Full Careers

Hi I am doing a questionnaire for ages 40-70 for university...can you help???

I need to interview people aged over 40 to about 70 about schools and education. The questions are below. Please answer as detailed as you can. Thanks :-) How old were you when you left your education and what year was this? What stage or level did you get to in your education? What were your best and worst lessons throughout your time in education? Was it compulsory to wear a uniform throughout your time in education and what did it included? What was involved in disciplining during your time in education, in both primary and secondary education? What tests and examinations were compulsory, in both primary and secondary education? Which do you feel were the best or the worst? What kind of education did you go into after your primary education e.g. Grammar, Secondary Modern, Technical? Were you offered careers and further education advice after completing your compulsory education? How do you feel about the lessons that were around previously compared to modern day lessons? Are there any that you feel should be brought back today? How do you feel education has changed since you were in school? Please state your main points. What do you think of the current education system? How would you improve or change it? What was involved in the basic learning when you were at school? How did it help prepare you for life? Were you prepared for 'life' when you left school? Do you think that kids today are more or less prepared for the 'real' world when they leave school?

Public Comments

1. Um, I suggest you ask professors on your campus if you want detailed ACCURATE answers. For example, I could answer these question myself, even though I'm only 15 by making them up.
2. 1. 17 in 1974 2. A Level 3. Loved Art and Spanish; hated Irish and Maths. 4. Compulsory up to 5th year (jacket, shirt, tie, trousers); 6th and 7th years were optional. 5. Strap or cane across the hands. 6. 11plus in primary; Junior and O' Levels and odd Christmas tests. Best was 11 plus. 7. Grammar 8. No.
3. Hi, I'm in my 40's and hope i can help. I was 16 and left in 1979. I began in nursery at 3 and half years.! I hated maths it was a nightmare beginning to end. Loved drama, was good at English, Science and Art. Yes uniform was white shirt, Navy or grey skirt, and the school sweatshirt and tie. Lines, and lines, and if that didn't work, slipper or ruler for girls, cane for boys. In Secondary the exams where CSE. Primary were just written tests, and question sheets. Both were needed as well as each other. Secondary. Yes I was offered careers and further education advice, unfortunately, i didn't take the right path. hope this helps. PS. If they still used the cane and punishment Now, there may be more discipline and less crime in this country.UK.
4. Be warned, you did ask for details: I was 15, in 1977, when I left school. I had just completed Year 10, known as the School Certificate. Compulsory music was the worst: I have no 'ear' for music and had no interest in the subject. English was the best: I have a passion for words and self expression and it allowed me to explore it. When I was at boarding school, we had to wear a box-pleated tunice, blouse, tie, stockings, regulation shoes, beret and gloves. Some of my education was by correspondence, so then I wore whatever I put on when I got up in the morning. I valued the uniform: my family were not very well off and spent the money on the boarding school, I would have been disadvantaged if I had had to try and compete with designer labels or trendy clothes. I was able to compete and achieve academically without extra pressure. Discipline for boys was the cane. Both sexes were given lunchtime and after school detention. In extreme cases, suspension which would be followed by expulsion if more transgressions occurred. It worked. Most subjects had tests at the end of each term, which were marked and graded by the teacher. At the end of Year 10 I sat an exam that was graded by an anonymous moderator. I never felt the need to study for the tests and treated them as a contest (which I often won) so I enjoyed them. After primary, I went into private Catholic College for 2 years and then completed my education through what was known as correspondence but is now called distance education. The only careers advice I received was a token 15 minute session with the school careers counsellor in Year 8. They suggested I become a nurse, an area of no interest to me, and I suspected I was being programmed to go into a field that needed more people, rather than pursue what I really wanted to do: teach. The lessons we learned focussed a lot on retained learning: dates and events in history, mathematic formulae, grammer and punctuation. Spelling was a big issue. I think a lot of these things should have remained in our system: modern education values individual self expression over grammatical rules and correct spelling, but the full meaning of the communication is lost if the writer/speaker cannot phrase it in a way that is commonly understood. Maths is an issue too, some of the people I employ in a retail store cannot calculate 20% discounts without a calculator-that should be pretty basic. I think the biggest change in education since I was at school is the idea of allowing students to progress through the system regardless of their scholastic abilities. The introduction of flexible competencies allows students to move up through the system without understanding or learning the basics of literacy. Too much blame is placed on the teachers for students' deficiencies and not enough onus is placed on parents. I would take the current education system back to basics with Maths and English. I would retain some of the other subject areas such as politics and history because they are relevant to today's society. When I left school I was armed with the basics: I could read, write, calculate maths, develop a personal budget and manage my financial affairs. I was taught to understand how our political system worked. Home economics was one of my elective subjects so I also learned how to cook (and how to love cooking!!!) A majority of students today seem to have little knowledge of the above basics but are brilliant with computers and other forms of technology. I constantly see an increase in peer pressure to wear the right clothes, drive the right car and an excess of spending on non-essentials. They are more hedonistic and self-absorbed and don't have a sense of future consequence. Although some of this stems from the home environment and media, some of it comes through the education system because there is no reinforcement of cause and effect, they will make it through the system regardless of the effort, or lack of it, they put in. They are rewarded, in a sense, for making it through high school without being able to read and write. Self expression is all that matters, and that creates selfish people.
5. 1. Left school in 1969 (age 16). Last academic course of study finished 1997 (age 44) (I studied a lot since school). Currently studying at evening class (age 54) (I assume you mean *formal* education because we never stop learning as long as we are able to assimilate new information). 2. At school, GCE 'O' levels. Since school, a Masters Degree. 3. At school: mathematics. Since school: nothing specific - maybe law or organisational behaviour. 4. At school, yes. Black shoes, grey socks, grey trousers, grey or white shirt, school blazer with badge, school tie, school cap up to age 13. 5. Primary: Stand in the corner. Secondary: Lines, detention, 'standing in the pound' (at lunchtime, you had to stand silently in a quadrangle in the centre of the school where others could see you), cane (hand or buttocks). There was also a report-card system- I can't recall what it was called. You were given a card on which each teacher had to sign to confirm you had behaved properly in their lesson. Reporting would last a week or two weeks and could be repeated. I'm not sure what the outcome was if you were not good enough. It was considered pretty embarrassing so people tended to comply. 6. Tests: Primary - nothing regular that I recall. Secondary: Year-end exams in each subject. Mock GCE exams. GCE 'O' level exams for subjects entered. Other people stayed on and did 'A' level GCE. After school: Subject specific qualifying exams at the end of each course plus continual assessment in some subjects. Best in what way? Do you mean Hardest/ easiest/ fairest? Sorry, the question is not very precise. The most demanding and most revealing of my ability was probably the dissertation for my masters degree. At school, I did best at mathematics and worst at Latin. 7. Grammar school. Post school: evening classes (lots of them), Polytechnic, University. 8. Yes, but I was too stupid to co-operate with it. I thought I was being clever. See what I mean about never stopping learning? Some of the hardest but most valuable lessons do not occur in a classroom.
6. Hi! I'm in my 50s. I graduated from University in 1969, aged 21. At that time, I had completed my first degree (B.A. Hons). (Since then I have obtained various post-graduate qualifications). My favourite lesson was English, least favourite Geography. Yes, we had to wear a uniform all the time in school (though not in university). Navy blue tunic, white blouse, red tie, V neck pullover (navy with red trim), blazer, felt hat in winter or straw hat in summer. Discipline - in primary school - the cane. In secondary school, detentions. Exams: 11 plus in final year in primary school, then GCEs at age 16 and A levels at age 18. I was near the top in most things. Grammar School (G.P.D.S.T.) Not much career advice, no - a fair amount of pressure to go to university. (Your second list of questions doesn't appear when you go to 'answer this question' - suggest you put them in another question).
7. 1. I left grammar school aged almost 18 in 1956, did national Service in the R.A.F., then trained as a teacher from 1958-60. 2. I have a Teaching Certificate which was all you needed in those days!! I obtained a Diploma in Primary School Management in 1988. 3. Best - English Language and Physics. Worst - Chemistry. 4. Yes, at grammar school we wore a uniform. Boys wore green blazers over grey or white shirts, green and yellow ties and a green and yellow (cabbage and custard) cap. Trousers were grey and shoes were black. Girls wore white blouses under their blazers with green skirts. In summer they had green/white check dresses. On their heads they wore green berets or straw boaters in the summer. I still have my grammar school cap!! 5. Both in primary and grammar school the ultimate punishment was being caned by the head or senior teacher or even expulsion which from a grammar school was rather serious as you wouldn't get into another. At grammar school we had other less painful punishments such as detention, writing out high-minded sentences 100 times (eg. I must remember not to talk in class.) or being banned from lessons such as games or PE. (unless you didn't like them when you were never banned!) 6. At primary school ALL children took the 11+ entrance test for selection to grammar schools. About 25% in my area passed (all my class of 46 children passed). At grammar school we took G.C.E. aged 16 (in my case 15) and were expected to get at least 7 passes. There were no grades, you either passed or failed. At 18 (17) we took between 2 and 5 A-Levels. I took three. There was no "best" or "worst" we just accepted exams as part of growing up and achieving results to ensure a decent future. 7. I've already answered this. 8. I was never offered any career advice, perhaps because I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a teacher. But at my grammar school teaching was looked at as an inferior profession for a "grammar school boy" to wish to enter. How wrong they were!! Hope this helps.
8. I was 17 when I left school in 1973. I was halfway though A levels which sadly I did not complete. Best lessons were History English and Latin. Worst were all Science lessons. We had a disgusting dark green uniform, but nobody minded as we were all in the same boat. In Primary school the cane was used for particularly bad behaviour, but I would say a very small minority of pupils experienced this punishment. In secondary school The slipper and the cane were used, but again, this was quite rare as the teachers were strict, good behaviour was expected, and the mjority conformed to the notion that this was the way to behave. No one 'lived in fear' it was a very happy environment. Weekly spelling tests and ongoing tests after learning were a normal part of school life in Primaryschool. All children sat the 11 plus test, no extra curricular tuition. This was the only formal test taken, but no big deal was made of it, we weren't coached towards it;rather we were taught efficiently, tested regularly in all areas and thought nothing of the 11 plus when we sat it. Although the school was in a relatively poor area on a council estate, around 10-12 of us passed the 11 plus and went on to grammar schools. (Despite the bad press secondary schools of that era receive, it was a good alternative-many of my friends attended and achived good CSE results in addition to the more vocational education they were offered) The only careers advice I was offered was that because I was so extreme in my ability-ie very good at languages and absolutely awful at Maths and Science-the only career open to me would be teaching. At that time I was not remotely interested in Teaching-I wanted to go to Drama school!! I did have a very supportive English/Drama teacher who encouraged me to apply for RADA and Guildhall, but I was well aware that becoming an actress was not going to happen. After my parents separated during the summer holidays, I lost a lot of motivation for learning, and the final straw was when I requested to give up German A level and the school refused. I was struggling in German even though I really enjoyed French and English. There was no O level or A level in Drama in those days. That was it for me-I left and have regretted that decision for 35 years. What am I doing now??????? You guessed. I'm an ESOL teacher. I returned to study as a mature student , got a Spanish Diploma from Institute of Linguists, tried to get into teaching secondary, but without a Maths GCSE equivalent, I was unable. I did a CELTA course and have been teaching for the last three years. I love it, but I still wish I hadn't left school without completing my A levels. It was a terrible waste of a top class education and an opportunity for someone from a poorer social background to do well. My school days were very very happy, and as you might guess, I am in favour of retaining the few grammar schools remaining in the UK. Selecton is not elitist-it's sensible and productive. Hope this helps Oh sorry forgot to mention testing. We all had end of term exams and all students sat GCE O levels at rising 16 (5th form) Lower ability sets in Maths and English took the CSE exam. Although I was hopeless at Maths I had to sit all O levels because I was in the X form-the high achievers' stream. Huh-that was a joke. I passed all my language O levels and miserably failed the rest. This was MY FAULT not the school's.