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?

Kindergarten
Transition
First form I
Lower Second LII
Upper second UII
Second Remove IIR
Third form III
lower fourth LIV
Upper fourth UIV
Lower fifth LV
Upper fifth UV
Lower sixth LVI
Upper sixth UVI

We had (top downwards)

UVI - Y13
LVI - Y12
UV - Y11
LV - Y10
UIV - Y9
LIV - Y8
UIII - Y7
LIII - Y6
UII - Y5
LII - Y4

Dunno the rest. Transition came in there somewhere, when you were about 7.

Bedales does blocks - can't remember how it works now.

Girls transfer into secondary at 11 (Y7) and boys at 13 (Y9). Prep school is 7-11 for girls and 7-13 for boys. Used to be boarding for a lot of people.

Remove is usually remedial with a more polite word, I think, or a separate stream for, say, classics.

When I went to state primary in 1969 it went
Reception
Middle Infants
Top infants
1st year juniors
2nd year juniors
3rd year juniors
4th year juniors
Then
1st form
2nd form
3rd form
4th form
5th form
Lower sixth
Upper sixth

My school has been mentioned on here already. Don't think the boys next door had the same system though.

Eton sounds like a prison!

doesn't have a H block though, belltree , or an A block AFAIK - may be wrong though - A block is real life perhaps

What stupid names WinCo and Christ's Hospital have for their year groups, lost in the mists of antiquity no doubt.

They didn't have this in the stone age when I were at school, I was in 1st form
2nd form at grammar school, then years 3, 4 and 5 at comprehensive, then the clever people left and everyone else did A levels in the Sixth Form.

Lower 1V for me was equivalent of year 7, is first year of secondary.

According to Joan Aiken's The Shadow Guests, "Shell comes from the French e/schelle, meaning ladder".

My junior school (age 7-11) had Form I, Upper I, Lower and Upper II - on the grounds that you couldn't have a year lower than one...
Then if you went to the senior school, Third Form was year 7, then lower+upper 4, 5, 6.

My boarding school had lower Third sometimes, when they had pupils whose age or ability was less than in the (Upper) Three. Angela Brazil books usually had pupils "in the Third, or lowest, form".

At risk of outing self

Reception
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3

...so far so sane

Form 1
Removes
Shells
100's
Top Year

..and then they all scatter to various senior schools each with their own nutty naming conventions

Second form
Third form
Little Erasmus
Upper fourth
Great Erasmus
Deputy grecians
Grecians

I'm sure I remember reading they did used to have something before Second Form, so the 2nd form was the 2nd year of the school IYSWIM. The school does go back hundreds of years so there are to seen very many changes to ages of starting "secondary" school etc.

We had in lower school
Y1 Transition
Y2 Form 1
Y3 Lower Second
Y4 Upper Second
Y5 Lower Third
Y6 Upper Third

Then up to the upper school
Yr7 Lower Four
Yr8 Upper Four
Yr9 Lower Five
Yr10 Middle Five
Yr11 Upper Five
Yr12 Lower Sixth
Yr13 Upper Sixth

The naming differences were because in the Fours and Fives we also had Divisions, Div1 or Div2, depending on ability. So you would be in LIV2 or UV1 for example. Div1 got taught Latin, Div2 Home Ec!

And these forms weren't age dependent but ability, there was a two year age span in my form all the way through, with girls up to six months older and six months younger than the standard Sept 1st cutoff in state schools. That was hardest in upper sixth as the differences in maturity between 18yr olds and 16yr olds was hard, esp with alcohol ages.

The Remove was effectively a remedial form, and was so at my own school many years ago (tho' at GreyFriars Harry Wharton was clearly a bright boy )
At the DC school, the prep has Lover First, First, Second, Third(Y6), Fourth (Y7) and Fifth(Y8). Senior School confusingly re-starts at 4th (Y9), 5th (Y10) 6th (Y11) and then Lower 8th (Y12) and upper 8th (Y13).
Hardly matters what they are called tho'...