Examinations - Secondary School

By the end of the 19th century there was a variety of secondary school provision:

• public schools
• endowed grammar schools
• private schools
• proprietary schools
• higher grade schools

The Education Act 1902 (Balfour Act) allowed the newly created Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to fund ‘education other than elementary’ and this resulted in two types of state-aided secondary school:

• the endowed grammar schools (which now also received grant-aid from LEAs)
• the municipal or county secondary schools (maintained by LEAs)

The Education Act 1907 introduced the free place scholarship system to give promising children from elementary schools the opportunity to go to secondary school.

The provision of secondary education became compulsory under the Education Act 1918.

Secondary education was fee-paying until 1944. Fees for secondary schools were abolished by the Education Act 1944 (Butler Act).

The 1944 Education Act created the tri-partite education system in which children were streamed into Grammar Schools, Technical Schools and Secondary Modern Schools.

Public examinations were introduced in the mid-nineteenth century following requests from independent and grammar schools for Oxford and Cambridge to set a junior examination for sixteen-year-olds and a senior examination for eighteen-year-olds. Gowned ‘presiding examiners’ arrived with sealed boxes at schools and church halls across the land. The exams which were sat by only a tiny minority of the population, largely tested candidates’ memories: names of monarchs, dates of battles, biblical verses, scientific facts (1). Arguments about the validity of grades go back a long way: in 1872 one headteacher wrote to The Times complaining that the Cambridge exams were easier than the Oxford ones (2).

From 1918 the Oxford and Cambridge examinations were replaced by a School Certificate to be taken at sixteen and a Higher School Certificate at eighteen. The School Certificate required pupils to pass a group of subjects to obtain a certificate. At this time, most pupils remained at elementary school after age eleven and left school at fourteen without any formal qualifications. Even when working-class children passed the ‘scholarship’ tests (a limited precursor to the 11+; the local authority paid the secondary school fees of those who passed), their parents often couldn’t afford the uniform.

The United Kingdom School Certificate was an educational attainment standard qualification, established in 1918 by the Secondary Schools Examinations Council (SSEC).

The School Certificate Examination was usually taken at age 16. Performance in each subject was graded as: Fail, Pass, Credit or Distinction. Students had to gain six passes including English and mathematics to obtain a certificate. To obtain a "matriculation exemption" one had to obtain at least a Credit in five subjects including English, mathematics, science and a language. Those who failed could retake the examination. Some students who passed then stayed on at school to take the Higher School Certificate at age 18.

The Higher School Certificate (HSC) was an educational attainment standard qualification in England and Wales, established by the Secondary Schools Examination Council (SSEC). The Higher School Certificate Examination (HSCE) was usually taken at age 18, or two years after the School Certificate. It was abolished when A-levels were introduced in 1951. The HSC made it compulsory to study a broader range of subjects, even though some students were strong in either the sciences or the arts and humanities. When A-Levels were introduced, pupils could study a narrower range of subjects in depth, chosen according to their strengths.

The Norwood Committee on curriculum and examinations in secondary schools during WW2 discussed the extension of secondary education, which would involve changes in the exam system. The advantages and disadvantages of public exams were well understood. The Norwood Report (1943) summarises arguments offered for and against: exams are said to motivate pupils, provide teachers with a syllabus and give an objective measure of achievement, but it was also argued that they dictate the curriculum, invite children to view education simply as passing exams, encourage cramming and uniformity, and neglect the knowledge teachers acquire of the pupils in their class over time. The committee recommended that the School Certificate be replaced by separate subject exams, and, that after a transitional period, the exams should be set internally in schools by the teachers. With the exception of the CSE Mode 3 (described below), this ‘transitional period’ never gave way to the practice of internally set examinations. In contrast, teachers across much of Germany set the pre-university Abitur until recently.

After the war, as a result of the 1944 Education Act, all pupils received secondary education, but in different types of schools according to their results in the 11+ tests. For many years the vast majority, attending secondary modern schools, left before the age of sixteen without any formal qualifications. The new General Certificate of Education O (‘ordinary’)-level was almost exclusively taken by pupils attending grammar schools. However, in the early stages of the long campaign for comprehensive schools, some pupils who had failed the 11+ and had gone to secondary moderns were entered for the O-level and passed.

The School Certificate was abolished after the GCE O-Level was introduced in 1951. The School Certificate also existed in a number of Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Singapore at various times.

Classrooms 100 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_England .

http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/chapter08.html . 

https://sesc.hist.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Briefing-Paper-Exams.pdf .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Educational_qualifications_in_England .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Standardised_tests_in_England .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Secondary_school_qualifications .