Now I belong to that generation that experienced the eleven plus, and didn’t come through with a place to a grammar school and a passport to the “glittering prizes”.
Instead for me and most of my friends, we left Edmund Waller Junior School in the summer of 1961, and met up again in the playground of Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern School a month and a bit later.
On the surface not much had changed, and while we now had a uniform and there were no girls, it was little different from what had gone before, save that now we were joined by 120 other “also runs”.
The experience of my parents was little different, and in the case of my mother, she attended the same elementary school as her father and grandmother on Traffic Street in Derby which went under the imaginative name of Traffic Street School.
Together that amounts to 94 years of State education over two centuries, and encompasses some pretty basic provision, mixed with some fine examples of good teaching set against comparatively poor resources.
All of which is a lead in to an excellent new series on Radio 4, presented by “Alan Johnson, the former Education Secretary, who tells the story of English education over the last 140 years through the prism of one school - St Michael and All Angels in Camberwell.
Over the decades, the school has undergone many transformations, including names, in response to changes in policy, but its purpose has remained constant - to provide decent and free education to local children.
The story is told through original documents – from headmasters’ logs and inspection reports – and the testimony of the children and teachers who went there. It is as much a social history of inner-city life down the ages as it is a study of our attempts to educate the children of poor families”.*
The school opened in 1884, three years before Edmund Waller which was just down the road in Peckham, and post dated Traffic Street by twelve years.
Episode one, opened with "the Headmasters log book entry November 17, 1884 which documented the opening of the school: 'J Alfred Thomas Cox opened the above school and took charge. 74 boys were admitted.'
Founded as a church school, St Michael and All Angels is set up under auspices of the The National Society for the Promotion of the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. The aim is clear: 'the proposed schools are for the poorest of the poor children, quite ragged and destitute. Many of whom are at present spending most of their time in the street.'"
Episode 2, began with a visit to “one of the few remaining hop gardens at the Museum of Kent Life to discover how, during September each year, generation after generation of St Michael and All Angels School pupils used to truant - or 'hop the wag' as they called it - to pick hops and earn money for their school uniform.
Alan Johnson talks to some of the last of those who went hop picking. He considers how, with changes in legislation and the end of child labour in mines and mills, schools became even more important – not just for education, but to meet society’s concerns about children 'running wild on the streets'.
The series goes on to look at the impact of The Great War, the awful poverty of the area, and moves into the 21st century.
Each episode lasts just 14 minutes, is repeated and is well worth a listen, as an informative and thoughtful look at our educational system before today.
Leaving me just to say that many of us "also runs" did achieve with the help of dedicated teachers who weren't prepared to allow the mark of the eleven plus to shunt us into a side street, bereft of what our grammar school contemporaries were privy to.
Pictures; one Manchester Child, happy child, m68208, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
Edmund Waller School, Peckham, 2009, from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick and Traffic School, Derby, 1990, courtesy of Cynthia Wigley
*The Secret History of a School, Presenter: Alan Johnson, Producer: Sara Parker, Executive Producer: Samir Shah, A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002r49
 |
| Manchester student, circa 1910 |
On the surface not much had changed, and while we now had a uniform and there were no girls, it was little different from what had gone before, save that now we were joined by 120 other “also runs”.
The experience of my parents was little different, and in the case of my mother, she attended the same elementary school as her father and grandmother on Traffic Street in Derby which went under the imaginative name of Traffic Street School.
 |
| Edmund Waller School, opened in 1887 |
All of which is a lead in to an excellent new series on Radio 4, presented by “Alan Johnson, the former Education Secretary, who tells the story of English education over the last 140 years through the prism of one school - St Michael and All Angels in Camberwell.
Over the decades, the school has undergone many transformations, including names, in response to changes in policy, but its purpose has remained constant - to provide decent and free education to local children.
The story is told through original documents – from headmasters’ logs and inspection reports – and the testimony of the children and teachers who went there. It is as much a social history of inner-city life down the ages as it is a study of our attempts to educate the children of poor families”.*
The school opened in 1884, three years before Edmund Waller which was just down the road in Peckham, and post dated Traffic Street by twelve years.
 |
| Traffic Street School, 1872-1990 |
Founded as a church school, St Michael and All Angels is set up under auspices of the The National Society for the Promotion of the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. The aim is clear: 'the proposed schools are for the poorest of the poor children, quite ragged and destitute. Many of whom are at present spending most of their time in the street.'"
Episode 2, began with a visit to “one of the few remaining hop gardens at the Museum of Kent Life to discover how, during September each year, generation after generation of St Michael and All Angels School pupils used to truant - or 'hop the wag' as they called it - to pick hops and earn money for their school uniform.
Alan Johnson talks to some of the last of those who went hop picking. He considers how, with changes in legislation and the end of child labour in mines and mills, schools became even more important – not just for education, but to meet society’s concerns about children 'running wild on the streets'.
The series goes on to look at the impact of The Great War, the awful poverty of the area, and moves into the 21st century.
Each episode lasts just 14 minutes, is repeated and is well worth a listen, as an informative and thoughtful look at our educational system before today.
Leaving me just to say that many of us "also runs" did achieve with the help of dedicated teachers who weren't prepared to allow the mark of the eleven plus to shunt us into a side street, bereft of what our grammar school contemporaries were privy to.
Pictures; one Manchester Child, happy child, m68208, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
Edmund Waller School, Peckham, 2009, from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick and Traffic School, Derby, 1990, courtesy of Cynthia Wigley
*The Secret History of a School, Presenter: Alan Johnson, Producer: Sara Parker, Executive Producer: Samir Shah, A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002r49
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