Jane's memories rang some bells with me, although in Scotland the system was slightly different. We referred to secondary and senior secondary schools and co-educational secondary schools were very common; anything called an Academy was co-ed. In many areas there was only one senior secondary school and so it had to admit both boys and girls.
It has always amused me to hear talk of single sex schools being better for both boys and girls - for different reasons. We just all got on with it and I have no memories of girls not speaking up in class or not doing science with boys around. In my year the languages and sciences duxes were both girls. Discipline was strict but not heavy. I believe boys could be strapped by the Rector but girls never. Before anyone asks the Rector would have been called Headmaster outside Scotland. All teachers wore their academic gowns in school. There was some kind of leaving certificate for pupils at secondary schools but, at least in Aberdeen in my day (late fifties) there was flexibility in the system. In my year we had one girl who had failed and spent one year in secondary. When it was decided a mistake had been made she repeated her first year with us and went on to take a degree in languages. Another girl was whipped up to us after only one term in secondary school. Equally, some people quietly returned to their local schools. For those two years younger than I the system changed again and O grades could be sat in secondary schools with pupils them transferring to a senior secondary for their Highers. When it came to exams we all had to sit lower/O grade arithmetic even though this was an acceptable subject only for Colleges of Education (non graduate teacher training for primary schools). This was a non taught subject: we passed it on the basis of our primary school teaching. I don't remember it as being very much more difficult than the eleven plus papers. But it had the advantage of giving us a non essential subject as the first paper and we knew if we failed it we weren't going to be too bothered. And we had longer days, too, than now. Our day ran from 8.45am to 4.20pm which must have made a long day for the country pupils who had to take service buses into town. On top of that we had up to three hours homework per night. We were issued with a diary with pages at the front for our school timetable and our homework timetable. We had to write down a record of the homework given and at the end of each week your parent had to sign the week's record to say you had done the work. Despite all this I was much happier than I had been at primary school where I was either bored (we worked at the speed of the slowest child) or miserable. Patricia in Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
