The third year becoming Year Nine and all that

[Arran]

Official publicity material about the new year group system seems to be very elusive. It makes me wonder exactly how the Department of Education and Science conveyed information about the new year group system down to individual schools and ultimately parents.

I can't honestly recall any such publicity material when I was at primary school. The new year group system was already established at the time and I knew of no other system. Were there any articles about it in the TES?

[George 1978]

Were any official leaflets detailing the new year group system ever printed and given to parents back in 1990? Either a national leaflet or LEA specific leaflets.

Similar to leaflets detailing the 01 to 071 and 081 dialling code change for London which also took place that year.

No, I don't think they did publish any publicity leaflets or anything like that - as far as I remember, it was just a case of going back to school after the six weeks' holidays in September 1991, and all of a sudden, most people were going on about "Year 9" for some reason after leaving as second years in July, and even I was confused at first.

[Arran]

Were any official leaflets detailing the new year group system ever printed and given to parents back in 1990? Either a national leaflet or LEA specific leaflets.

Similar to leaflets detailing the 01 to 071 and 081 dialling code change for London which also took place that year.

[George 1978]

Yes. Reception class is P1. Y6 is P7.

I think Northern Ireland uses the same as well.

Sadly, it was the Dunblane massacre in 1996 which made me first aware of the system in Scotland when the news had referred to the class who was affected in the incident as "Primary One".

[Arran]

In Scotland, primary school years were referred to as Primary One, Primary Two, etc

Yes. Reception class is P1. Y6 is P7.

I think Northern Ireland uses the same as well.

[George 1978]

In Scotland, primary school years were referred to as Primary One, Primary Two, etc - I only found about about that system as a result of the Dunblane massacre happening in 1996.

Also, reading George Layton's The Balaclava Story, Layton referred as the protagonist to school years or classes as being Standard Three or Standard Four for grammar schools - Layton wrote his book in 1975 although it could have been as early as the late 1960s. I assume that northern grammar schools were referred to like that in the 1960s and 1970s? Anyone shed some light on that?

[HG]

There were some primary schools that numbered Y3 to Y6 as 1 to 4 with no references to junior, then used lower infants and upper infants for Y1 and Y2.

Yes my primary school did that

[Arran]

There were some primary schools that numbered Y3 to Y6 as 1 to 4 with no references to junior, then used lower infants and upper infants for Y1 and Y2.

[Arran]

were Primary Schools numbered Years 1 to 6 all along?

I think consecutive numbers were uncommon, but further information is required. Splitting the school into infants and juniors seemed to be more common.

Note that the key stages are strongly aligned with the structure and organisation of schools in 1988, except for middle schools. I'm in favour of transferring Y9 to KS4 as many secondary schools now have some GCSE subject options at the start of Y9 whereas previously it took place at the start of Y10.

[George 1978]

As Adrian Mole was 13 3/4, he would have been in the Third Year of Comprehensive School - I know that I was in the Third Year (Year 9) when I was that age, although despite that being the title of Sue Townsend's book, Mole was only that age for the start of the diary which ran in the book from January 1981 to April 1982 where it ended on the day after his 15th birthday. I know that it mentions that he starts the Fourth Year in September 1981. Incidentally, Mole and Townsend both had the same birthday, 2nd April which I believe was no coincidence. Mind you, I did see the Thames ITV series many years before I was given the book as a birthday present.

Thinking about other school-based programmes, Please Sir! focused on 5C, hence a Fifth Year form, and I assume that the To Sir, With Love also did the same year - Lulu was 18 when the film was made, I assume as she was born in 1948.

There was also the 1993-1994 Granada CITV series "three, seven, eleven" (usually written in lowercase a la tom thumb or dinnerladies, and was supposed to represent the different ages of starting, transferring and leaving Primary School) which I assume was supposed to be Grange Hill in a Primary School and was on Wednesdays around the same time as the GH Sunday morning repeats on BBC 2. This series was made after the real-life LEA changes to the numbering of school years, but on the other hand, were Primary Schools numbered Years 1 to 6 all along? I went to an Infants and a Juniors where the numbering was separate and that the Infants had a Class 1, Class 2, etc.

[Arran]

Are any references made to year groups in Adrian Mole?

What about children's dramas - such as those from CBBC and CITV? Press Gang ran from January 1989 to May 1993 and a secondary school was a central feature of the programme.

[George 1978]

I know that in the early 1990s Summer Bay High on Home and Away during the Donald Fisher era referred to Year 12 which I assumed was their (or Australia in general's) Sixth Form, so even Australia adopted it I assume, or perhaps it was even an Australian invention? Do we still refer to the Sixth Form over here? - we very rarely refer to it as Year 12, do we?

[Arran]

Are there any other examples of entertainment where English year groups in schools are mentioned? There is plenty from the US with their year group numbering / naming system.

[George 1978]

ILEA was a special case of an education authority in the grand scheme of things. They had certain facilities - such as educational video production and a cable TV network - that other LEAs did not have.

Was Grange Hill modeled around a school run by ILEA, or another specific LEA?

In around 1986, McClucky often referred to the "LEA", usually in the Staffroom in the post-fire, "lessons in the hall and gym" episodes, referring to what happened to Brookdale after it closed down, and sometimes we got to see the blue entrance sign which said "Northam (?) Education Authority" or "Borough of Northam".

[Arran]

ILEA was a special case of an education authority in the grand scheme of things. They had certain facilities - such as educational video production and a cable TV network - that other LEAs did not have.

Was Grange Hill modeled around a school run by ILEA, or another specific LEA?