October 16th, 2010
It took me just a few days to copy all of the names featured in all
of the photos in the albums and whole school pictures (1947 and 1955) and
put them all together to create a database
of over 1,100 Old Girls, showing which photos each of them was
in! This is probably more than a third of all the Old Girls who attended
the school between 1922-75. A few name duplications have been noticed and
some spelling mistakes corrected, and there are even grid references to
the whole school photos. (This is attached to this e-mail as an Excel file
– SGHSNames.xls – down to my first class maths degree, crowned by a master’s.)
Would have looked even better with the inclusion of that front row of 1950
Form 4R!
In the 1930s (when the school had a prep department), the normal progression
from main school to sixth form was Forms 2, 3, 4, Upper 4, 5, Lower 6 and
Upper 6. Though there were A and B forms then (implying streaming by ability),
it seems rather ironic that, of the 10 girls in both the 1939 second form
(first year) and 1945 sixth form (upper sixth) pictures, 7 were members
of 2B and only 3 were in the A stream! The girls in the ‘1936 Form 2?’
photo tended to be in the ‘1939 Form 5?’ pic (as if there was no Upper
4; a number of these were in 1938 Form 2B to really confuse the matter!).
The ‘?’ Forms may have been house groups instead? (There was no streaming
after the war – forms were based on surnames and ‘O’ level choices. I think
that the small 1950 Form 5I may have been a ‘general sixth form’ group.)
The most common Christian name among the Old Girls in the database was
Margaret (1 in 18 had that name). The rest of the top ten reads as follows:
Ann/Anne, Patricia/Pat, Jean, Joan, Barbara, Mary, Gillian/Gill/Jill, Kathleen
and Dorothy. Maureen featured 7 times (1 in 162 Old Girls).
Other sources of names of Old Girls are old school magazines and speech
day programmes. Some other old school websites do have scanned copies of
examples of these on their webpages, including Lawnswood High School for
Girls (which was a grammar school in Leeds).
I read in an education book that only around 1 in 6 children in the
North Riding of Yorkshire passed the 11 plus to get into grammar schools
in the 1950s. In the 1940s, around half of the North Riding’s 11 plus failures
did not even go to a senior or secondary modern school, but remained in
‘all-age’ schools until they left school to go to work. The only technical
school in the North Riding was the Scarborough Technical Institute (boys’
school with 13+ entry), which closed in the 1960s. Some other local education
authorities had (in addition to grammar and secondary modern schools) selective
central schools for the second layer of ability at 11 plus (those who missed
the grammar school standard by a certain margin), and various types of
technical school that one could enter at age 13 (e.g. engineering or building
for boys, commercial or housewifery for girls, art schools, even schools
for boot and shoe manufacture!).
I remember I e-mailed you 18 months ago (see Message Board – doesn’t
time fly), in which I wrote that I ‘sort of’ did my ‘A’ levels before my
‘O’s (GCSEs), despite my Asperger’s Syndrome and special schooling, and
won two Daily Mail ‘Letter of the Week’ awards in 2005 (including a picture
of myself in the paper with one of those letters, ain’t fibbing). Since
that time, I’ve had a couple more letters published in the Mail, with a
second photo of myself in their letters column accompanying an article
on "Grammars Get Top Marks For Boys" (state grammars get 40% more working
class boys into law or elite financial jobs than comprehensives, and even
more into Oxbridge). I’ve also been on six cruises with my retired parents
(including Alaska, both East and West of Canada, and New York twice). I’ve
now been on 16 cruises and visited 30 countries (including Panama, Israel,
China and Vietnam).
You mentioned corporal punishment at your primary school – girls got
the 'slipper' (a flexible gym shoe) and boys the cane. The special school
where I spent 9 years also had the slipper (also a flexible gym shoe),
and I think I had the schools’ record of most visits to the office (8 occasions,
14 strokes in total). Did convent schools beat their girls like they did
on the Aussie drama series Brides of Christ?
I look forward to receiving any replies.
Best wishes,
Chris Bird,
[link to database HERE]
April 1st 2009
E-mailed to point out a few possible errors/ambiguities regarding the
photo galleries of 1940s and 1950.
-
The name grid for the front row of SGHS Form 4R (1950) was missing. Was
this because all of the 10 girls in that front row were unidentified?
[No
- just webmaster error]
-
Perhaps the strangest finding was that most of those in the Lower Sixth
(1949) photo were in the one for Form 5I the following year! How is it
possible to ‘move down’ from L6 to 5I? For the record, June Bayley was
in 4H in March 1948, followed by L6 and 5I. [Lower
6th (1949) has now been removed]
-
There were really two school uniforms at around this period (and that’s
just the winter uniforms!) – older girls could choose to wear skirts instead
of gym tunics. Numbers in each of the 1950 form photos (with numbers wearing
skirts in brackets) were as follows: First 53 (0), Second 49 (0), Third
63 (5), Fourth 57 (26), 5H/5S 61 (42), 5I 13 (10), L6 15 (12), U6 17 (17).
A few of the girls weren’t wearing ties (I wonder why?). Very impressive
school pictures though.
-
Most schools were streamed around this period. SGHS forms were named after
the surname initials of the form mistresses – was the school unstreamed?
If not, what were the ‘A’ forms and the ‘B’ forms in the 1950 set? Of the
15 girls in Lower Sixth (1950), 3 were in 4H in 1948 – was the 4H of 1948
the ‘B’ stream (they were pictured doing Domestic Science instead of Latin)?
[A
was for Ashton; B was for Bailey!]
-
In the 1940s set, there is a photo of ‘Ball Boys at the Yorkshire Lawn
Tennis Club, Filey Road, Scarborough 1949’. Were all the girls pupils of
SGHS? If so, were all the girls members of house or school tennis teams?
. . . [ Well? Does anyone know?]
. . . Main differences between boys’ and girls’ grammar schools
– many of the former (especially direct grant schools) had express streams
(e.g. 4 years to ‘O’ level) and third year sixth forms aiming at Oxbridge
entry, and virtually all of the boys’ schools had used corporal punishment.
It was not unknown for a boy to achieve the Higher School Certificate in
three successive years! On the other hand few of the academically selective
girls’ schools had fast streams, and physical punishment was virtually
unheard of in these schools. The drive for a broader education meant that
few schools were still running accelerated courses for their abler pupils
by the late 1970s. I believe that Tiffin Boys’ School (Kingston-upon-Thames)
was the last state school to abolish the express stream, in the late 1980s.
I look forward to receiving any replies.
Best wishes,
Chris Bird,
Cheltenham, Glos.
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