Going to university would have been pushing my luck

LAST week I was in Chellaston around midday when all the children were leaving school. This was, in fact, the end of the scholastic year and the school had now broken up for the summer holiday. Going home, I found myself thinking back to the end of my school years.

I was at my grammar school for five of those years, and from the first year onwards I clearly recall the end of the school year was also at lunchtime.

We were required in school at the normal time and stayed in our own form room as teachers in turn arrived to collect the text books that would now go to the lower class in September.

Then a final assembly when we sang our school hymn (which happened to be Jerusalem) and we were then free to go home for the summer holiday.

This was the same routine for years 1 to 4, as we all expected to return in September to start a new year. We were not aware which form or classroom we would go to at the beginning of term, and the first task was to find our year group on the notice board which provided this information.

I don’t think we knew at that point who our form teacher would be, but we soon found out.

I do remember we all arrived pretty early on that first day because it made sense getting to your new form room for the year before the mob. This meant a better choice of seat, although usually only one subject was taught in that location by your own form teacher.

I have a clear memory of those returns to school after the summer break. Some of us would have risen to a higher class, and some went the other way, but the change of classmates often included new friends.

Those first four years I did really enjoy and managed to top the class in my fourth year, which was meant to prove promising for the fifth year and waiting O-Level exams.

The final year at the secondary modern schools of that era was at the end of year four – when we were all 15.

My stepfather – who had finished school at 14 – had assumed my schooldays would end at the same time as the secondary modern schools, and was very irritated when he found my mother had to sign that I would stay on for the fifth year and the O-Level exams which were only introduced in the early 50s.

A further year at school meant a new uniform blazer plus a couple of pairs of trousers and some shirts, which made a gap in his wallet he did not like.

The beginning of O-Levels did not suit all and I think in those days they were somewhat harder than the fifth year exams are nowadays. The grammar school pupils all took O-Levels, and just a few pupils at secondary moderns stayed on for a fifth year to take GCE exams. If they passed in five subjects, a transfer to grammar school to take some A-Levels was possible. Some who did this subsequently went on to university and found very good careers thereafter.

I worked hard enough to pass all my O-Levels and, as quietly planned by my school and my mother, I was going into the sixth form to study maths, physics and chemistry.

My stepfather virtually had a fit, having been told he would only have to support me until I was 15. Initially he took a view I would have to get a job to pay for those two extra years at school, but thankfully the school eventually managed to change his mind. I enjoyed my two years in the sixth form, but I did not push my luck any further by seeking a place at university.

The beginning of O-Levels did not suit all and in those days they were somewhat harder than the exams are nowadays