The grammar schools are for boys or girls or for both. They are day schools and the hours of instruction are similar to those at primary schools but the subjects are wider and more advanced: English (language and literature), mathematics, history (English and European), geography, natural science (chemistry and physics), ancient languages (Latin and Greek), modern languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian), commercial subjects (typewriting, shorthand, book-keeping and accounting), art, music, handwork and physical training.

Grammar schools have six classes called forms. The first form is the lowest class and the sixth is the highest. As a rule, the school is so arranged that each form consists of three parallel classes: class A specializing in arts (humanities), class B in science and class C in commerce. When boys and girls reach the age of sixteen they may sit for the 2general Certificate of Education, which as its name implies shows that the holder has received a general education and has reached certain standards in various subjects. There are indeed three standards of levels: ordinary, advances and scholarship. For many pupils the GCE of O-level marks end of their school career, they may go into some whitecollar profession. A small number of pupils remain at school for another two years and sit for the GCE of A-level, which is required by most universities and colleges of education.

In the last thirty years the most successful grammar schools have become much closer to the public schools in their view of education: they have become more preoccupied with getting their pupils to university, and particularly to Oxbridge. Since the end of the First World War the trickle of grammar-school boys to Oxbridge has turned into a flood: most of them without strong family connections or wealth, have known that their career depends on a university place, and both in intelligence and ambition they compete strongly with the public-school boys.

Most of the oldest, largest and most famous grammar schools are not state schools at all, but semi-dependent ones. These are 178 "directgrant" grammar schools, financed partly by fees and funds, partly by the Department of Education (the direct grant). They earn the grant by taking not less than a quarter and now as many as sixty per cent of their pupils are from the state system, the rest are fee-paying. They must have local government people on their boards of governors, but the local authorities cannot really interfere as they do with ordinary grammar school.