One thing I've always had a passion for is history. It's a journey I started in my youth, where it became a lifelong pursuit, culminating in a third-class honours degree from the Open University in 1999. This was no easy feat, as I was working 24/7 in the Royal Navy at the time. My commitment didn't stop there; I later qualified to teach adults with a City and Guilds 7307, using my spare time to teach GCSE history to sailors who, like me, wanted to improve their qualifications. My dedication and resilience, born from a desire to be better than I was in school, I think proves, that I was never a failure—despite what the Eleven Plus told me at a young age.
Growing up, I eventually earned a GCSE in history, which opened the door to my first degree. But at Evelyns Comprehensive, what was then a "Secondary Modern" in the borough of Hillingdon, I was never considered bright. That was all because I had failed my Eleven Plus exam.
The Cruel Cut of the Eleven Plus
The Eleven Plus (11+) was a standardised examination used in England and Northern Ireland to sort students into different secondary schools based on their supposed academic ability. It was part of the tripartite system established by the Education Act of 1944, which aimed to provide secondary education for all children. Its main purpose was to funnel pupils into one of three types of state-funded secondary schools:
* Grammar Schools: For the top academic students who passed the exam. These schools had a traditional, academic curriculum and prepared students for university.
* Secondary Modern Schools: For the majority who did not pass. These schools offered a more practical education aimed at skilled trades.
* Technical Schools: A very small number of schools focused on science and engineering.
The exam, taken by 10- and 11-year-olds, was designed to measure intelligence, not just learned knowledge. However, the resulting pass/fail culture was brutal. For me, failing the exam meant being placed in the remedial class at my secondary modern school. Like many others, I was made to feel like a failure, and my confidence and self-esteem were shattered.
This system also reinforced class divisions. Wealthier families could afford private tutoring, giving their children a massive advantage. For a working-class kid like me, whose parents worked in factories, passing and attending a grammar school was an unlikely dream. I was always going to a secondary modern.
If one is to believe how actually the 11+ came into existence I could blame Sir Cyril Burt, a highly influential figure in British education, who was a key architect of the 11-plus exam and a strong proponent of the idea that intelligence was largely hereditary and fixed from birth. Most notably he carried out a study on identical twins who were separated at birth and raised in different environments. He claimed that these twins, despite their different upbringings, had very similar IQ scores, which he used as evidence that intelligence was primarily genetic. Burt's work was widely accepted and provided the so-called "scientific" basis for the 11-plus exam and the rest is history.
However, after Burt's death, it was discovered that he had falsified his research data and even invented co-workers to support his claims. The number of twins in his studies and the specific IQ correlations he reported were found to be statistically impossible and fabricated BUT the Labour government led by Harold Wilson (1974–1976) and then James Callaghan (1976–1979)and later retained the need to identify a child's "innate ability" at age 11, with the belief that this intelligence was fixed and could not be significantly changed by education or environment the Secondary Modern type school to change towards a comprehensive school system. The revelations about Burt's fabricated data in the 1970s simply provided a final, definitive scientific reason to discredit the selective education system he had helped create.
The Evelyns Experience
Evelyns Community School, which opened in 1936 as Evelyns Council School, was a place with its own history. Named after a private preparatory school that had come before it, it had become a mixed-gender comprehensive school by the time I arrived in 1970.
The classes were arranged by school name: 1E, 1V, 1Y, 1N, 1S. There were hundreds of students in the auditorium, waiting to be "placed," the air was thick with a nervous excitement. One by one, names were called, classes were assigned, and the crowd thinned. When it was all over, the last group, 1S, was called.
As I waited for the next action of selecting the remaining group, I couldn’t help but think of how the sorting hat got it so wrong putting me in 1C. Instead of the majestic, all-knowing Sorting Hat from Hogwarts, we had what felt like a slightly-bored teacher reading off a clipboard, making snap judgments with the magical, unfathomable logic of a traffic warden. "Hmm, you're not a Gryffindor (1V, for Valour), and you're certainly not a clever Ravenclaw (1E, for 'Excellence'). Your academic prospects are... not Slytherin, but let's just say you're a good fit for a house that's a bit of a swamp. Yes, a swamp. Here, have a room with a leaky ceiling and a disruptive student who keeps trying to turn his pencil case into a toad." While others were sorted into houses of courage and wit, I was assigned to a class that felt more like a remedial dungeon, a place where the main lesson was not history or maths, but the subtle art of avoiding a spitball to the back of the head. It was less a house of learning and more a house of lost causes, and I was the latest addition to the "why bother?" club.
It was a real bombshell: I was assigned to 1C. All my so called friends from primary school were gone. I was in a void. The "C" apparently stood for Mr. Cable, the teacher, but in reality, that class was a dumping ground for the disruptive kids, the ones who couldn't read, and the ones who even wet themselves in class. I was embarrassed and felt like a complete failure. To make matters worse, the TV series "Please Sir" depicted a similar place, giving my tormentors even more ammunition.
A Different Path
Despite the humiliation, this experience made me stronger. Within six months, I escaped Mr. Cable's class and was promoted to 1V so I am glad to say, I never made it to 5C. It was better, but those school days were far from the best years of my life. After being caned for watching a fight and leaving school with not a single O-level, I followed my dad into a factory, where I worked as a labourer in 1975. I handed over my wages to my mum for "keep" and was given a small portion for myself.
The following January, I joined the Royal Navy after passing their entrance exams. The Naval Mathematics and English Tests or NAMET were the key to promotion. On a scale where zero meant you had O-levels and one to nine was good to bad, my scores were "3" for Maths and "6" for English.
Looking back, I wonder if I was always meant to be seen as "thick." I consider myself a "late developer" who raised his game as life moved forward. As you may know from my other naval blogs, I was specifically selected at HMS Daedalus and held back for two weeks to retake my NAMET, which earned the nickname "Super Sam" as a specially selected air mechanic. This put me on the fast track for promotion toward 'Artificer' (or 'Mechanician' at the time). It proved that with the right attitude, anyone, even those without the right qualifications, could do better in life.
Evelyns Community School officially closed on August 31, 2004. I've driven past the site many times since it was redeveloped. It was replaced by Stockley Academy, which then closed and became Park Academy West London, now part of the Aspirations Academies Trust.
It's surreal to think that the Eleven Plus still exists in some parts of England, where it's a requirement to get into a selective grammar school. The legacy of that exam, and the pain it caused, is still very much alive for me and many others.
I went to Evelyns in 1970-1976 - And, because, I failed the eleven plus, I was put in Mr Cable's class - kind gentleman, who helped people supposedly like me. My wife, (the girl on the right in the AI picture), also failed the 11+ but by only two points and also found herself in comprehensive land at Walderslade Comprehensive in Chatham, Kent. She went on to be a successful civil servant recently awarded a Long Service Recognition by the Royal Air Force, Air Command.
Since those awful school days, the Royal Navy, was my long service reward where I received the Meritorious Service Medal and completed two degrees in the Arts & Humanities and Law - late developer?
While some scholars still debate the full extent of the 11+ history, the general consensus is that Burt's work was fraudulent. The revelation of his deceit played a significant role in the push to abandon the 11-plus and move toward a comprehensive school system in the 1970s, as the scientific foundation for the exam was completely discredited but by the time I was in “Cable Land” the damage had been done.
I wonder how my readers remember their school, their teachers, who must have had a chore on their hands - some were very young and we gave hell to any newbie teacher who had to cope with us - sorry for that Miss, Sir or Mrs - in today’s schools are they even still called by this title or simply by the first names ?
POEM
An Important History Lesson
To Sir and Miss (or Mrs) with Love
Does anyone still refer to this?
When we called our teachers Sir, Mrs or Miss
In one, I remember Mr Crook
We joked to 'look in his Geography Book'
Mrs Malcolm now then she was a force
My tutor throughout my “big school” course
For English, Babuta never a better genius was there
Made me read saying “Winchent stand up on de Chair”
Mr Pearman, double science, a frightening thing
Would SHOUT, so loud - if we spilt anything
I remember a poor lanky fella we used to call “straw”
Spilt Copper Sulfate all over the floor
He was my partner in Chemistry when the scream came around
He made the hairs on my neck, stand up to that sound!
Mr Amin he taught Maths, and Ian would sing
Naughty songs based on “Jeepster, (now - you can’t do that thing!)
All this of course, I had in letter 'V',
For the in the first months of EVELYNS I spent it in 'C'
Loved Mr Cable though, to those he would better
Like Gregory Hawes and the lovely Kim Retter
So in later 1V, Down to PE - when changed and in queue
Goody picked me up, as if nothing, in the gym - he then threw
Of Canes and Slippers -weren't these things we survived...
...."Secondary Education", huh, the best of our lives!
[Vincent Taylor - I was born in Yiewsley but I was made (to suffer) at Evelyns but re-made in the Royal Navy]
