Ahhh – The History Boys.
I finally got around to seeing the film a couple of weeks ago, although I’d been getting recommendations to see the play all the way back to 2004.
I went through the whole Oxford/Cambridge admissions process at a time similar to that shown in the film; if one changed Sheffield to South London, History to the Physical Sciences, and removed the homoeroticism, it could have been a vignette from my own life!
It’s important to note that the action of the film goes from July / August 1983 through January 1984, and that the separate Oxbridge entrance exams for which the History Boys were studying was phased out in the late 1980s.
jjimm gives a good overview in post #6 above; my additions below will refer to how things were at the time the film is set, not how they are in 2008.
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1- The boys attend Cutler’s Grammar School. I know that in England a public school is the equivalent of a private school in the U.S., but I couldn’t tell from the film whether this school was public (in the U.S. sense meaning “free tuition”) or private (in the U.S. sense, meaning tuition paid by the student’s family).
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Prior to 1976, a UK school with the name “X Grammar School” would have been most likely to be state-run (no fees); nowadays there are far fewer schools with “Grammar” in their name, and they are more likely to be private (fee-paying). Here is a brief overview. However, even to this day there are “Grammar” schools that are state-run and free. Back in 1983, the name alone wouldn’t have been a particularly good indicator of its public/private (n the US sense) status. They wear a school uniform, but that was true of many state-run “Grammar” schools of the time, particularly one with high aspirations as shown in the film.
I’m going to disagree with jjimm and say that the school in the film is state-run and not fee-paying.
There were separate exams for Oxford and Cambridge, although they would have been taken on the same day as shown in the film. AFAIK they were all applying to read History, so would have taken a General exam and a History exam set by the dons (i.e. faculty) of the university to which they had applied. Since some (at least 4 IIRC) of the eight boys applied to Oxford and some to Cambridge, they were not all taking the same exam that day. I don’t think that’s clear from the film; it’s not really that important, I suppose.
The film doesn’t show “high school teaching” at any point. When we first meet the Boys, it’s in the school summer holidays and they’re getting the results of the “A-level” exams that they sat back in June, at the end of what in the US would have been 12th grade (i.e. their Senior Year in High School). If the Boys hadn’t got exceptional grades (all A’s IIRC except for the “dumb jock” who got an A and 2 B’s), they would have gone on to universities other than Oxford or Cambridge. The reaction from the teachers shows that it’s very unusual to have 8 History pupils with Oxbridge potential in a single year. So, the 8 come back in September for a “seventh term” of Sixth Form :three terms in the equivalent of the US 11th grade, three terms in the equivalent of the US 12th grade, and now an “Autumn Term” devoted purely to preparing for the Oxbridge entrance exams. This seventh term (usually called “Upper Sixth Form”) would not have any set syllabus: the A-level results would have show the Oxbridge dons how well they were at learning material, but the Oxbridge entrance exams were designed to show “something extra” (typically, the History exams they took would have questions taken from previous-year exams set to first-year students at Oxford / Cambridge respectively).
So, the seminar-style teaching shown was not typical of a UK “high school” classroom, because they were no longer “high school” students in any real sense. They were there just to prepare for Oxbridge; no new material to cover, just honing their skills.
We see the Boys taking the Oxford / Cambridge exams in what would have been late November / early December 1983, then going to their College Interviews at the end of December 1983 (while the undergraduates would have been “down”, i.e back home so their rooms could be used to put up the interviewees. We know that the “dumb jock” applied to Christ Church, Oxford (and got in because his father had been a college servant or “scout”, but his rugby prowess didn’t hurt his chances either). During the brief scenes showing the Boys at Oxford / Cambridge for interview, we also see the “stud” at Corpus Christi College, Oxford checking up on the younger teacher’s alumni status, and we see a couple of the Boys saying that Magdalen College, Oxford looks like a stately home, but I don’t think that we’re given the specific Colleges that any of the Boys applied to except for the “dumb jock”.
The Boys would have received their acceptance / rejection letters (and Champagne in the Headmaster’s office!) in early January 1984, and headed off to Oxford / Cambridge in September 1984.
As mentioned above, all 8 Boys have completely finished their high school work and taken their final national exams (A-Levels); the final term that we see is just for Oxbridge entrance. So, more than just “University prep”. Their schoolmates who didn’t get such high A-level grades would already be going off to Bristol, Durham, Sheffield, Hull (all mentioned in the film) etc. in September 1983.
As jjimm says, there’s the First, the Upper Second (“Two-One”), Lower Second (“Two-Two”, hence Desmond), and the “Third” (all Honours Degrees). I’m not sure that the “Pass” existed in 1983, but the “Gentleman’s Fourth” was abolished sometime in the early 20th Century IIRC. Typically at the time, about 10% of the students would get a First, 40% a Two-One, 40% a Two-Two, and 10% a Third. [I didn’t know anyone who actually got as far as taking Finals and failed to get even a Third.] It’s perhaps telling that Irwin didn’t specify further than “Second”, which could mean either a 2.1 or a 2.2. He’s claiming to have been in the middle 80% of the undergraduate body, but given his lies
who knows what he got at Bristol?
ETA: I see SanVito’s post on preview, so I’d better read that to see if we’re in agreement!
, but then we’re also talking about the difference in a 21 year old and 17 year old student.) I’ve asked several teachers- male, female, gay, straight, college, high school- if they’ve ever had a student they were sexually attracted to and almost to a person they said “Oh yeah”, though also to a person none pursued it.