Secondary modern

A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that once existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland, from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System and still persist in Northern Ireland, where they are usually referred to simply as Secondary schools, and in areas of England, such as Buckinghamshire (where they are referred to as community schools), Lincolnshire, Wirral Medway and Kent where they are called high schools.

Secondary modern schools were designed for the majority of pupils between 11 and 15. Those who achieved the highest scores in the 11-plus, were allowed to go a selective grammar school which offered education beyond 15. They were replaced in most of the UK by the Comprehensive School system, when the government issued Circular 10/65 then Circular 10/68.

The origin of the tripartite system of streaming children of presumed different intellectual ability into different schools has its origin in the Education Act 1918 (8 & 9 Geo. V c. 39), often known as the Fisher Act, drawn up by Herbert Fisher. This established three levels of secondary school in England and Wales, academic grammar schools for pupils deemed likely to go on to study at university, central schools which provided artisan and trade training, as well as homemaking skills for girls, and secondary schools which provided a basic secondary education.

The 1944 Butler Education Act developed this system so that children were tested and streamed into the renamed grammar, technical and secondary modern schools at the age of eleven. In practice few technical schools were created, and most technical and central schools, such as Frank Montgomery School in Kent, became secondary modern schools. As a result, the tripartite system was in effect a bipartite system in which children who passed the eleven-plus examination were sent to grammar schools and those who failed the test were sent to secondary modern schools.

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