The 11+ results
I do not remember if I knew when the results were coming out. Sufficient time had gone for that fog to have receded into the past. Life at school had followed the same pattern.
My school was tiny. There were only the four of us in my year group. We shared a classroom with two year groups. On results day the Headmistress came in. She looked stern. The whole room was silent. She held a piece of paper in her talons.
She stood at the end of the table with Miss O’Bourry, our French teacher, standing to her side.
‘Ann,’ she said. ‘You have passed.’
Ann’s eyes lit up. The other three of us were thrown into a bewildering flood of emotions.
My world collapsed as my mind went inward with all those tales of that Secondary Modern with its pitched battles. I couldn’t imagine what my parents would feel.
‘Ann,’ Miss Gates said. ‘You may go home and tell your parents the good news.’
Ann gathered her things and left looking gleeful. We sat glumly feeling vacuous. My stomach was churning.
She then turned her attention to the three of us. She coldly informed Billy and me that we had interviews and Liz that she had failed. We were not invited to go home to tell the good news to our parents. It was quite apparent that we had let the side down.
Miss Gates turned and stalked out.
All of that but look at the life you have lived and you have lived
It is because of these things that we live to the full. It has to have dark so the light shines all the brighter.
Well mine was bloody black until last year.
Yep – life’s not fair. You’ve had it hard. I’ve had just enough dark to make the light shine.
Once heard a R4 programme about people who went to grammar school but came out with nothing, many more than you hear about from those who big up selection … it’s never gone away and may return!
A terrible thing to put kids through. Arbitrary and favouring middle-class families who can motivate and provide tutoring. May it never return.
Amen to that!
You can’t pigeon-hole kids like that. People who do that piss me off! (‘scuse the French…) That’s what screwed my son up when he went to college.
I couldn’t agree more!