Job Discussion Forums

zorro (3) · Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 202

It also depends on what county you live in, in England. In Buckinghamshire the students still need to take the 12+ to get into grammar schools. I was led to believe that this was one of the only counties left to do this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

ilaria · Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 88 Location: Sicily

Kent too, but we take the 11+ there. I failed Embarassed

... and look where I am today! Confused

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Kind of a strange term, don't you think? You failed the 11+...... so you're not allowed to be 12.

11:59 · Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:09 pm Post subject:

It's shooting off at bit of a tangent but anyone who claims that educational standards/levels/expectations/etc. are not falling in the UK would do well to look back at some of those old papers (11+, 16+, etc.) To judge from the ones I have come across and perused they demanded knowledge of, and abilities in, areas which today are not encountered until beginning A levels!

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

I wouldn't say that the Grade 5 syllabus was any more difficult when I did it than it is now.

Mike_2003 · Joined: 27 Mar 2003 Posts: 344 Location: Bucharest, Romania

I was at school right when the system changed from the O level to the GCSE. I was in the advanced classes for maths and French so took them one year early (O level) whereas all the other exams I took were the GCSE. I failed the French O level (by 1/240th of a percent!) and retook the exam a year later. I didn't study or attend lessons at all that year but passed the GCSE easily. I think that says it all. I hardly think a year of inactivity would have improved my French.

Mike

Timster · Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 6 Location: London

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

You shouldn't believe everything that industry public relations websites say. Compulsory attendance at chapel formed part of Eton's regulations for most of its history.

Being a member of the Church of England was a requisite for entrance to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge until 1873. As a large number of Eton students were Collegers, that is to say those promised entrance to the sister institution of Kings College Cambridge, it is obvious that non-conformists or Catholics, let alone Jews, did not get a look in.

To quote wikipedia: University College School, founded in 1830 as part of University College London, was unique in that it neither took boarders nor gave religious education; indeed, by not limiting its intake to a specific religious denomination, it gained the claim of being the first truly "public" school, open to all.

In fact most religious schools were formed to give an education to those who couldn't be educated in the Anglican Public Schools of the era. Not for the first time you are seeing British Public Schools reinventing their history in order to continue creaming money off the elite.