Girls disadvantaged in eleven plus

[Leapyearlover]

I was talking to my aunt today and for some reason the topic of grammar schools came up. She said that in the 60s and possibly later the mark needed to pass was lower for boys than for girls as it was deemed more important for boys to get into grammar schools and have a career. Is this really true?! I've never come across it before but I was speechless!

Here, the boys grammar uses a different test to the girls/mixed grammars (the two boys schools use GL assessment and the others use CEM uni of Durham).

True in Nottingham,I was told some years later that boys would go on to be the family breadwinners and womens pay would be the family 'pin money'.
In 1957.
Secondary Modern school was the alternative and GCEs were not on offer for the most part ,girls saw their future in factory,shop work,lower level clerical until they got married and boys were generall y destined for apprenticeships.

I recently heard that there are about six times as many full scholarships to private schools for boys as girls.
Nobody planned it that way, it's just the boys schools tend to be older and richer.

Check out the current gender disparity in University attendance. It may make you feel better.

I’m shocked if this is true having never heard it before but have no reason to doubt it. Suppose it makes sense they want a gender balance even if means having to drop / increase the pass rate to maintain it.

Didn’t think it would be girls being set the higher pass rate. Was always lead to believe boys were ‘better’ at exams (don’t blame me for the female / male brain chat) because they tweaked the courses to increase the importance on coursework rather than exams which boys were supposed to better at.

However the 11 plus isn’t like a learn by rote or beneficial to crammers and more of an IQ test

Yes it is true. I took the 11 plus in 1954 and I can assure any doubters it is true.

Check out the current gender disparity in University attendance. It may make you feel better. This.

Also, for many years now we have had affirmative action for women, or at least a push for them, in many spaces. Same for BAME.

It's hard to get right. And yes, in the 50s and 60s there was an expectation of men being the breadwinners. We have moved a long way from those times.

I doubt we can ever get it 'right'. Slightly off topic, but look at the trouble Harvard Princeton etc is in now - Asians have to score higher than either Black or White students to gain entry.

Interesting thread on 11+ sex differences. I would be interested to hear how it works today. Especially in areas where there is one pass score for a whole set of grammar schools.

I think you make a slightly different point yeahyeah when you talk about what happens for adults. Affirmative action ( very us term) usually follows structural discrimination. American laws were actually preventing women and African Americans from having the same opportunities as white males.
For anyone interested I strongly recommend the film 'on the basis of sex' that listed all the things a woman couldn't do by law in 60s America. We all should be familiar with Jim Crow laws that prevented African Americans from accessing opportunities.

In the UK we mainly have positive action and which means towards encouraging participation from under represented groups rather than positive discrimination. All women shortlists is a rare example of positive discrimination in the UK.

I was told the same by a lecturer at college who was doing his ma in further education.

Might explain why my DM didn’t get through. She went in the sixth form though and could have gone to university.

I was definitely told this when I took the 11+ in the late 80s. The reason given was, as someone said upthread, that boys supposedly develop later.

Bizarrely I’ve never questioned it until now. It’s an outrage. I wonder what effect it has had on the number of women entering the professions?

I don't actually mind 50/50 boys and girls to grammar if boys do develop later than girls. I would just like them to be upfront about it.

yes its true-i was one of thoses girls. not only that, in the months before the 11 plus, the boys of the class received extra maths, science and english classes while the girls carried on with their sewing classes. this was 1965