Living, as I do, in a country which is not the USA, any college I went to would be completely unknown to most of my readers. Indeed, the two colleges I went to have disappeared into the mists of time.

The education system in England has changed several times in the 65 years I have lived here. Most of my early education was in the States and didn’t really prepare me for secondary and tertiary education in England. Added to that is the fact that my schooling was somewhat interrupted several times before I was sixteen.

We came to England just at the start of my sophomore year in high school and, for the first two years my sisters and I attended schools run by the United States Air Force at Bushy Park (or it might be Bushey Park) on their base, there. I can’t say that the teaching was great – or even good – for the most part and when we had all decided to remain in the UK, we thought we’d better have some British qualifications.

For those of you who do not know the way education worked here then, children started school at about five at an infant school and afterwards, at about the age of seven, went on to a junior school. Towards the end of what was called Year Four of Junior school, (way back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s) children took an examination called “The Eleven Plus”. This was a big deal and put a lot of strain on children who were still quite young, so was changed in most areas of England around 1976.

Before 1976, the Eleven Plus was supposed to separate children into, essentially, two categories – those who were thought capable of working more academically and those who were more likely to take up manual jobs when their education ceased, usually at 15 (though in earlier days the school leaving age was 14 and later was 16.)

Of course this separation was seen as a way of dividing the ‘classes’ and parents were often keen to have their children do well in the Eleven Plus so that they could go on to ‘better themselves’. Sadly for some children (at that time) it sometimes happened that a child who passed the exam was not allowed to go on to (what was called) Grammar School because,the parents needed the wages a child was likely to receive if he left at 14.

Children who went to Grammar Schools, studied a large variety of subjects for the first few years then, often, chose to concentrate more fully on either the Arts subjects (English, foreign languages, history etc) or the Science subjects (maths, chemistry, biology, physics etc) and then had exams called ‘O’ levels at about 15 or 16 and, if they did well and their parents could afford to let them, they would take ‘A’ levels at 17 or 18.

Children who left school at 14 could either go into an apprenticeship in jobs like carpentry, plumbing, printing, and the post office, or they could get jobs such as working in a shop or a factory or, in the countryside, perhaps into farming.

For my sisters and I, we found that our previous education had not been equal to that received by other children our age and we would not be able to go to an English school with people of our own ages. The answer to this problem was to go to a Crammer – a small school which would prepare us (hopefully) for taking some ‘O’ levels.

Mrs Hugh Jones Tutorial Establishment was in a little house down a little road in Hammersmith called Wolverton Gardens. The hours we had to attend were either from 9am to noon or 10am to 1pm, depending on which classes we were having on that day. As I was already 17 and should have been studying for ‘A’ levels, I only did English Language, English Literature, French, History and Geography and concentrated on the first 3 subjects. Judy had to study maths plus the ones I did plus, perhaps, others and I’m not sure what Jennie, who would have been 12 at the time, studied. Notice we had no gym, no sports, no art, no music, no after- school clubs and no recess but we did have plenty of homework.

I wasn’t a very hard-working student but did manage to pass the three exams and from there I went to my first ‘college’. This was nothing like a college in America, though. This was a school for students who didn’t stay at school in the sixth form for ‘A’ levels – exams which delve much more deeply into subjects than ‘O’levels. I chose to do English Literature and French ‘A’ levels and Latin ‘O’ level.

I wanted to get my ‘A’ levels so that I could go on to a Teacher Training College and be able to teach little children. Things didn’t work out that way for a number of reasons (read some of my other posts!) and it was about ten years before I could go to Thomas Huxley Teacher Training College in Acton, London, This college, too, is nowhere to be found. It closed down only a year or two after I got my qualification and those of us who went there will be too old to teach by now. The reason it closed is because there were enough teachers – it had only opened because there was a lack of suitably qualified people taking up teaching jobs in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Indeed, when I came out, it was quite difficult to find a job in a state school (what is called a public school in America) so my first teaching job was in the kindergarten of a small private school. After two years I was able to find a state school where I was employed for about 8 years before I branched out to become a ‘supply’ teacher (substitute in America) for another 8 or so years.

Now, I didn’t stop my education when I left college. I consider every day to be another opportunity to learn something new, even if it is just one small fact. (Today I learned that an erg is a unit of energy!)

The College of Life can be the best place to be educated and, hopefully, we have many years in which to learn a huge amount. In the years since I left college I have learned a lot about antiques, art, maths, dogs, cats, buildings, history, horses, children, people from other parts of the world, religions, mysteries, music, and so many words and their meanings! When we moved to Broadstairs, we joined the U3A – the University of the Third Age and we spend time with our peers whose educations and lives may have differed from ours and who are willing to give us a glimpse into the unknown so that we keep on learning.

(The O in ‘O’ level stands for ordinary; the A in ‘A’ level stands for Advanced) If you have any questions about what I have written, please drop me a line via this website and I’ll endeavour to answer as soon as possible. 😃)