Grammar For School 5

[Giovanni Sealy]

Agrammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school.

The original purpose of medieval grammar schools was the teaching of Latin. Over time the curriculum was broadened, first to include Ancient Greek, and later English and other European languages, natural sciences, mathematics, history, geography, art and other subjects. In the late Victorian era grammar schools were reorganised to provide secondary education throughout England and Wales; Scotland had developed a different system. Grammar schools of these types were also established in British territories overseas, where they have evolved in different ways.

Grammar schools became one of the three tiers of the Tripartite System of state-funded secondary education operating in England and Wales from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s, and continue as such in Northern Ireland. After most local education authorities moved to non-selective comprehensive schools in the 1960s and 1970s, some grammar schools became fully independent schools and charged fees, while most others were abolished or became comprehensive (or sometimes merged with a secondary modern to form a new comprehensive school). In both cases, some of these schools kept "grammar school" in their names. More recently, a number of state grammar schools, still retaining their selective intake, gained academy status are thus independent of the local education authority (LEA). Some LEAs retain forms of the Tripartite System and a few grammar schools survive in otherwise comprehensive areas. Some of the remaining grammar schools can trace their histories to before the 15th century.

An example of an early grammar school, founded by an early modern borough corporation unconnected with church, or university, is Bridgnorth Grammar School, founded in 1503 by Bridgnorth Borough Corporation.[5]

In the Scottish Reformation schools such as the Choir School of Glasgow Cathedral (founded 1124) and the Grammar School of the Church of Edinburgh (1128) passed from church control to burgh councils, and the burghs also founded new schools. With the increased emphasis on studying the scriptures after the Reformation, many schools added Greek and, in a few cases, Hebrew. The teaching of these languages was hampered by a shortage of non-Latin type and of teachers fluent in the languages.

During the 16th and 17th centuries the establishment of grammar schools became a common act of charity by nobles, wealthy merchants and guilds; for example The Crypt School, Gloucester, founded by John and Joan Cook in 1539, Sir Roger Manwood's School, founded in 1563 by Sandwich jurist Roger Manwood, and Spalding Grammar School, founded by John Gamlyn and John Blanche in 1588. Many of these are still commemorated in annual "Founder's Day" services and ceremonies at surviving schools. The usual pattern was to create an endowment to pay the wages of a master to instruct local boys in Latin and sometimes Greek without charge.[6]

The school day typically ran from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a two-hour break for lunch; in winter, school started at 7 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. Most of the day was spent in the rote learning of Latin. To encourage fluency, some schoolmasters recommended punishing any pupil who spoke in English. The younger boys learned the parts of speech and Latin words in the first year, learned to construct Latin sentences in the second year, and began translating English-Latin and Latin-English passages in the third year. By the end of their studies at age 14, they would be quite familiar with the great Latin authors, and with Latin drama and rhetoric.[7] Other skills, such as arithmetic and handwriting, were taught in odd moments or by travelling specialist teachers such as scriveners.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary defined a grammar school as a school in which the learned languages are grammatically taught;[8]However, by this time demand for these languages had fallen greatly. A new commercial class required modern languages and commercial subjects.[6] Most grammar schools founded in the 18th century also taught arithmetic and English.[9] In Scotland, the burgh councils updated the curricula of their schools so that Scotland no longer has grammar schools in any of the senses discussed here, though some, such as Aberdeen Grammar School, retain the name.[10]

In England, urban middle-class pressure for a commercial curriculum was often supported by the school's trustees (who would charge the new students fees), but resisted by the schoolmaster, supported by the terms of the original endowment. Very few schools were able to obtain special acts of Parliament to change their statutes; examples are the Macclesfield Grammar School Act 1774 and the Bolton Grammar School Act 1788.[6] Such a dispute between the trustees and master of Leeds Grammar School led to a celebrated case in the Court of Chancery. After 10 years, Lord Eldon, then Lord Chancellor, ruled in 1805, "There is no authority for thus changing the nature of the Charity, and filling a School intended for the purpose of teaching Greek and Latin with Scholars learning the German and French languages, mathematics, and anything except Greek and Latin."[11] Although he offered a compromise by which some subjects might be added to a classical core, the ruling set a restrictive precedent for grammar schools across England; they seemed to be in terminal decline.[3][9] However it should be borne in mind that the decline of the grammar schools in England and Wales was not uniform and that until the foundation of St Bees Clerical College, in 1817, and St David's College Lampeter, in 1828, specialist grammar schools in the north-west of England and South Wales were in effect providing tertiary education to men in their late teens and early twenties, which enabled them to be ordained as Anglican clergymen without going to university.[12]

The 19th century saw a series of reforms to grammar schools, culminating in the Endowed Schools Act 1869. Grammar schools were reinvented as academically oriented secondary schools following literary or scientific curricula, while often retaining classical subjects.

The Grammar Schools Act 1840 made it lawful to apply the income of grammar schools to purposes other than the teaching of classical languages,[13] but change still required the consent of the schoolmaster. At the same time, many schools were reorganising themselves along the lines of Thomas Arnold's reforms at Rugby School, and the spread of the railways led to new boarding schools teaching a broader curriculum, such as Marlborough College (1843). The first girls' schools targeted at university entrance were North London Collegiate School (1850) and Cheltenham Ladies' College (from the appointment of Dorothea Beale in 1858).[6][9]

Following the Clarendon Commission, which led to the Public Schools Act 1868 which restructured the trusts of nine leading schools (including Eton College, Harrow School and Shrewsbury School), the Taunton Commission was appointed to examine the remaining 782 endowed grammar schools. The commission reported that the distribution of schools did not match the current population, and that provision varied greatly in quality, with provision for girls being particularly limited.[6][9] The commission proposed the creation of a national system of secondary education by restructuring the endowments of these schools for modern purposes. The result was the Endowed Schools Act 1869, which created the Endowed Schools Commission with extensive powers over endowments of individual schools. It was said that the commission "could turn a boys' school in Northumberland into a girls' school in Cornwall". Across England and Wales schools endowed to offer free classical instruction to boys were remodelled as fee-paying schools (with a few competitive scholarships) teaching broad curricula to boys or girls.[6][9][14]

In the late Victorian era there was a great emphasis on the importance of self-improvement, and many schools established at that time emulated the great public schools, copying their curriculum, ethos and ambitions, and some took or maintained the title "grammar school" for historical reasons. A girls' grammar school established in a town with an older boys' grammar school would often be named a "high school".

Under the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act 1907 all grant-aided secondary schools were required to provide at least 25 percent of their places as free scholarships for students from public elementary schools. Grammar schools thus emerged as one part of the highly varied education system of England and Wales before 1944.[3][9]

The 1944 Education Act created the first nationwide system of state-funded secondary education in England and Wales, echoed by the Education (Northern Ireland) Act 1947. One of the three types of school forming the Tripartite System was called the grammar school, which sought to spread the academic ethos of the existing grammar schools. Grammar schools were intended to teach an academic curriculum to the most intellectually able 25 percent of the school population as selected by the 11-plus examination.

Grammar school pupils were given the best opportunities of any schoolchildren in the state system.[19] Initially, they studied for the School Certificate and Higher School Certificate, replaced in 1951 by General Certificate of Education examinations at O-level (Ordinary level) and A-level (Advanced level). In contrast, very few students at secondary modern schools took public examinations until the introduction of the less academic and less prestigious Certificate of Secondary Education (known as the CSE) in 1965.[20] Until the implementation of the Robbins Report in the 1960's expanding higher education, pupils from public and grammar schools effectively monopolised access to universities. These schools were also the only ones that offered an extra term of school to prepare pupils for the competitive entrance exams for Oxford and Cambridge.

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