Secondary Modern School

A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, from 1944 until the early 1970s, under the Tripartite System, and was designed for the majority of pupils - those who do not achieve scores in the top 25% of the eleven plus examination. They were replaced in most of the UK by the comprehensive school system and now remain in place mainly in Northern Ireland, where they are usually referred to simply as Secondary schools, and in some parts of England, such as Buckinghamshire (where they remain and are referred to as community schools), Lincolnshire, Wirral and Kent.

The 1944 Butler Education Act created a system in which children were tested and streamed at the age of eleven. Those who were thought unsuitable for either an academic curriculum or a technical one were to be sent to the secondary modern, where they would receive training in a wide range of simple, practical skills. Education there was to focus on training in basic subjects, such as arithmetic, mechanical skills such as woodworking, and domestic skills, such as cookery. In an age before the advent of the National Curriculum, the specific subjects taught were chosen by the individual schools.

The first secondary moderns were created by converting about three thousand Senior Elementary schools, which previously had offered a continuation of primary education to the age of 14, into separate institutions. Many more were built between the end of World War II and 1965, in an effort to provide universal secondary education.