Grammar Schools

[Tabula-rasa]

Yea or nay!

Have you gained or suffered because of them ?

[mikey4444]

Well done Boaty !

[waterboatman]

If you like, don't expect and answer though! ;o}

[waterboatman]

Thanks mikey. It was hard work, but worth it.

[MallyJ]

Absolutely hated the grammar school I went to...left with 3 O levels and spent the next 2 years gaining 7 O levels and 2 Alevels. Careers advice from them...'you are only fit for the local cereal factory' My brother, on the other hand did brilliantly at his secondary modern and left with 8 olevels...it is not the type of school but how well it suits the individual child....

[Peter Pedant]

// Definitely gained. Without them I would never have learned Latin or Greek.// Jackdaw

chrissakes jay dee dont tell vetuste - ( or Naomi ) they go crazy whenever they see a foreign language......
rabies on AB sort of.
Amen - crash ! ( see later )

well done Waterboatman - having got an engineering degree ( I did Maff at OU and had a great time. We er even got into the sunday mirror - orgies at OU summer skool or in the maff class - lack of them. We had fights in the bar instead - You mean.....
" the answer is a cosine !" - - no it isnt POW!
" I think it is pi-squared sir !" - KERSPASH ! bar stool crashes over calculators head
um yeah kinduv
Gor it was fun at the Stirling summer school in 1983

and so WBM having got the engineering degree you wonder why you couldnt have done that at school - or thirty years earlier

it is because you were a different person to be honest.
there was the 13+ exam where kids who had come to their cake and ha'penny earlier than you could improve things.
but then if you had slackers who wouldnt do anything but slack in the back of the class then they had made a positive decision to consign themselves to the rubbish heap....
My brother was one .... "if only I had been told to study..." he would later say, "my life would have been different."
I dont remember it like that ... and it wasnt

there was WEA and evening classes
but they seem to have gone by the board .....

[mikey4444]

Peter....WEA still doing well here in Wales ::

http://www.weacymru.org.uk/

I did a creative writing course with the WEA 30 years ago, and while it didn't result in much paid work, it was loads of fun.

[Jackdaw33]

Whenever I write something in a foreign language I always provide a translation to avoid upsetting people who do not understand it. Unless, of course, I am deliberately trying to wind them up.

[Peter Pedant]

I have a lot to thank WEA for
five years NT Greek in Plymouth ( oh golly - a foreign language - CRASH ! )
and then three years Arabic in Brum ( SPLAT!)

[ the sound effects are for those ABers who cant stand (or "do") foreign languages and make it obvious !]

the WEA seems very quiet in Manchester

The Greek was from someone who later turned out to be quite a famous theologian and professor 'in real life'

[woofgang]

gained, as did my older sibs. I left school in 71 and went on to college. At the time, our local secondaries ranged from poor to hell holes (sarf lunnon) The school I went to was very good at working with a child's strengths. We weren't all stellarly clever or excellently well behaved but they turned out well rounded educated people with a decent work ethic and most of us had learned to think for ourselves....which is about all you can ask of a school really.....

[Jackdaw33]

NT Greek was a stroll in the park compared to what I had to undergo.

[naomi24]

PeterPedant, //dont tell vetuste - ( or Naomi ) they go crazy whenever they see a foreign language......//

Err…. just a minute. I’ve never seen v_e ‘go crazy’ at the sight of a foreign language, and I’ve certainly never gone crazy at the sight of a foreign language. I’m very fond of languages. However, I have said that since the use of foreign languages here probably denies the majority of posters the opportunity to join the conversation, it’s pretentious and ill-mannered. Now perhaps you’ll stop posting your misguided perceptions of my opinion of foreign languages. At the very least, it’s becoming tedious.

Incidentally, there are plenty of grammar schools still in existence

[Peter Pedant]

I still look at Homer and think oo-er
( obv I am looking at a line of Homer in Greek)

Nowadays you can do Auncient History at Manchester as English only. No er languages needed let along dead ones.

I said to the student - why dont you do Law - at the same price £9000 per year.

and he looked at me like .... well an average Aber who had heard a foreign language and bared his teeth - - - I ran for it !

[Jackdaw33]

Whenever I think of Homer I always think of the first line to most of his books which begin with "When rosy-fingered dawn...". That used to provide me with endless opportunities for smut.

[Peter Pedant]

Naomi - I apologise

I thought you wrote once

I really can't be bothered with someone who cannot post in English on a UK naomi24
Mark as Best Answer
Baldric, nor me.

but I must have been mistaken
it was someone else ....
my apologies - I accept you love languages

[naomi24]

PeterPedant, I probably did write that - because I can't be bothered with pretentious people who post in foreign languages. Thank you for the apology.

[andy-hughes]

I went to a grammar school and loathed every minute of it.

It was seriously pretentious, it was a classically designed building, so only six formers were allowed to stroll through fully along the front which could be seen from the road - the other five forms were crammed round the back with the kitchens and the toilets and the heaps of coke for the furnaces.

The masters swanned around in gowns, hitting boys was common, it was utterly horrible.

When I told my careers master I was going to the local college, he told me I was, quote, 'mad' - but I learned to type there, which has helped me forge a second career as a journalist.

So my experience of grammar school was awful - I was mercilessly bullied from day one - but I appreciate that others were lucky, and my experience doesn't define the system for everyone - just for me.