The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Jazee

My experience of careers advice is similar to PN and I left school in the early eighties. It wasn't even suggested that you might be able to do A levels. I mentioned that I'd like to be a nurse, but was given the application to do secretarial stuff at college.

Fortunately, I now thirty years later have the chance to get out of that and do something else. As of yet, I haven't decided exactly what!

PasturesNew

Loanranger wrote: »

There was a national careers service from 1974 75 ish Not sure what year you left school, PN?

National doesn't mean it's filtered down yet.
I left 1977, so was making my "choices" in early 1975 (the grid shoved in my hand in the Hall and being given a pencil).

silvercar

Did a few years make so much difference? I did my A levels in 1982, lots of the girls in my school went on to University. In fact only about 20% of pupils left after 'O' levels.

Jazee

I think it may have depended where you were at school. Out of about 200 fifth formers, only 6 went on to do A-levels.

michaels

silvercar wrote: »

Did a few years make so much difference? I did my A levels in 1982, lots of the girls in my school went on to University. In fact only about 20% of pupils left after 'O' levels.

I suspect there is probably the same difference between different schools as there was then.

My parents probably weren't as involved with extra-curricular activities as we are but they definitely took an interest in what went on at school, scrutinizing reports and attending parents evenings. Had I not wanted to do sensible gce/a level options I am sure pressure would have been brought to bear.

I decided that even if I could have persuaded DD1 to do triple science which I think would leave the most choices later on it would have been counter productive as she might have rebelled in the classes or just been miserable. It would amaze me to think a parent would leave it to their kids to make this life changing decision at 13 but then I am a firm believer in the value of experience. Not older and smarter but older and more knowledgeable.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

....1982...

Various social, economic, geographic and cultural issues were going on back then.

It was the tail end of the "only the middle classes go to Uni" ...

In many schools there was no expectation, indeed it wasn't even mentioned at my school (3 miles from a major Uni and I had no idea what it really was/was for, except "toffs are there").

Whether one went was a combination of things.

Even being "allowed" to do A levels, for many, was a fight. My sibling had to almost stage a riot to be allowed to do A levels, they refused her at first, but she's an argumentative little s0d. She ended up doing a degree, but not at a Uni.... I asked her once how she knew about them and it was because she had school friends whose parents were middle class and she'd gone to their houses and seen where they lived and "worked it out" that to get a bigger/nice house, a Volvo and foreign holidays, you had to do this degree thing and A levels.

Your starting point/route was often blocked at an early age when you weren't "allowed" to stay on at school.... for a variety of reasons. We were "told" you had to pick some subjects, get some O levels and leave school and get a job.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

It wasn't you. It was them.
They just didn't like you

Not so far from the truth, probably.

Loanranger wrote: »

Same here, no input whatsoever from parents into subject options. Unnecessary for us as it was all explained to us by the school and since we were grammar school pupils they probably assumed were able to understand the ins and outs and also in terms of what careers we were excluding.
No parents evenings either but in my subsequent career I did more than my share of those.
Parents generally had a hands off approach, never came to watch us play sports on a Saturday; never did our homework; never came to the school to complain. All in all, I learnt to make my own decisions and also learnt that when these were poor decisions, the responsibility was mine, too.

there is that aspect, I suppose. Makes me feel a bit better, looking at it like that!
Would have been nice to have had some interested shown, though.
The only interest that was shown was in the absolute mark I got. No interest in whether it was improvement on before, etc.

I remember once, I worked my socks off to improve my class place, and for the first and only time, achieved second place. Utterly delighted.
However, all I got at home was "Why didn't you come first?"
I didn't bother so much after that, and stayed somewhere in the middle, coasting along with minimum effort.



I'm in a maudlin mood today. :undecided


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Loanranger

The careers service had existed in one form or another since the 1920s or thereabouts possibly 1910s; the Youth Employment Service came under the control of local authorities at end of 1974. There was no question of it not trickling down nor of it being discriminatory between middle class and working class children. It came into being by statute.
I have long thought that careers officers were an easy target, as in 'they told me I could never be an astronaut, nurse' or whatever. That's not the way it worked and if you chose the subjects you were good at to study for your last two years of your statutory schooling between 14 and 16, you excluded yourself from those careers. The school didn't and neither did the careers officer.
Schools also set their own entry qualifications for their own sixth forms.
Noone had an automatic right to enter the sixth form. If you weren't able to pass the requisite number of O levels at a certain grade you were not able to stay on for academic A levels. On the other hand you may have been eligible for entry to a vocational course at a local college.

silvercar

PN wrote:

Various social, economic, geographic and cultural issues were going on back then.

It was the tail end of the "only the middle classes go to Uni" ...

I went to one of the largest comprehensives in Wales. 14 classes of 30 in each year group. Socially and economically mixed. Not ethnically diverse at all. About 10% had welsh as their first language.
It was structured as if it was a grammar school, secondary modern and remedial school all under one roof.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

... 14 classes of 30 in each year group. Socially and economically mixed. Not ethnically diverse at all. ...

Mine was about half the size, or so, looking at the figures on wikipedia. We had about 8 classes I think per year, of 30-35/class, two classes were classed as "grammar", two were remedial. 6th form was two classes, so 3/4 of people were expected to no longer be there - you had to go and get a job, or find a College, I did typing. I didn't get into the "grammar" as I transferred into the 3rd year and there wasn't room, so it was "take a space in a normal class or nothing".

Yours was close to a growing/capital city, mine was a village 3 miles out of a small town. London (a world we knew nothing of) was about 60 miles away or so. The annual highlight was the fair coming to the village green for 4-5 days in July!

Looking at the list of "notable past pupils" on wikipedia, your school has a list of 22. Mine has 3.

Kids were bussed in on school buses from the surrounding villages, I lived just 1 mile away so walked. Most had an Ag Lab background as we were slap bang in the middle of fields and food factories canning what was dug up in the fields.