Third Remove

[tosomja.livejournal.com]

This is a follow up from something in the previous thread about Autumn Term, but I thought it might be clearer in its own topic.  What exactly was the role of Third Remove and then Middle Remove?  Were they classes that pupils were in for a short period of time in order to get special coaching and then move up, or were they in any way like the bottom stream in a comprehensive school, where some people stayed all the way through school?  There doesn't seem to be a Lower Fifth Remove so what happened then? Did you have to leave school if you weren't up to the A or B  forms by that point?  In fact we never hear about a Second or First Remove either (although we don't hear much about 'the juniors' anyway so that maybe is not surprising).   Was anyone at a school, or knows of a school, which had Remove classes (and why were they called Removes?!).
It's interesting too that Third Remove is considered too delicate for netball, or indeed anything very interesting - that implies either that it was a 'catch up' class for those who had had one of those mysterious long term illnesses girls seemed to get in the early 20th century (or at least in early 20th century children's books) or that it was for those who actually had physical ailments which stopped them being able to do the full amount of school work (although who knows what that might be?).  Nowadays you might think that the bottom stream in a school would be encouraged to do things like netball and drama in the hope that they would develop their non-academic talents!
Anyway, this has always puzzled me since I was a child reading AF and I'd love to hear what others think/know. 

Comments

Re: Enid Blyton and forms

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I started reading the Famous Five when I was six or so, and soon was demanding to have similar amount of freedom to the Five (Anne was ten, Dick and George eleven, and Julian 12 or 13, and they could go off cycling anywhere and even go on camping holidays for weeks on end!)

My parents just told me they weren't realistic. I then realised the Five never went to the loo either, and figured for once my parents might have a point. :(
I'm assuming parents didn't let eleven-year-olds go off on holiday by themselves, even in the 1950s...