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I was a secondary modern student who completed GCE O Levels in 1964. My results were good. Had I been a student at a Grammar School I would have had no difficulty in proceeding to A Levels. However, my school offered no assistance to students who wished to study for A Levels. Neither was it possible for me to transfer to the local Grammar School. Attempts to achieve this met with blank refusal (without reasons being given. Fortunately, my family emigrated to Australia where I entered a High School which prepared me for university entrance examinations. I subsequently completed Bachelors and Masters degrees and became a psychologist. If I had stayed in England I would have found it extremely difficult to achieve the same outcome.
My major complaint about the English Tripartite system of education at the time I attended school in England was the extreme difficulty experienced by secondary modern students who wished to study for A Levels. I can see no satisfactory justification for this situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.166.78.118 ( talk) 03:55, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
The article says: "In counties in which vestiges of the Tripartite System still survive" ... But there is no listing of these counties. Could one be added? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.8.35 ( talk) 15:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
If anyone could provide some firm percentages for intakes in different areas that would be fantastic, i can't seem to find any sources and I'm going on memory at the moment. Also the article on Grammar schools in the United Kingdom seems to have a lot about the eleven plus if anyone feels more confident than me in reaming information from it. -- Pluke 23:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
There's also a danger of not comparing like with like - secondary technical schools were I think more common in the North Midlands (Notts? and certainly in Derby) than in the 'South West' ( where was that anyway? Gloucester to Cornwall?? That's at least half a dozen LEAs! Linuxlad 12:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
Reference Grammar schools and 11+ the Wirral has some of the highest number of Grammar schools in the country. Contact Wirral Borough Council Education Authority, they should have the figure, but remember the individual schools of the grammar system there handle their own entry process and guidelines i.e. Wirral Grammar for Boys and Wirral Grammar for girls. St Anselms for Boys have a separate entrance exam of their own. This by the way is the North West area.
some arguments to include in this page:
I'm still looking for more pro grammar/pro selection articles, if you know of any please link them here, so appologies if this looks all anti grammar school, i'm still searching! -- Pluke 14:06, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
The eleven plus is talked about here in the past tense... it still exists and is taken by thousands every year...a little misleading?
I can't find a nice cite for this, so can anyone else? I gather that the eleven-plus was referred to as "the Scholarship" in at least some parts of Britain in the fifties. "He's passed his Scholarship" and so on. According to the person who was reminiscing about this, it was definitely seen as an exam you either passed (went to grammar school) or failed (went elsewhere), and everyone in the town would know about it. This term "scholarship" was in use in at least south-east Wales in the early to mid fifties. Wikipedia doesn't like "Ah yes, I remember it well" as a source for information, so has anyone found mention of this somewhere cite-able, by any chance? Was it used anywhere else? -- Telsa ( (t) (c)) 16:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I sat the 'scholarship' in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1964, so Northumberland county called it.Tudric
The 11+ was referred to colloquially as 'the Scholarship' in West Sussex in the early/mid fifties. West Sussex also had one of the few Technical Schools ever built under the Tripartite System - the Technical High School in Worthing, opened in 1955 and which I attended from 1956.
Only anecdotal, I'm afraid: before 1944, admission to grammar schools was open to those who passed an exam called the Scholarship and whose parents could afford the fees (£10 a year, my mother told me) and the uniform. My father and his two sisters (just about middle-class, I suppose, with some family money) went to grammar school; my mother and her four siblings (father a manual worker, living in a council house) didn't, and weren't put in for the Scholarship. I suspect the 11-plus was often called the Scholarship for some time after the latter ceased to be. Snugglepuss ( talk) 20:04, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Hmm - I actually wanted to contact Telsa directly but difficult to find out how to do so in short time available to me now. As an 11 plus failure who rebelled against being so categorised I am not that happy with what is here, even though the contributors are obviously critical. I would have liked to see the 11 plus placed within the context of intelligence testing as a whole, and some mention of the extremely thorough critiques of the whole concept of IQ, e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man. I felt a bit critical of some of the assumptions of the argument; that there is some kind of "fair", "unbiased" way of doing this kind of test, which allocates people fairly - in contrast to the view that any way of abstracting the world into a quantifiable measure involves a framing of the world (decision as to what constitutes an object to be measured) which only makes sense in a social and political context. I realise that that is (to some extent) my POV but nevertheless one which I guess is not only held by me, but well, this is the discussion page - I just wanted to kick it around a bit. Also the links against the eleven plus seem very general - to do with selection for state education generally and not really examining the basis of the eleven plus in intelligence theory - I would love to find such sites. Oh well 86.129.134.44 19:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)Donnard White
I have added a sentence in brackets to make the point that pupils could sometimes transfer from SM schools to grammar schools at around age 17 in order to study for A-levels. I base this purely on personal knowledge, because I recall that at my own grammar school in Essex in the 1960s there was a (small) inflow of SM pupils every year for this reason. But I don't know of any statistics on the numbers involved nationally. [David Burbridge, 16 Sept 2007] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.38.125.254 ( talk) 13:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
From the Controversy section: "For example, judging candidates on their ability to recite the succesion to the throne, their fencing and soggy biscuit playing abilities and also how many Communists they had excuted whilst serving in the White Army during the Russian Civil War made it easier for middle class children to pass the exam and also conveniently weeded out those from less wealthy or less educated backgrounds."
I am assuming this is nonsense. If someone has better, correctly-spelled alternatives, please be bolder than I am. Shouriki 02:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The continuation of the eleven-plus has been a sectarian issue in Northern Ireland, with Unionists(mainly Protestant)supporting the exams continued usage and Nationalists(mainly Catholics)opposed. Can someone add some information explaining this ? Ken Burch 05:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
The Sampson reference is to 'anatomy of britain today' not 'modern britain' but i'm unsure how to fix it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sarahjeantaylor ( talk • contribs) 21:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC).
The age group of the takers is not 11-12, but 10-11. I was 10 when I took it. perhaps this sentence should be taken out? or perhaps it should be said that the age of 11-12 is that which is gained by the time the school is actually attended (I was 11 by the time next September came around. I took the test in November.)
Jake the Editor Man ( talk) 21:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The Controversy section is not presented from a neutral point of view. It is written as if the 11+ was or is necessarily a bad thing. It also uses a classic non-sequitur when it states (as fact) that because of the 35%/10% difference in pass rates between the South West and Nottinghamshire, the results must have been determined other than by ability. You can only make such a statement if you assume that the population of the South West at the time of the quoted results was equally academically gifted as the population of Nottinghamshire, and since even today those parts of the country have quite different demographics, it seems unreasonable to make such an unwarranted assumption.
It is also full of weasel-words; indeed, it even uses the classic "critics say" that is one of the first things listed on Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words page. In a couple of cases, weasel-words have been used to include disparaging remarks about the middle classes (for instance, the part about how middle-class opposition to the eleven plus exam came about because of "greater fairness" in the exam itself).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.160.244 ( talk • contribs) 15:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Response to second paragraph (I have enclosed it by exclamation marks). This is very badly argued. Differences in exam results are not simply due to being `academically gifted' but to difference in ability, motivation and attitude of teachers and pupils. Pupils will be influenced by parents, employers and society (yes it does exist) to value and respond to educational opportunities in different and not always cnstructive ways. Inherent ability, which is a vague concept, will be masked by many factors. A good teacher will try hard to over come these. I passed the 11+ in the mid-60's, but my contemporaries who did not were devastated with a sense of failure and resentment that stayed with them for years. This is the only argument needed for the abolition of this simplistic anti-educational test. Barney Bruchstein ( talk) 17:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I dispute the comment about the Eleven Plus being more important than the SATs, especially considering SATs are not designed to measure a pupil's actual ability, but instead their teachers' performance.
That seems to me a judgement; that testing pupil's ability is more important than testing standards in the English teaching profession. Should judgements be in a supposedly impartial encyclopedia?
Ginger Warrior ( talk) 12:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Ginger Warrior
It was my understanding that in areas where the Secondary Modern and the Grammar schools were mixed sex that the 11+ results had to be adjusted to allow approximately equal numbers of boys and girls to enter the Grammar school because, in the 10 to 12 age range, girls tend to outperform boys and that, without an adjustment, the Grammar schools would have been predominantly female institutions. Unfortunately I can find no references to this but if something can be found I think it would be important to add something about this in the main page. Colin Mill ( talk) 19:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This may be useful http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmm/migrated/documents/gender-bias-in-selection.pdf. ( Mishmash11 ( talk) 21:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC))
I was 11 in 1981, and remember taking 11+ exams in Dorset.. So I think this article may be incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.75.83.25 ( talk) 09:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
At the moment I can't find suitable references, but when I took the 11+ back in 1964 (and the 10+ the year before, which was regarded as a "mock" 11+), the results decided two things.
If your marks fell below a certain level, you qualified for attendance at a secondary modern school (also known as "comprehensives").
If they were high enough to qualify you for attendance at a grammar school, a second threshold came into play - the "stream".
There were two streams: "a" and "b". The topmost performers would be classed as "a", while the remainder (those whose marks fell below the "a" requirement but still lay above the requirement for secondary modern) were classed as "b".
This streaming mapped to the first year of grammar school in which there were two "forms" labeled "IIIa" and "IIIb". If you fell into the "a" stream you were assigned to form IIIa, otherwise to form IIIb.
Thereafter annual performance exams would determine whether the pupil stayed in the same stream for the next year or was promoted/demoted to the other stream. This process continued through years labeled Lower IV, Upper IV, Lower V and Upper V until "O" levels at about age 15.
Streaming ended at that point - the two form years following Upper V (Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth) that led to "AO" and "A" levels did not have streams.
If anyone can find acceptable references I think a brief discussion of streaming would be a useful addition to the article. AncientBrit ( talk) 20:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
A contradiction tag was placed on the article on 00:35, 22 December 2008 EvilFred (talk | contribs) (11,208 bytes) ("The 'Eleven Plus' ... is now only used in a number of counties and boroughs in England, and, more widely, in Northern Ireland" vs "the system was phased out in Northern Ireland in 2008"). Tag was removed for the following:
That the information was at one time outdated did not make it contradictory as the Eleven plus exam is still in use in some areas for other reasons than originally intended. Instead of placing a contradict tag, perhaps correct the outdated information. Thanks so much on the hard work with this article. Kjnelan ( talk) 18:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
From this page - and in general - I am not sure what the "status" (if that is the right word) of the 11plus is. Some particular questions I have are:
All I have found in searching the web is some books and sites that offer to sell materials to help with it but no evidence about. There is something about [ [1]]. But they seem to be acting as someone who is commisioned by schools or some LEAs to produce tests for the Schools. So the tests are owned by the Schools. ( Msrasnw ( talk) 09:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC))
I would like to change the opening paragraph to:
Does anyone have any specific problems with this? The reason for this change is that I had though the eleven plus was like other nationally authenticated school exams. But it does not seem to be. Questions I have are:
I have posted a bibliography of Intelligence Citations for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research and to suggest new sources to me by comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 20:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Is it true that middle-class families in the U.K. commonly have servants? This is not true in the U.S., where only movie stars and families with great wealth can afford long-term servants. It has been common for the last few decades for wealthy Americans to call themselves "middle class." This is confusing, at best. Donfbreed ( talk) 05:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
No, nowadays it would be very unusual for middle-class families in the UK to have servants, although perhaps this was true earlier, e.g. 1950s? 83.244.151.146 ( talk) 09:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Given it's not a particularly viable source for this, there's a Catherine Tate sketch in which the ideal middle class family have to dramatically call for their 'nanny' or 'help' at one point, I think this was due to them getting jam on the floor or something. The point of this is that where middle class families previously had a housemaid, a cook and various other servants they will now probably use a part-time 'helper' instead. 144.124.3.121 ( talk)
I know this is late. Up until the 1920's, then yes, but after the depression, so by the 1940's no. -- 86.149.125.57 ( talk) 19:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
"Middle class" is a broad category, as is "servant". Certainly the vast majority of the middle class, post war, would have been unlikely to have anyone live in. There were (and still are) various other forms of domestic service, often not employed exclusively by one household. These include[ed] "dailies", cleaners, gardeners, au-pairs and child-minders. All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 18:24, 2 March 2016 (UTC).
Somwhere in an A-Level Psychology lesson when talking about socially-sensitive research, I distinctly remember my teacher saying that a psychologist called Bert, who's research was during the 1920s I think, heavily influenced the design of the Eleven-Plus. But we were then told that it was discovered that his findings were completely false and that he'd invented them in order to receive credit to his name. 144.124.3.121 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:39, 24 November 2010 (UTC).
I was surprised that Cyril Burt is not mentioned in the article. The article on Burt gives lots of detail, and on the whole seems to conclude that the kindest thing you could say is that ethical standards were lower in his day than they are now. For this article, I think the question is how important Burt was in the development of the 11+. I had thought he was the main driver of it, but it doesn't feature much in the Burt article. Snugglepuss ( talk) 20:55, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 ( talk) 15:23, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
The article refers to areas of the country that still use the 11-plus as "counties", but this is not strictly true. For instance, it is my understanding that it is still used in the cities of Plymouth and Birmingham, but not in the surrounding areas of Devon and the West Midlands. I believe the division is along local council administrative boundaries, i.e. whichever is appropriate of city council, county council or unitary authority for any given location. 46.208.99.201 ( talk) 13:59, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
In quite a few, if not all, places, Eleven Plus is italicised in the article. Should it be? If so, shouldn't the title also be? If not, the itals should all be removed. Huw Powell ( talk) 12:54, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
What is an "LEAs"? It is not defined in the article, or at the image page, as far as I can tell. Huw Powell ( talk) 12:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
The article begins by discussing the Eleven plus exam and mentions transfer test without saying what the connection between the two is. Was 'transfer test' simply another name for the eleven plus exam? 86.185.216.32 ( talk) 11:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Parsonscat: Today I see this un-discussed change
<quote> 11:44, 31 May 2016 Parsonscat (talk | contribs) m . . (34,302 bytes) (0) . . (Parsonscat moved page Talk:Eleven plus exam to Talk:Eleven-Plus exam: The exam is usually referred to as the "Eleven-Plus", not the "Eleven plus".) (undo | thank) </quote>
It has rippled through many articles. I suggest a revert till this has been fully discussed. What is the reference that Parsonscat has discovered? We are talking about an exam that was largely finished by 1970, and from 1944 till then it was consistently spelled/spelt as two unhyphenated words . Indeed 'scatttering ' unnecessary hyphens would be the sign of a borderline candidate. So lets see the references and establish the facts, then establish a concensus on whether we wish to ignore them. -- ClemRutter ( talk) 14:52, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
[ http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/newsom/newsom1963.html Newsome Report p198] Example.
An IP editor tagged this article for a POV check in July 2015, but no section on the issue was ever opened here. I've looked through the article in the course of revising it somewhat for clarity and the only problems with neutrality that I found were in the Northern Ireland section and to a lesser extent the Controversy section (the mention of "vested interests", emphasis on action as being contrary to regulations); I cut the bits I saw as problematic in both, but didn't search for more sources. (I didn't touch the image, which is of course POV and should maybe have a caption saying so.) I've removed the tag. Are my changes ok and should the tag come back? Yngvadottir ( talk) 14:15, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Move. We have consensus that the common name omits "exam". Cúchullain t/ c 12:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Eleven-plus exam →
Eleven-plus – Common name is eleven-plus, not eleven-plus exam; a normal move isn't working –
The Parson's Cat (
talk) 11:39, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I have looked at Lincolnshire CC site to check on the sentence- (although the test is optional, the education system is completely Tripartite . That appears far from the truth- our own site List of schools in Lincolnshire is unreferenced, but does show no vestiges of tripartite provision. Whether Lincolnshire is the largest area to suffer from the blight of secondary moderns is a mute point- as Kent and Medway are more populous. If decent references can't be found I suggest Crtl-X.
Looking at the placitude about Kent, this is not referenced and experience on the ground suggests this is an exception rather than the norm. If decent references can't be found I suggest Crtl-X.
-- ClemRutter ( talk) 17:40, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
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I'm in my last year of a BSc hons in Maths specialising in statistics and planning to do a research PhD into 11+ exams so came across this page and felt that the section on scoring here could do with some improvements. I've not edited Wikipedia content before so would like to understand the etiquette.
The problem with the existing section is it appears to relate to only Kent or possibly even just one particular school. My proposed edit would point out there are 163 grammar schools, 85% of which are academies so able to set their own admissions criteria and that the 'pass mark' varies enormously. I would add an overview of how standardised scores work to select a percentile of the applicants, point out the limitations of only providing standardised marks and refer to some of the attempts which have been made to increase transparency.
If anyone has any thoughts please could they respond?
thanks
Thehampshirehog ( talk) 17:31, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the very warm welcome ClemRutter. As I've just written on my user page, Wikipedia is still very strange so I'm working on a draft of what to write in Word which I'll share with colleagues before unleashing on the public! I have a feeling that it might end up about 750 words (and I am being concise!) which is a lot in comparison to the current complete article, about 1600 words. Thehampshirehog ( talk) 12:18, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
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Until quite recently I had always thought that everybody took the 11+ (I mean from its inception until the advent in most areas of comprehensives, and presumably excluding those who were always going to be privately educated), but then I spoke to an acquaintance, a distinguished scholar, who went to a secondary modern. He said he was one of those who were deemed too thick to be worth being entered for it. Does anyone know whether it was meant to be taken by every child, and why a school wouldn't enter all its children (was there a fee, for example, or was it difficult to prepare children for it?)? Snugglepuss ( talk) 20:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
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I was a secondary modern student who completed GCE O Levels in 1964. My results were good. Had I been a student at a Grammar School I would have had no difficulty in proceeding to A Levels. However, my school offered no assistance to students who wished to study for A Levels. Neither was it possible for me to transfer to the local Grammar School. Attempts to achieve this met with blank refusal (without reasons being given. Fortunately, my family emigrated to Australia where I entered a High School which prepared me for university entrance examinations. I subsequently completed Bachelors and Masters degrees and became a psychologist. If I had stayed in England I would have found it extremely difficult to achieve the same outcome.
My major complaint about the English Tripartite system of education at the time I attended school in England was the extreme difficulty experienced by secondary modern students who wished to study for A Levels. I can see no satisfactory justification for this situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.166.78.118 ( talk) 03:55, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
The article says: "In counties in which vestiges of the Tripartite System still survive" ... But there is no listing of these counties. Could one be added? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.8.35 ( talk) 15:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
If anyone could provide some firm percentages for intakes in different areas that would be fantastic, i can't seem to find any sources and I'm going on memory at the moment. Also the article on Grammar schools in the United Kingdom seems to have a lot about the eleven plus if anyone feels more confident than me in reaming information from it. -- Pluke 23:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
There's also a danger of not comparing like with like - secondary technical schools were I think more common in the North Midlands (Notts? and certainly in Derby) than in the 'South West' ( where was that anyway? Gloucester to Cornwall?? That's at least half a dozen LEAs! Linuxlad 12:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
Reference Grammar schools and 11+ the Wirral has some of the highest number of Grammar schools in the country. Contact Wirral Borough Council Education Authority, they should have the figure, but remember the individual schools of the grammar system there handle their own entry process and guidelines i.e. Wirral Grammar for Boys and Wirral Grammar for girls. St Anselms for Boys have a separate entrance exam of their own. This by the way is the North West area.
some arguments to include in this page:
I'm still looking for more pro grammar/pro selection articles, if you know of any please link them here, so appologies if this looks all anti grammar school, i'm still searching! -- Pluke 14:06, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
The eleven plus is talked about here in the past tense... it still exists and is taken by thousands every year...a little misleading?
I can't find a nice cite for this, so can anyone else? I gather that the eleven-plus was referred to as "the Scholarship" in at least some parts of Britain in the fifties. "He's passed his Scholarship" and so on. According to the person who was reminiscing about this, it was definitely seen as an exam you either passed (went to grammar school) or failed (went elsewhere), and everyone in the town would know about it. This term "scholarship" was in use in at least south-east Wales in the early to mid fifties. Wikipedia doesn't like "Ah yes, I remember it well" as a source for information, so has anyone found mention of this somewhere cite-able, by any chance? Was it used anywhere else? -- Telsa ( (t) (c)) 16:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I sat the 'scholarship' in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1964, so Northumberland county called it.Tudric
The 11+ was referred to colloquially as 'the Scholarship' in West Sussex in the early/mid fifties. West Sussex also had one of the few Technical Schools ever built under the Tripartite System - the Technical High School in Worthing, opened in 1955 and which I attended from 1956.
Only anecdotal, I'm afraid: before 1944, admission to grammar schools was open to those who passed an exam called the Scholarship and whose parents could afford the fees (£10 a year, my mother told me) and the uniform. My father and his two sisters (just about middle-class, I suppose, with some family money) went to grammar school; my mother and her four siblings (father a manual worker, living in a council house) didn't, and weren't put in for the Scholarship. I suspect the 11-plus was often called the Scholarship for some time after the latter ceased to be. Snugglepuss ( talk) 20:04, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Hmm - I actually wanted to contact Telsa directly but difficult to find out how to do so in short time available to me now. As an 11 plus failure who rebelled against being so categorised I am not that happy with what is here, even though the contributors are obviously critical. I would have liked to see the 11 plus placed within the context of intelligence testing as a whole, and some mention of the extremely thorough critiques of the whole concept of IQ, e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man. I felt a bit critical of some of the assumptions of the argument; that there is some kind of "fair", "unbiased" way of doing this kind of test, which allocates people fairly - in contrast to the view that any way of abstracting the world into a quantifiable measure involves a framing of the world (decision as to what constitutes an object to be measured) which only makes sense in a social and political context. I realise that that is (to some extent) my POV but nevertheless one which I guess is not only held by me, but well, this is the discussion page - I just wanted to kick it around a bit. Also the links against the eleven plus seem very general - to do with selection for state education generally and not really examining the basis of the eleven plus in intelligence theory - I would love to find such sites. Oh well 86.129.134.44 19:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)Donnard White
I have added a sentence in brackets to make the point that pupils could sometimes transfer from SM schools to grammar schools at around age 17 in order to study for A-levels. I base this purely on personal knowledge, because I recall that at my own grammar school in Essex in the 1960s there was a (small) inflow of SM pupils every year for this reason. But I don't know of any statistics on the numbers involved nationally. [David Burbridge, 16 Sept 2007] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.38.125.254 ( talk) 13:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
From the Controversy section: "For example, judging candidates on their ability to recite the succesion to the throne, their fencing and soggy biscuit playing abilities and also how many Communists they had excuted whilst serving in the White Army during the Russian Civil War made it easier for middle class children to pass the exam and also conveniently weeded out those from less wealthy or less educated backgrounds."
I am assuming this is nonsense. If someone has better, correctly-spelled alternatives, please be bolder than I am. Shouriki 02:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The continuation of the eleven-plus has been a sectarian issue in Northern Ireland, with Unionists(mainly Protestant)supporting the exams continued usage and Nationalists(mainly Catholics)opposed. Can someone add some information explaining this ? Ken Burch 05:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
The Sampson reference is to 'anatomy of britain today' not 'modern britain' but i'm unsure how to fix it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sarahjeantaylor ( talk • contribs) 21:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC).
The age group of the takers is not 11-12, but 10-11. I was 10 when I took it. perhaps this sentence should be taken out? or perhaps it should be said that the age of 11-12 is that which is gained by the time the school is actually attended (I was 11 by the time next September came around. I took the test in November.)
Jake the Editor Man ( talk) 21:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The Controversy section is not presented from a neutral point of view. It is written as if the 11+ was or is necessarily a bad thing. It also uses a classic non-sequitur when it states (as fact) that because of the 35%/10% difference in pass rates between the South West and Nottinghamshire, the results must have been determined other than by ability. You can only make such a statement if you assume that the population of the South West at the time of the quoted results was equally academically gifted as the population of Nottinghamshire, and since even today those parts of the country have quite different demographics, it seems unreasonable to make such an unwarranted assumption.
It is also full of weasel-words; indeed, it even uses the classic "critics say" that is one of the first things listed on Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words page. In a couple of cases, weasel-words have been used to include disparaging remarks about the middle classes (for instance, the part about how middle-class opposition to the eleven plus exam came about because of "greater fairness" in the exam itself).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.160.244 ( talk • contribs) 15:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Response to second paragraph (I have enclosed it by exclamation marks). This is very badly argued. Differences in exam results are not simply due to being `academically gifted' but to difference in ability, motivation and attitude of teachers and pupils. Pupils will be influenced by parents, employers and society (yes it does exist) to value and respond to educational opportunities in different and not always cnstructive ways. Inherent ability, which is a vague concept, will be masked by many factors. A good teacher will try hard to over come these. I passed the 11+ in the mid-60's, but my contemporaries who did not were devastated with a sense of failure and resentment that stayed with them for years. This is the only argument needed for the abolition of this simplistic anti-educational test. Barney Bruchstein ( talk) 17:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I dispute the comment about the Eleven Plus being more important than the SATs, especially considering SATs are not designed to measure a pupil's actual ability, but instead their teachers' performance.
That seems to me a judgement; that testing pupil's ability is more important than testing standards in the English teaching profession. Should judgements be in a supposedly impartial encyclopedia?
Ginger Warrior ( talk) 12:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Ginger Warrior
It was my understanding that in areas where the Secondary Modern and the Grammar schools were mixed sex that the 11+ results had to be adjusted to allow approximately equal numbers of boys and girls to enter the Grammar school because, in the 10 to 12 age range, girls tend to outperform boys and that, without an adjustment, the Grammar schools would have been predominantly female institutions. Unfortunately I can find no references to this but if something can be found I think it would be important to add something about this in the main page. Colin Mill ( talk) 19:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This may be useful http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmm/migrated/documents/gender-bias-in-selection.pdf. ( Mishmash11 ( talk) 21:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC))
I was 11 in 1981, and remember taking 11+ exams in Dorset.. So I think this article may be incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.75.83.25 ( talk) 09:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
At the moment I can't find suitable references, but when I took the 11+ back in 1964 (and the 10+ the year before, which was regarded as a "mock" 11+), the results decided two things.
If your marks fell below a certain level, you qualified for attendance at a secondary modern school (also known as "comprehensives").
If they were high enough to qualify you for attendance at a grammar school, a second threshold came into play - the "stream".
There were two streams: "a" and "b". The topmost performers would be classed as "a", while the remainder (those whose marks fell below the "a" requirement but still lay above the requirement for secondary modern) were classed as "b".
This streaming mapped to the first year of grammar school in which there were two "forms" labeled "IIIa" and "IIIb". If you fell into the "a" stream you were assigned to form IIIa, otherwise to form IIIb.
Thereafter annual performance exams would determine whether the pupil stayed in the same stream for the next year or was promoted/demoted to the other stream. This process continued through years labeled Lower IV, Upper IV, Lower V and Upper V until "O" levels at about age 15.
Streaming ended at that point - the two form years following Upper V (Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth) that led to "AO" and "A" levels did not have streams.
If anyone can find acceptable references I think a brief discussion of streaming would be a useful addition to the article. AncientBrit ( talk) 20:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
A contradiction tag was placed on the article on 00:35, 22 December 2008 EvilFred (talk | contribs) (11,208 bytes) ("The 'Eleven Plus' ... is now only used in a number of counties and boroughs in England, and, more widely, in Northern Ireland" vs "the system was phased out in Northern Ireland in 2008"). Tag was removed for the following:
That the information was at one time outdated did not make it contradictory as the Eleven plus exam is still in use in some areas for other reasons than originally intended. Instead of placing a contradict tag, perhaps correct the outdated information. Thanks so much on the hard work with this article. Kjnelan ( talk) 18:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
From this page - and in general - I am not sure what the "status" (if that is the right word) of the 11plus is. Some particular questions I have are:
All I have found in searching the web is some books and sites that offer to sell materials to help with it but no evidence about. There is something about [ [1]]. But they seem to be acting as someone who is commisioned by schools or some LEAs to produce tests for the Schools. So the tests are owned by the Schools. ( Msrasnw ( talk) 09:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC))
I would like to change the opening paragraph to:
Does anyone have any specific problems with this? The reason for this change is that I had though the eleven plus was like other nationally authenticated school exams. But it does not seem to be. Questions I have are:
I have posted a bibliography of Intelligence Citations for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research and to suggest new sources to me by comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 20:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Is it true that middle-class families in the U.K. commonly have servants? This is not true in the U.S., where only movie stars and families with great wealth can afford long-term servants. It has been common for the last few decades for wealthy Americans to call themselves "middle class." This is confusing, at best. Donfbreed ( talk) 05:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
No, nowadays it would be very unusual for middle-class families in the UK to have servants, although perhaps this was true earlier, e.g. 1950s? 83.244.151.146 ( talk) 09:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Given it's not a particularly viable source for this, there's a Catherine Tate sketch in which the ideal middle class family have to dramatically call for their 'nanny' or 'help' at one point, I think this was due to them getting jam on the floor or something. The point of this is that where middle class families previously had a housemaid, a cook and various other servants they will now probably use a part-time 'helper' instead. 144.124.3.121 ( talk)
I know this is late. Up until the 1920's, then yes, but after the depression, so by the 1940's no. -- 86.149.125.57 ( talk) 19:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
"Middle class" is a broad category, as is "servant". Certainly the vast majority of the middle class, post war, would have been unlikely to have anyone live in. There were (and still are) various other forms of domestic service, often not employed exclusively by one household. These include[ed] "dailies", cleaners, gardeners, au-pairs and child-minders. All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 18:24, 2 March 2016 (UTC).
Somwhere in an A-Level Psychology lesson when talking about socially-sensitive research, I distinctly remember my teacher saying that a psychologist called Bert, who's research was during the 1920s I think, heavily influenced the design of the Eleven-Plus. But we were then told that it was discovered that his findings were completely false and that he'd invented them in order to receive credit to his name. 144.124.3.121 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:39, 24 November 2010 (UTC).
I was surprised that Cyril Burt is not mentioned in the article. The article on Burt gives lots of detail, and on the whole seems to conclude that the kindest thing you could say is that ethical standards were lower in his day than they are now. For this article, I think the question is how important Burt was in the development of the 11+. I had thought he was the main driver of it, but it doesn't feature much in the Burt article. Snugglepuss ( talk) 20:55, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 ( talk) 15:23, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
The article refers to areas of the country that still use the 11-plus as "counties", but this is not strictly true. For instance, it is my understanding that it is still used in the cities of Plymouth and Birmingham, but not in the surrounding areas of Devon and the West Midlands. I believe the division is along local council administrative boundaries, i.e. whichever is appropriate of city council, county council or unitary authority for any given location. 46.208.99.201 ( talk) 13:59, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
In quite a few, if not all, places, Eleven Plus is italicised in the article. Should it be? If so, shouldn't the title also be? If not, the itals should all be removed. Huw Powell ( talk) 12:54, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
What is an "LEAs"? It is not defined in the article, or at the image page, as far as I can tell. Huw Powell ( talk) 12:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
The article begins by discussing the Eleven plus exam and mentions transfer test without saying what the connection between the two is. Was 'transfer test' simply another name for the eleven plus exam? 86.185.216.32 ( talk) 11:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Parsonscat: Today I see this un-discussed change
<quote> 11:44, 31 May 2016 Parsonscat (talk | contribs) m . . (34,302 bytes) (0) . . (Parsonscat moved page Talk:Eleven plus exam to Talk:Eleven-Plus exam: The exam is usually referred to as the "Eleven-Plus", not the "Eleven plus".) (undo | thank) </quote>
It has rippled through many articles. I suggest a revert till this has been fully discussed. What is the reference that Parsonscat has discovered? We are talking about an exam that was largely finished by 1970, and from 1944 till then it was consistently spelled/spelt as two unhyphenated words . Indeed 'scatttering ' unnecessary hyphens would be the sign of a borderline candidate. So lets see the references and establish the facts, then establish a concensus on whether we wish to ignore them. -- ClemRutter ( talk) 14:52, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
[ http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/newsom/newsom1963.html Newsome Report p198] Example.
An IP editor tagged this article for a POV check in July 2015, but no section on the issue was ever opened here. I've looked through the article in the course of revising it somewhat for clarity and the only problems with neutrality that I found were in the Northern Ireland section and to a lesser extent the Controversy section (the mention of "vested interests", emphasis on action as being contrary to regulations); I cut the bits I saw as problematic in both, but didn't search for more sources. (I didn't touch the image, which is of course POV and should maybe have a caption saying so.) I've removed the tag. Are my changes ok and should the tag come back? Yngvadottir ( talk) 14:15, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Move. We have consensus that the common name omits "exam". Cúchullain t/ c 12:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Eleven-plus exam →
Eleven-plus – Common name is eleven-plus, not eleven-plus exam; a normal move isn't working –
The Parson's Cat (
talk) 11:39, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I have looked at Lincolnshire CC site to check on the sentence- (although the test is optional, the education system is completely Tripartite . That appears far from the truth- our own site List of schools in Lincolnshire is unreferenced, but does show no vestiges of tripartite provision. Whether Lincolnshire is the largest area to suffer from the blight of secondary moderns is a mute point- as Kent and Medway are more populous. If decent references can't be found I suggest Crtl-X.
Looking at the placitude about Kent, this is not referenced and experience on the ground suggests this is an exception rather than the norm. If decent references can't be found I suggest Crtl-X.
-- ClemRutter ( talk) 17:40, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
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I'm in my last year of a BSc hons in Maths specialising in statistics and planning to do a research PhD into 11+ exams so came across this page and felt that the section on scoring here could do with some improvements. I've not edited Wikipedia content before so would like to understand the etiquette.
The problem with the existing section is it appears to relate to only Kent or possibly even just one particular school. My proposed edit would point out there are 163 grammar schools, 85% of which are academies so able to set their own admissions criteria and that the 'pass mark' varies enormously. I would add an overview of how standardised scores work to select a percentile of the applicants, point out the limitations of only providing standardised marks and refer to some of the attempts which have been made to increase transparency.
If anyone has any thoughts please could they respond?
thanks
Thehampshirehog ( talk) 17:31, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the very warm welcome ClemRutter. As I've just written on my user page, Wikipedia is still very strange so I'm working on a draft of what to write in Word which I'll share with colleagues before unleashing on the public! I have a feeling that it might end up about 750 words (and I am being concise!) which is a lot in comparison to the current complete article, about 1600 words. Thehampshirehog ( talk) 12:18, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
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Until quite recently I had always thought that everybody took the 11+ (I mean from its inception until the advent in most areas of comprehensives, and presumably excluding those who were always going to be privately educated), but then I spoke to an acquaintance, a distinguished scholar, who went to a secondary modern. He said he was one of those who were deemed too thick to be worth being entered for it. Does anyone know whether it was meant to be taken by every child, and why a school wouldn't enter all its children (was there a fee, for example, or was it difficult to prepare children for it?)? Snugglepuss ( talk) 20:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)