Patrick's education

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Trying to write a fic inspired by some of the recent AO3 additions and a nitpicking community post that came up shortly after. I've re-read Peter's Room and AT, but can't find my copy of RAH.

Am I right that in RAH, Patrick has been dragged to interview at Broomhill and tutors have been suggested, but nothing is confirmed other than the plan to sit his O-levels that June, which will be the same time as Ginty?
Will he still be 16, or turned 17 by then?

Prior to that, he was at his hated London day school from some time after Falconer's Lure to December in Attic Term, so is that one year and a term, or two? I think it's two and a term, so he would have been just turned fourteen and entering third year mid-year? (UIV, as Kingscote and my school would have it)

Presumably he was at a boarding school before that? Would he have been at a prep and then a Catholic boarding school for one year age 13?

Meanwhile, Dartmouth for Peter has the problem of not existing by RAH - is there any mention of Peter doing O-levels there? I'd like to think they push him towards science and practical qualifications and generally not being on their boats, just designing them Somewhere Else. I'm assuming he's then one year behind Ginty and one ahead of the twins, education-wise.

I don't recall either of their birthdays, but have an impression Peter's is spring and Patrick's summer - anyone know?

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Comments

[hooloovoo_42]

Not having any of the books to hand and not having read RAH for a very long time, I can't comment on the content of the books. However, as Ma missed the top year of junior school (passed her 11+ a year early and went to grammar school at 10) she was too young to take O levels in 1951 (you had to be 16). She then took 3 O levels in LVIth and took her remaining 4 subjects as A levels in UVIth. In those days, you only took things at O level that you weren't carrying on to A level. But English & Maths plus a language were a necessity for university entrance. So if Patrick wasn't going to do A level Maths, he would have had to have passed his O level to get to university, so any school would have insisted on it if he was going to do Arts subjects at A level.

I got the impression from AT that he was taking the November exams because he was already older than he should be, ie had been 16 in the previous year, so by the following school year, he would be 17. Ginty makes a comment about the only people at Kingscote who do November exams are the dim people who failed in UV (and, by implication need retakes for university purposes).

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

AT says all Patrick's school does the November sitting - "it's only your odd place does them this term". Which is plausible.
I'd forgotten maths was a prerequisite for all degrees - it was just 5 subjects by the time I did A-level, which meant a friend whose comp had experimented with top set doing Eng and Maths two years early refused to do any more GCSEs on the grounds they were boring, did Maths, Further Maths and Physics A-level, but also had to do another GCSE to make up his five subjects. So he also turned 16 a few months after starting at Cambridge and was one of the reasons they now won't take under-17s.

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

not sure about the O levels at 16 thing. My mother was young for her year- her birthday is 27th Sept and she started at Grammar School just before her 11th birthday and took School Cert at16, but could not leave that term as she was not old enough so had to go back in the Sept for a term even though she did not want (or was not allowed) to do A levels. Though as the school leaving ages was 15 I can't quite figure this, now, thinking about it! Must ask her.