Page 3 - Through a glass brightly

more traditional brother school, Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, but there the boys were under greater pressure to join in the sports and had also to attend school on Saturday mornings to make up for the time). Other differences included the absence of athletics and of a sports day, both unusual at the time. But especially remarkable was the decision not to stream classes although there was streaming in subjects at the upper stages. Another fortunate quirk was that there were no form rankings.
Another idiosyncrasy was the allocation of names to the forms in the various years. The first to seventh years, instead of using this numbering system were actually known as Third, Lower Fourth, Upper Fourth, Lower Fifth, Upper Fifth, Lower Sixth, Upper Sixth. Within the first five years, the individual forms were then titled with the first letter of their form teacher’s name. The arrangement of starting with the Third Form dated from there having been a Junior School, which was disbanded after the 1944 education act.
For the first five years, much teaching (by different subject teachers) was done on the basis of these forms, although later on there was some streaming for some subjects or different choice of speciality study - and of course in the sixth form A level subjects principally determined teaching groups.
Most of the correspondents in this collection joined QEGGS in 1956 in one of three first year forms, IIIF, whose form mistress was Miss Sylvia Iliff, who had been at the school since 1929 and who went on to serve as a member of staff for a remarkable 42 years. Two of the group Ann and Glenda, joined the school in January 1960, when their families moved to Barnet, half way through the academic year, and entered LVH (with form mistress, Miss Angela Harding).
Having studied for O-Levels in the UVth, many of the pupils in the year, (perhaps around 60- 70), went on into the sixth form, some for a year’s study and 50 to stay on into second year sixth to take A-Levels. Of these a high proportion, on leaving school in 1963, went on to further study at university, teacher training college, medical school or other occupations. And from there into wider life and achievements and indeed the wider world!
Some close friends naturally stayed in touch. But the extent of staying in touch, even if loosely, for the year as a whole has been particularly widespread, encouraged by the major efforts of two of our year’s members (Val M. and Jenny). Although this has often been a loose contact, several members of the year have joined the annual May lunch for former pupils at the school, organised by the Old Girls’ Guild. Indeed in 2006, nearly fifty pupils from our year participated in a re-union celebrating 50 years from joining QEGGS. A similar but smaller re-union in 2013, marking 50 years since leaving the Upper Sixth, attracted nearly thirty people. This year was to have marked our 'now we are all 75-ish’ but thanks to Covid 19 we can have one in 2021 which will be 65 years since we all joined up! The group which started as III F and over 5 years became U V S has particularly stayed in touch, albeit often loosely, including the 15 correspondents here.
On 23rd March 2020, the UK Government announced a ’lockdown’ to slow the spread of the coronavirus. So all of us were confined to home and inevitably started to wonder if others were coping with the situation. Further our chance to meet up with friends at the Old Girls’ lunch was stymied. Jenny, who had been the co-ordinator for the lunch, emailed us to raise our spirits and remind us that all was not lost, we should sign up for the lunch in 2021. On 26th March Val M. sent a joint email suggesting we might support each other by staying in contact through the strange stressful times we found ourselves in. So a small circle of correspondents emerged. Trying to keep up our spirits, we gave information about our current moods and (constrained)
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