Did you fail your 11+ exam?

Sarah1954 oh that’s just ? terrible
what gets into parents that they set so much store by a bit of paper and to the detriment of their own offspring.

Yes, I passed. I think quite a lot of my class did. 5 of us all went on to the same girls grammar and other girls and boys went to other grammar schools.

I passed and so did my two brothers. My parents made great sacrifices for us all to go to grammar school and I shall be forever grateful to them for giving us the opportunity despite being from a poor working class family.

I passed the 11+in 1947, a year or so after the first intake
I was in a primary class of about 40 and almost everyone got a place.
A few of the boys came from relatively well off families and went to fee-paying schools .
No-one had much money in those days.
Some of the girls who were offered a place refused because their parents needed them to work asap to support the family.
Very clever girls too. So the gender discrimination was always there.
Those who went to Sec. Mod school also got a good education and could be successful eg my husband, who always earned more than me.

No, I passed in 1956.

I took the 11+ in 1964 and passed top in my school. I went on to a posh all girl's grammar school.

I passed and started at an all girls grammar school in a Berkshire tourist town when I as 10 . Straw boaters in the summer and velour hats in the winter being frequently photographed by American tourists . Imagine that now!

The other option was a Co- Ed grammar school in another town.

This was in Cambridge, Elderly Person. There were three single-sex grammar schools for girls and three for boys. All were not considered equal though. There was a definite hierarchy. The top girls’ and boys’ schools also (maybe primarily given that some definitely struggled) took fee-paying pupils.

By the time I went to secondary school in 1970 Scotland had got rid of the eleven+ so it was mixed ability comprehensive for most. We were tested in first year and the 'brightest' were allowed to take Latin. I took Latin but had to drop art which I really enjoyed. I never considered myself clever and had to work hard. However I was blessed with a good memory and that really helped me with vocabulary learning. I was also a prolific reader from a very young age which helped too.

I failed. My parents didn't show disappointment. I went all through my all girls secondary school in the top form and I don't think it held me back. A girl from my class became a deputy head and one owned her own business. Probably more successes that I'm unaware of.
Failing your 11+ isn't the end of the world.

Germanshepherdsmum

No, I got a good pass as I had first choice in my school of which of the three (all girls) local grammar schools I attended.

That is interesting. A choice of grammar school. In this area there was only one, so the notion of choice was never part of it all.

yes, many children were aged 10.
eleven plus refers to the school one will go to, aged 11 and over.
not that the exam was taken at age over 11.

No, I got a good pass as I had first choice in my school of which of the three (all girls) local grammar schools I attended.

welbeck

there were fewer places available for girls in grammar schools, so it was unfair.
locally there may have been some variation on this, but nationally there were more boys' grammar schools than girls'.

That was not true where I went. The school was coeducational and there was almost an equal number of boys and girls. So basically it was two competitions, and some of one gender who did not get a grammar school place may have done far better in the examination than some of the other gender who did get a grammar school place.
I am glad it all got abolished in this area. It was so unfair to send people to different schools on the basis of performance on one morning when 10 or 11, because the examination was about mid-way through the academic year so around half the cohort were still 10 on the day that the examination was taken.

I passed the 11+ in 1954, 3 girls and 2 boys from our school passed. I went to a mixed grammar, but at nearly 13 moved across the country and changed to an all girl grammar. I never shone very brightly, was always in the bottom few, but managed 2 O level GCE passes (pre-dating GCSE), English Language and French, a surprise, I expected English Lit and Biology!

I passed. In Wales at the time, 1954, you could try when you were 10 and again if you didn’t pass. At least that is what my mother told me. I passed when I was ten and have always suffered from being the youngest in any class. But I did love grammar school.

but what about the unfairness of it all, how it is so weighted in favour of the middle classes.
that's the problem, not the schools themselves, but the system.

No.
Apparently the theory was that nobody failed the 11+ exam.
It was supposedly steering the children in the best direction for their future or some waffle like that.
I notice that Whiskas now has 11+ cat food. It makes me smile when I see a box of it.
www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/302872444
Years later I was told, but I have no provenance for it so I cannot be sure it is right, that there was notionally some absolute pass mark, but that did not really matter in practice, because what mattered was how many grammar school places there were in the catchment area for boys and how many grammar school places in the catchment area there were for girls.
Overall places available were 25% in some areas but I was once told that in some parts of South Wales it was only 10%.
So basically it was not really an examination with a pass mark but a competition for the places that were available.
I remember that Middlesex abolished the 11+ early on. Ironically Middlesex itself got abolished later. I am not sure where it was. I only knew of it because of the trick question of for what do the initials MCC stand, and because of a newspaper cartoon when Middlesex abolished the 11+ and the cartoon had a removal van and the driver said "Where to?" and a little boy answered "Anywhere in Middlesex".
I once saw a children's quiz show on television where the questionmaster asked a boy for what the initials MCC stand and he answered "Middlesex County Council", and the questionmaster looked into the distance, presumably at an off-screen adjudicator, paused, then said "Correct.". It was very much a widely-used trick question back in the 1950s because in cricket MCC means Marylebone Cricket Club, not Middlesex Cricket Club as many people thought.
Oh cricket! It overran and children's television got cancelled that day and the tv announcer said "but I hope you all enjoyed the cricket".
However the BBC seemed to get its priorities right years later when the TUC conference and Political Party conferences were on BBC2 and they were told that conference would not be broadcast for around 20 minutes each morning so that Playschool could be broadcast. Very sensibly the conferences synchronised their mid-morning break each day with Playschool!

I did not pass we were all told we had to get a job and get the money in. No encouragement what so ever I always wanted further education but I made up for it later on.

I was always in the top 3 in my class so I expected to pass the 11+ and I did; because I got a very high mark I was asked to sit an additional exam for a Direct Grant Grammar School, which I also passed (though I suspect I merely scraped through), but even with the Grant we couldn’t afford it so I went to the local Grammar School.

I was like a fish out of water at Grammar School. I had to leave home in my early teens and my schooling was disrupted, so it took me quite some time to achieve my early academic promise.

I passed, and went to a mixed grammar school.

22 years later, my own daughter didn’t pass. I was disappointed, particularly as a few boys, who had not seemed as bright, did pass.

The very wise headmaster at the primary school pointed out that boys were often late developers, compared to the girls, and how they seemed at 11 didn’t necessarily equate to their ability at 14/15. So if boys didn’t have to attain the same pass mark, perhaps that is why.

My own GS and GD now attend the same grammar school as I, and their father, attended. It’s a good school and attracts children from a wide area. A certain pass mark has to be attained, if over-subscribed, then those living closest to school get a place.

My cousin and I are the same age, same County but different schools. She had books of ex-11 plus questions and answers to practice and was quite confident she’d pass - my Aunt has even worked out the cost of the expensive uniform.
Sadly she failed - but I passed - I think only 5 girls from my school did and we went on to Durham Girls Grammar School in 1962.

No didn’t pass so ended up at the local comp. didn’t do too well on exams but have gone on to a senior level in financial services.

I did pass, a big surprise to all!

so sorry, Bluebelle.
what prats these people are.
i remember the science teacher in first form of secondary, casually mentioning that i'd always been lazy.
i hadn't been. gradually i became so; not consciously, but i think i assumed as she was so learned, esp in science, that she must know, like a diagnosis.
so i came to conform to her statement, it acted like a spell.
i wasn't clever enough, nor rebellious/confident/self aware to be angry and show her ! there was also a class element. big.
she really didn't like me. i slid down the rankings, from being first in most subjects in first year exams, to scraping a few O-levels.