How Many Passed The 11 Plus?

[YorkieontheTyne]

12 hours ago, Annie Bynnol said:

 It is/was the number of places available in local Grammar School that governed whether somebody got a place.

 New industrial areas had fewer grammar schools per head  with the exception of places with high Catholic(old or new) population like Liverpool..

  Rural places, particularly historic wealthy counties like Lincolnshire and Yorkshire had many more places.

Sheffield was one of the most difficult places in the country to get a place in Grammar school and if similar exams were taken a pupil would need  a higher score here than than most places in England.

   Even with a high score children would lose their places to those to those with parents serving abroad as civil servants, military and in religious orders. They would also lose their place to those getting a scholarships and recommendations which had nothing to do with ability. It was enough for the local Bishop/MP/Lord etc to say  that the father to be of good character. 

   Very often grades and not marks were given, and no appeals allowed to hide the vagaries and inequalities in the system.

Your quote about ability struck a chord there Annie. I was completely unsuited to to to a technical school but I selected it as my first choice since it was the nearest to where we lived. I couldn’t even draw a straight line with a ruler, yet no one suggested to me or my parents that it might not be a suitable school. 
I spent 5 miserable years completely out of my depth, left with only a CSE 2 in History, and a 3 in maths and french. Have swerved any kind of education since!

[echo beach]

35 minutes ago, YorkieontheTyne said:

Yep. My Dad started there before the second war with a hoss and cart. Came back after Dunkirk badly injured, but then after convalescence returned to the dairy where he worked until he dropped, heart attack on the round at 6:30 on a Sunday morning.  
Struggled on for a few more years as retired ill health, died before official retirement. I’m now living my retirement to the full for him.

Good on you, Yorkie.

 

echo.

[Rockers rule]

45 minutes ago, YorkieontheTyne said:

Yep. My Dad started there before the second war with a hoss and cart. Came back after Dunkirk badly injured, but then after convalescence returned to the dairy where he worked until he dropped, heart attack on the round at 6:30 on a Sunday morning.  
Struggled on for a few more years as retired ill health, died before official retirement. I’m now living my retirement to the full for him.

Father in law not around anymore. good chance he would have known him.

I think we lived in a time when there were still ex servicemen in the workplace and the world was better for it.

Can't remember names off hand at the moment (no doubt they'll come to me at 3am in't morning 😀 as they do)

one RAF pilot who'd had some sort of early plastic surgery, great guy to work with, but no stories about the war.

Another ex Navy guy had a most impressive sailing ship tattoo that filled his chest completely all done by hand who would help any newcomers without thinking about it..

We were lucky we'd got guys (and women) who'd lived through WW2 and usually put you right.

 

One guy I do remember, Big Sess, ex army still got the scars from a fanatical Germans Grenade.

 

 I asked him on his retirement  what he was going to do now he didn't have to get up at 4am.

 

"Stud"  💪

came the reply .

 

 

 

 

[YorkieontheTyne]

1 hour ago, Rockers rule said:

Father in law not around anymore. good chance he would have known him.

I think we lived in a time when there were still ex servicemen in the workplace and the world was better for it.

Can't remember names off hand at the moment (no doubt they'll come to me at 3am in't morning 😀 as they do)

one RAF pilot who'd had some sort of early plastic surgery, great guy to work with, but no stories about the war.

Another ex Navy guy had a most impressive sailing ship tattoo that filled his chest completely all done by hand who would help any newcomers without thinking about it..

We were lucky we'd got guys (and women) who'd lived through WW2 and usually put you right.

 

One guy I do remember, Big Sess, ex army still got the scars from a fanatical Germans Grenade.

 

 I asked him on his retirement  what he was going to do now he didn't have to get up at 4am.

 

"Stud"  💪

came the reply .

 

 

 

 

You’re surely right there Rockers rule. They were a physical reminder of the horrors of war, and a reminder of the cruelties inflicted by others. 
My Dad was minus half a thumb and the index finger on his right hand, had a scar down the left hand side of his face where part of his jaw bone was gone, plus other scars that weren’t visible, all “thanks” to shrapnel.

That generation just got on with life and whatever it threw at them. I said much earlier in this thread that I hadn’t been unemployed throughout my entire working life, well I got that work ethic from my Dad and Mum. Go to work, earn money and then buy things. Simples.

Thing is today, as someone with no qualifications I probably wouldn’t get a job.

[mikeG]

I passed in 1954, as did all other 51 pupils in J4S at Lydgate.  We had a good teacher - Mr Savile.

 

[echo beach]

3 hours ago, mikeG said:

I passed in 1954, as did all other 51 pupils in J4S at Lydgate.  We had a good teacher - Mr Savile.

 

A good teacher is a definite plus mikeG and the school being situated in a relatively affluent area of the city might also have helped.

 

echo.

[RJRB]

From a small church school and a class of around 20; we had 4 off to High Storrs 1 to King Teds and 1 to Firth Park.

For me that entailed 5 years of early rising 2 buses and a period of missing my proper mates who went to local schools.

Several went on to Central Tech aged 13 ?

Most office jobs were asking 5 O levels including English and Maths so I did get a start when I left school.

@daveannjon Ian Wileman was in the same intake as me at High Storrs

[Michael Proctor]

I passed my 11 plus in 1959 when I was at whitby Road school . I went to Marlcliffe school which was about as far away as I could have been from the Manor  Estate where I lived . I was out of the house longer than when I started work at Hadfields in 1964.

[charliewag]

One thing that came as a bit of a shock to a football mad youngster like me was that the school only played rugby union and cricket.

[TWhits]

St Mary's Walkley had 8 boys in my year (I think 24 pupils in total), 4 of whom took 11+, 2 of whom passed - including me.  I went to King Edward VII - bit of a shock as 120 in my year and all boys and all bright!