/upper 6th

There doesn't seem to be much consistency tbh. I think lower down in the school it's all different as well. Both schools start at age 7 (year 3).

My school had completely ridiculous names because they didn't even have some kind of internal logic. It was:

Y7 - Middle Fourth
Y8 - Upper Fourth
Y9 - Lower Fifth
Y10 - Fifth
Y11 - Sixth
Y12 - Seventh
Y13 - Eighth

Totally nuts.

Indeed,Huitre!

I smiled a bit when the new boys at Harrow had to sit a test which amounted to 'Stuff about this school that's eccentric, off-beat, that sets us apart from those without this insider guff' -and cynically, maybe 'Stuff that helps us recognise each other in years to come when we're all busy networking amongst the other Old Boys'!

It seemed a little 'contrived'.

Fortunately that was pretty much the only thing at my school that was just plain illogical. In all other respects they were pretty sensible and it would only have been a child very unsuited to the school who hadn't picked up the form names within the first day or so!

At Kingscote (Antonia Forest books!), the Remove seemed to be a sort of 'catching-up' form, for girls who'd been ill or hadn't had traditional schooling before or whatever. I never quite understood how it worked and they managed to rejoin their A-stream classes at some point, because surely they'd have been even further behind, unless there was a lot of one-one coaching in the (small) remove form, where the work could be differentiated a lot.

I never quite understood Enid Blyton school stories either, where they seemed to stay in the first form for endless terms, but then sometimes people randomly moved up a form or two, at various points in the year. But most of them moved up together at the end of a year.

I suspect a lot of artistic license happening in both worlds.

My convent school had:

Form 4b (year 7)
Form 4a (year 8)
Lower 5 (year 9)
Form 5b (year 10)
Form 5a (year 11)
Lower 6th (year 12)
Upper 6th (year 13)

Does anyone recall Tom Brown's School-days? I may have imagined this but I seem to recall it being said that when TB was heading into the lower 6th, the year group was effectively full of what we'd call nerds, 12 year olds who'd been promoted due to talent, not maturity.

tb

tb? sorry! No idea where that came from! Back to the upper 3rd, Erebus!

Derek:your son goes to my old school, I can't imagine anywhere else has those names for year groups!

where I went to school I started a private primary which had

Kindergarden 1 (YR)
Kindergarden 2 (Y1)
Transition (Y2)
Form I (Y3)
Lower II (y4)
Upper II (Y5)
Lower III (Y6)

I believe the senior school started at Upper 3 and so on however I moved to another school after Lower II

Their forms went

Kindergarden - y1 (no year R)
Transition (Y2)
Form I (Y3)
IIB (form two "begin") (y4)
IIA (form two "advance") (Y5)
IIIR (form 2 "revise) (Y6)

Then senior started with IIIrd form and then Lower IV, Upper IV, Lower V, Upper V, Lower VI, Upper VI

suspect I have outed myself as I'm pretty sure mine was the only school with such absurd junior school class names

School starting dates (and indeed dates for cut-offs between years) seemed to be more fluid when I was younger, too.

I went to LOTS of primary schools, in the UK but also in a UK-based system in the Middle East, and frankly went up and down school years like a yo-yo - sometimes a deliberate acceleration (I ended up a year ahead in secondary, and that was entirely deliberate) but sometimes just because my birthday seemed to fall the wrong side of some arbitrary cut-off date.

My school (private day) reversed the words and we had
Four lower
Four middle
Four upper
Five lower
Fiver upper
Six lower
Six upper

Always said that way round...

Nobody, but nobody can out-bizarre the following year group names, still in current use at a state secondary school:

Figures (Y7)
Rudiments (Y8)
Lower Grammar (Y9)
Grammar (Y10)
Syntax (Y11)
Poetry (Y12)
Rhetoric (Y13)

Be amazed.

I am! Name and- um shame?