Eleven Plus
I was in the the second-to-last year that did the Eleven Plus examination in Leeds. Two years after I did it, it was abolished, and Comprehensive Schools, attended by everybody, were brought in.
At the time, it was absolutely crucial - if you passed it, you could go to grammar school and the world was your oyster. You could do lots of exams and get a good education and go to university.
If, however, you failed it, the Secondary Modern school awaited you, and that was it - you'd become a plumber, not a professor.
Yes, it was a simple green light/red light, yes/no system, deciding your destiny for you at the age of eleven (or, in my case, because my birthday's in July, ten).
The original idea was that the little innocent children would just turn up at school one day and be told that they were taking a lovely exam that day. And they'd all just go in and do it, and some would pass and some would fail.
There were tests in English, in Arithmetic and in General Intelligence.
But then many schools realised that if they "taught to the tests" the school's results would be a lot better.
Therefore, by the time I got to the top year of primary school, we had three classes:
4A, taught by Mr Storey. Nobody in his class was ever permitted to fail the eleven-plus.
4B, taught by Mr Robson. A few people at the top of the class passed it.
4R (short for Remove) - - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here, was the general feeling. They didn't try to make children feel better about their ability, or lack of it, in those far-off days.
So, in my eleven-plus year, we worked and worked on knowing our tables instantly, and doing mental arithmetic (60 sums in 30 minutes: but all of class 4A had been so drilled by Mr Storey that we could get the lot done in twenty minutes and have ten minutes to check). We had practised our General Intelligence so much that our general intelligence had doubled - - or, rather, our ability to pass General Intelligence questions in the eleven-plus. As for English, there was no tricky word whose spelling we could not chant in chorus.
And I still remember almost all of it. The dozens rule! (Twelve buns at tuppence halfpenny will cost half a crown, because there were twelve pence in a shilling). My tables! How many yards in a mile (1, 760, since you ask).
Knowing my tables has come in useful on most days ever since. But the rest of it - - no. Because, for one thing, the world went decimal.
Yesterday, sorting out ancient junk, I found The 11 Plus Preparation Book (first published 1958, 11th impression 1966, just in time for me as I took it in 1967).
And I was stunned by how difficult the questions were. Even allowing for the datedness of the content.
Let's have a little go at some Arithmetic, shall we?
What number when multiplied by itself gives 169?
Add 173lbs to 2cwt. 1qtr.1 stone, 5lbs.
It might help you to know that cwt is short for "hundredweight" and that there are fourteen pounds (lbs) in a stone, 28 pounds in a quarter (qtr) and a hundred and twelve pounds in a hundredweight.
A girl can cycle three times as quickly as she can walk. It takes her 40 minutes cycling altogether to go to school in the morning and then home again in the evening. How long will it take her to walk to school?
A farmer has a field which has 6 sides. He finds that he needs 31 chains of fencing to fence the field completely. (22 yards in a chain, ten chains in a furlong, eight furlongs in a mile, folks) The first 4 sides take 5 chains 12 yards; 3 chains 10 yards; 4 chains 5 yards; 6 chains 13 yards. The last two sides are of equal length. How much fencing is needed for one of these sides? (I don't know about the farmer, but I think I need a little lie down in his field).
A prize of £3.12s (that's three pounds twelve shillings: there were twenty shillings in a pound) is to be shared between three boys so that for every 3s. Jim has, Jack will have 6s. and Tom's share is always three times as much as Jim's. How much will each boy receive? (Who knows? But they will, if they passed their eleven-plus).
Rulers are bought for 10s. per dozen and sold at 1s. each. What is the profit on 3 score? (A score is twenty)
Okay, so the teaching of maths has greatly changed and children today no longer have to worry about two men filling a bath with coal and how long they would take to do it. But I wonder how many eleven-year-olds would be able to tackle these kind of questions today, even if they were couched in measurements that they had heard of?
At the time, it was absolutely crucial - if you passed it, you could go to grammar school and the world was your oyster. You could do lots of exams and get a good education and go to university.
If, however, you failed it, the Secondary Modern school awaited you, and that was it - you'd become a plumber, not a professor.
Yes, it was a simple green light/red light, yes/no system, deciding your destiny for you at the age of eleven (or, in my case, because my birthday's in July, ten).
The original idea was that the little innocent children would just turn up at school one day and be told that they were taking a lovely exam that day. And they'd all just go in and do it, and some would pass and some would fail.
There were tests in English, in Arithmetic and in General Intelligence.
But then many schools realised that if they "taught to the tests" the school's results would be a lot better.
Therefore, by the time I got to the top year of primary school, we had three classes:
4A, taught by Mr Storey. Nobody in his class was ever permitted to fail the eleven-plus.
4B, taught by Mr Robson. A few people at the top of the class passed it.
4R (short for Remove) - - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here, was the general feeling. They didn't try to make children feel better about their ability, or lack of it, in those far-off days.
So, in my eleven-plus year, we worked and worked on knowing our tables instantly, and doing mental arithmetic (60 sums in 30 minutes: but all of class 4A had been so drilled by Mr Storey that we could get the lot done in twenty minutes and have ten minutes to check). We had practised our General Intelligence so much that our general intelligence had doubled - - or, rather, our ability to pass General Intelligence questions in the eleven-plus. As for English, there was no tricky word whose spelling we could not chant in chorus.
And I still remember almost all of it. The dozens rule! (Twelve buns at tuppence halfpenny will cost half a crown, because there were twelve pence in a shilling). My tables! How many yards in a mile (1, 760, since you ask).
Knowing my tables has come in useful on most days ever since. But the rest of it - - no. Because, for one thing, the world went decimal.
Yesterday, sorting out ancient junk, I found The 11 Plus Preparation Book (first published 1958, 11th impression 1966, just in time for me as I took it in 1967).
And I was stunned by how difficult the questions were. Even allowing for the datedness of the content.
Let's have a little go at some Arithmetic, shall we?
What number when multiplied by itself gives 169?
Add 173lbs to 2cwt. 1qtr.1 stone, 5lbs.
It might help you to know that cwt is short for "hundredweight" and that there are fourteen pounds (lbs) in a stone, 28 pounds in a quarter (qtr) and a hundred and twelve pounds in a hundredweight.
A girl can cycle three times as quickly as she can walk. It takes her 40 minutes cycling altogether to go to school in the morning and then home again in the evening. How long will it take her to walk to school?
A farmer has a field which has 6 sides. He finds that he needs 31 chains of fencing to fence the field completely. (22 yards in a chain, ten chains in a furlong, eight furlongs in a mile, folks) The first 4 sides take 5 chains 12 yards; 3 chains 10 yards; 4 chains 5 yards; 6 chains 13 yards. The last two sides are of equal length. How much fencing is needed for one of these sides? (I don't know about the farmer, but I think I need a little lie down in his field).
A prize of £3.12s (that's three pounds twelve shillings: there were twenty shillings in a pound) is to be shared between three boys so that for every 3s. Jim has, Jack will have 6s. and Tom's share is always three times as much as Jim's. How much will each boy receive? (Who knows? But they will, if they passed their eleven-plus).
Rulers are bought for 10s. per dozen and sold at 1s. each. What is the profit on 3 score? (A score is twenty)
Okay, so the teaching of maths has greatly changed and children today no longer have to worry about two men filling a bath with coal and how long they would take to do it. But I wonder how many eleven-year-olds would be able to tackle these kind of questions today, even if they were couched in measurements that they had heard of?
posted by Daphne at 7:18 pm
6 Comments:
I am from Kent and we still have the 11 plus, to this day. My brother (who is 3 years younger) failed it when he first took it. My mother (who can be formidable) appealed - and won - and he was admitted to the local grammar, which he enjoyed.
We were sure I wouldn't have passed as I changed primary school like the wind as my parents moved constantly and my education suffered. So I went to boarding school from 11-16 where I didn't need it, getting good GCSEs. I then came out to grammar school (my father was made redundant so the fees could no longer be paid) for 6th form but I struggled to adapt to 'normal' school and my A levels suffered as a result.
Luckily my father had come to open day at my redbrick northern uni and - though I fell short of the required A level UCAS points - they still let me in to do my course!
I guess both my brother and I were lucky; our parents also helped. I have never really been 'academic'. I can fly through the verbal reasoning and literature stuff - but not the maths. That's probably how/why I also failed the civil service entrance exams and thus didn't end up working for the Foreign Office! A shame!
What's a bath then ?
Having seen that book, I agree that it's an historic and slightly scarey memento of a time long gone.
I used to hate those relationship ones; your fathers brothers nephews aunt is married to your uncles cousins brother. Who was the ring bearer ?
Or the Kentucky one : your cousins cousins cousin is married to your cousins cousin. How many heads does your cousin have ?
Ah happy days.
How depressing! It's unthinkable to an American like me that one's whole future would be set in concreteat age 11. Who came up with that idea? And why do you people still allow it? (Of course, your more revolutionary sorts emigrated long ago, I suppose.)
In America we take the SATs (Scholastic Aptitude Tests) at 17 or 18 years old, and a student who doesn't make a high enough score can't get into the good universities. But there are still "tech schools" at which one can learn a trade, and "community colleges" as well where the entrance standards are not as stringent as the universities.
It boggles the mind.
How long will it take that little girl to walk to school? C'mon, let's be honest, nobody walks to school anymore!
Rulers that cheap? No wonder the nuns used those to beat us with!
The farmer with the fence? I'd just have to let my cows roam as I'd never figure out how much I needed!
That is exactly why I went to college to be an English teacher! How many years ago was that? Oh that's right, I can't do math so I can't tell you!
I did the 11 plus in 1959. I remember my nose beginning to run towards the end of one of the exams and I had no handkerchief, so had to sniffle until I could escape to the toilets and grab some toilet tissue (the hard stuff it was then, too!) Still, having suffered all my life from maths phobia, I am impressed that I managed to pass the 11 plus even so! I must be better than I thought!
It's a nice blog to provide a good information. You shared a really good information. I bookmarked this blog further more useful information. Thanks for sharing this..........
Post a Comment
<< Home