1965 | STUDENTS have their say on COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOLS | Tonight | BBC Archive

Everybody perfectly cool with being interviewed in a snowstorm.

Alan whicker said this is the biggest comp school in London. It's the famous Holland Park School a comprehensive school which took over 2K students. It was an Outstanding school when it opened in 1958. Then a new headmaster took over in 1970 and done away with streaming, bad discipline was on the rise, it went down hill . By the early 1980 it was a rough school and stayed at that till a new head master took matters into his own hand and changed it in 2004

All of these children will be in their mid-70s now, those who are still alive, of course. I was born in 1978, and I'm still alive, if anyone's interested.

I would so love to know what happened to these young people and how their lives turned out. Did they all end up in their respective "Academic, Commercial or Technical" fields that they'd been put in at school.

just casually being pelted with snow while being interviewed

I went through this when I was at school although we were just classified A,B,C. The experience I had was that we only mixed on the bus depending where you lived. The actual education and teaching was actually quite poor and the teachers definitely showed a sort of class bias between the various classification’s. They always made stupid assumptions about one’s parents such as their education, income or where you lived and your interests. They got away with it then but I doubt they would today, parents are a lot more interested in their children’s education and teachers seem to be a lot more concerned about results because of it.

I went to a comprehensive between 79 and 84. I wasn't an academic and was in what they call in the video the technical stream. We learned tool making, woodworking, motor vehicle maintence, skills needed for the workplace. Except for English and Maths my exams were City and Guilds, trade qualifications. This is what's lacking today.

What wonderful well balanced intelligent young people...even the one or two academic ones that didn't mix with lower streams recognised that they probably should...I hope they all went on to lead worthwhile and content lives..I'm sure most will have.

Alan Whicker had such a great presenting style, & always came across as wonderfully laidback, charming & quintessentially English. However, I’m of an age where I only truly remember him from his BarclayCard TV ads…& whenever I hear his inimitable voice now I expect him to start waxing lyrical about some exotic foreign-land and then say “with a BarclayCard here you’ve got 3 times more chance of being accepted than with certain charge-cards I could mention”. 😂🤣

Fabulous interviewees.

When you hear the quality, clarity and confidence in these answers, from students at every level, you realise how 'dumbed down' British society has become 😢

Well, I was 15 in 1965 so I would be the same age as these kids. I went to Newquay Grammar School in Cornwall and was in the A stream, but ended up emigrating to Australia. Certainly didn’t end up working in a bank or in some other academic occupation. One thing we learned at grammar school was how to spell, and, errr, use good grammar! They were very strict in those days, and no way would you mouth off at a teacher or get away with bullying.

How well they all spoke. And standing in the snow like that well could you imagine kids today.😮

It's easy to tell which time of the year this was filmed in 😂 (January 1965)

I'd be in the 'special' stream 😂😂

Wonderful archive footage and well spoken students with no complaints about the driving snow :), I have fond memories of the mixed Comprehensive system in the early 80's.

Typical of the 60s. .being interviewed in a blizzard! Inside would've been nicer, don't you think 😊

Loved the video.

Those were the days when we had proper snow at school, not like the rubbish we have these days.

Very articulate these pupils. Can we have a follow up?