This is taken from the Times Education Supplement of 28 Feb 1964: "The local elections of May 1963 brought sweeping victories for Labour and provided a vital catalyst for the comprehensive movement. Bristol, Liverpool and Manchester LEAs quickly provided city-wide schemes for comprehensive reorganization, while the LCC finally abandoned the Eleven Plus, replacing it in those districts where Grammar schools continued to operate by a combination of teacher assessment and parental choice."

This implies it was up to each borough in the LCC / ILEA to decide what approach they would take until fully comprehensive in 1977. Living in Deptford / Lewisham there were several local grammar schools and I have found out we were ‘streamed’ at an early age. That I had suffered no lapse of memory was confirmed when I made contact with Joanne who I sat next to in primary school and she remembers the following:

So at age 7 I was put into a year above and subject to covert continual assessment. Sure, I sat regular tests but at no time was I aware of their significance. My primary school HM must have had a word with my parents and eventually I found myself in front of Bailey at County Hall, whose interview seems mild compared to Joanne’s ordeal.

Joanne: "I had quite an extensive interview to get into XXXX which involved reading, Maths and comprehension, it was daunting and scary, both my parents were there, and it was most of the day."

It seems some grammar schools still didn’t entirely trust the primary school’s judgment by setting their own tests, but evidently not WH."

Daniel Dave O'Byrne - Johnstons 67-72: "I vaguely remember doing the 11+ exam. I assume I passed and, judging by my 'O' level results, scrapped through Maths and did well at English. There's probably old 11+ papers online somewhere if anyone can be bothered to have a look https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven-plus."

Michael Handley - Hansons 51-56: "I have no memory of taking the 11+ or of an interview with anyone. I just remember my parents telling me that Dave Addiman was going to WHS and did I want to go, too. (We were mates and lived in the same street). I said 'Yes.' and that was that."

Louis Parperis: “I had become a committed truant at least a year before the 11+ because I had been progressed so rapidly through the year groups at the very small Roman Catholic school I attended in Soho. I had been reading well for at least two years before I started at St Patrick’s and so, though not yet five, was included in a test to establish approximate reading age that the older children were required to do and because I was found to have the reading age of an 18-year old, I was moved up class by class until I was in the top class by the end of the year. At first, I found everything about my education there stimulating and enjoyable, but I became increasingly aware of being in a Groundhog Day experience of repetition as the syllabus was unvarying year on year. There were some changes in teaching staff that brought with it a slightly different emphasis, but eventually I abandoned the place altogether, though I would walk my younger sister to school each morning before sloping off to the museums and art galleries that were in the surrounding area. It was only that a particular teacher who had taken a liking to me, unlike most of her colleagues, was waiting for me outside the school on the first day of the 11+ that I sat the three exam papers before resuming my self-education programme as a serial truant. I discovered I had passed the exams neither in a classroom with my peers nor by a letter in the post, but at First Street Magistrates Court where my mother had been summoned to appear as she was held responsible for my truancy, so effectively I was sentenced to serve seven years at Woolverstone, which was even mentioned during the court proceedings as being appropriate to my needs. If only I had known Harvey would be there a year later I would probably have pleaded for mercy.”

Chris Snuggs: "A remarkable story, and what a shame that schools at that time (is it really better now?) had no idea how to deal with gifted children. Your treatment was tantamount to child abuse. They probably managed it better in the Middle Ages with Isaac Newton, Da Vinci and others ...."

Harvey Angel - Hansons 64-71: “It could have been worse. If the bastards hadn't made me do an extra (unnecessary) year at primary school, we might have been in the same class!! The 11-plus brings back some very sad memories for me. I spent my primary school years in the year above my age group, so I was only 10 when all my classmates were already 11. I had been "top of the class" in the previous couple of years and was looking forward to going to a grammar school. And then, shortly before I was due to sit my 11-plus with my classmates, I was delivered the bombshell - that I was too young, wouldn't be able to take the exam that year and would have to spend another year at primary school. And that's what happened. I was given the day off school when all my colleagues were sitting the exam; my mother took a day off work to take me to the cinema to soften the blow, but I was still extremely upset. I had to waste a whole extra year at primary school. I made some new friends, of course, but all the kids I'd grown up with went off to their new schools so I lost touch with most of them. This was compounded when I came to WH the following year. As for the exam itself, from what I can remember, it was very easy if you were good at maths, intelligence / IQ tests, and could read and write to a reasonable standard. We did practice tests in the weeks leading up to the exam, so there were no surprises on the day (except for me, that is).”

Chris Snuggs: "That was educationally and psychlogically bad judgement on the school's part; blind adherence to some idiotic rule. Shame. They made you repeat a year in which you had been very successful - it shouldn't have happened. As for friends, we moved from Camberwell to West Norwood a few months before the end of my last primary school year, and then I went to WHS. The upshot was that it was hard to keep in touch with the primary school friends I had - and I did not make the effort required to do it. I did not have any really close soulmates at primary school, but there were two or three I kicked around a lot and got on well with - but I have never seen any of them since July 1958. That's kind of sad. A few years ago there was a website "Friends Reunited" which was very good for getting in touch with one's lost past and friends - but in August 2009 it was announced that Friends Reunited had been sold for £25 million to Brightsolid Limited, a firm owned by Dundee-based publisher DC Thomson - and then it shut down in 2016. These things obviously can't run for free, and this is apparently what happened:

"It hasn't covered its costs and like any business this can't continue indefinitely," wrote the floundering website's founder Steve Pankhurst. "Therefore, whilst it's sad, I believe it's time to move on and put Friends Reunited to bed. And I feel like I am the right person to do it."

(SEE HERE: https://www.wired.com/story/friends-reunited-closed/)

The internet tells me there is a replacement site http://www.schoolmates.co.uk - but I have not explored it. Essentially, a website specific to the school itself makes more sense - which is what we have, though rather idiotically split into several bits,

Jon Kemp - Corners 73-80: “I passed the 11+ at Robert Browning School in West Germany. We didn't know we were going to take it or what it was for. One morning we got to school and the desks had been re-arranged. We did the tests and that was it.”

Roger Evans - Corners 68-75: “Exactly. Didn’t have a foggiest really of what was going on. Wonder if the tactic was to prevent nervousness amongst pupils?”

Pavan Segal - Hansons 64-71: “I fell ill the day of the planned interview with Herr Bailey (?) so had to do a trip by train to Ipswich with my mother, on a later date. The interview wasn’t going well and it was only because Bumble found out Ma was an actress, (and we were dirt poor), that I got admitted. All these are distant memories and I could be totally wrong about the admission reasoning etc.”

Chris Archer - Corners 66-71: “I took the 11+ 3 days before travelling to Malaysia (Dad was in the RAF and was posted there) so, not unsurprisingly I failed. I went to a comprehensive school in Kuala Lumpur and took the 13+ the following year. I passed and was moved to the grammar stream.”

Stephen Purvis - Berners - 79-84: “I had to do 11+ to get in … but came up the military entrance route.”

Ron Gould - Corners 50-54: “Early in 1950, I took an LCC exam, then called "The Scholarship". I passed and was asked to choose my grammar school. I chose and was accepted by The Quentin Hogg School aka Regent Street Polytechnic. All done on paper. I was called to the primary school head's office and was asked if I would like to go to a boarding school. I said: "Yes." He said: "It is a grammar school but right now it is a navy school." It all sounded very exciting, so I said: "Yes, please." A few months later I was outside County Hall, waiting for a bus to Woolverstone, with about 30 other wartime boys all probably suffering from PTSD, going on a great adventure.”

Peter Fishwick - Orwell 63-70: “I did my 11+ in Naples, Italy, as my father was seconded to NATO.”