Ullswater: Barton School and Education 1944

OldEric says :-) Along came the year of 1944, I was ten years old and later in the year would be the first turning point in my life and a turning in every other child’s life. This was the “eleven plus” examination, a pass or fail in this examination dictated a child’s path in secondary education from eleven years onwards. A pass gave a child the right to attend a Grammar School and avail themselves to the teaching of specialist subjects by specialist teachers. The stepping stone if need be to a University education.

To fail the “eleven plus” destined a child to a basic only secondary education of improving on the three Rs at a village school until the age of fifteen was attained. In town and cities education it was a little better for the “eleven plus” failures where Secondary Modern schools were being set up a with somewhat improved education syllabus.

I’m going to write later how I felt about the whole situation as a boy and later as an adult and why I didn’t cheer like many did when the ‘eleven plus” examination was abolished and Grammar Schools were disbanded to wipe out an elitist system. It may seem strange that a casualty of the “eleven plus” should not cheer the abolition of the “eleven plus” examination but I didn’t and I will explain later as I proceed through my education..

I’m going to write later how I felt about the whole situation as a boy and later as an adult and why I didn’t cheer like many did when the ‘eleven plus” examination was abolished and Grammar Schools were disbanded to wipe out an elitist system. It may seem strange that a casualty of the “eleven plus” should not cheer the abolition of the “eleven plus” examination but I didn’t and I will explain later as I proceed through my education..

I took the “eleven plus” exam like everyone else and when the results came out, I had failed, and I was destined for a poor second-rate education. To minimise my loss and make the best of the situation my parents on recommendation sent me to Penrith Secondary Modern School situated up by the railway station next to the Park and ruined Castle but before the Grammar School.

I now had a bike, I was eleven years old and I was capable of biking down to Pooley Bridge and catching the bus daily to Penrith. From the age of eleven until fourteen plus for three and a half years rain or shine I biked each school morning down to Pooley Bridge and leave my bike at Jimmy Farrell’s Crown Hotel then wait for the Ribble bus to take me to Penrith school along with the other children. The bus travelled the route from Patterdale to Pooley Bridge then via Tirrel, Yanworth, and Eamont Bridge and then into Penrith. In those days this was the main road from Patterdale to Penrith not as the route is today.

Pupils came to Penrith Secondary Modern from a large area and from as far away as Patterdale in one direction almost half way to Carlisle in the other. I would say fifty per cent at least of the pupils came from the surrounding country areas and the rest from the town of Penrith. We were, all of us failures of the eleven plus examination.

One thing we all quickly learnt was Penrith Secondary Modern School was a school of strict discipline. We were there to learn, slackness was not tolerated, I suppose it was a crash course to try and make up to some degree for what we had missed. And later looking back I’m more than sure it did.

I’m going to write later how I felt about the whole situation as a boy and later as an adult and why I didn’t cheer like many did when the ‘eleven plus” examination was abolished and Grammar Schools were disbanded to wipe out an elitist system. It may seem strange that a casualty of the “eleven plus” should not cheer the abolition of the “eleven plus” examination but I didn’t and I will explain later as I proceed through my education..