A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usually referred to as secondary schools, and in areas of England, such as Buckinghamshire (where they are referred to as community schools), Lincolnshire and Wirral, (where they are called high schools). Secondary modern schools were designed for the majority of pupils between 11 and 15; those who achieved the highest scores in the 11-plus were allowed to go to a selective grammar school which offered education beyond 15. From 1965 onwards, secondary moderns were replaced in most of the UK by the comprehensive school system. Origins The tripartite system of streaming children of presumed different intellectual ability into different schools has its origin in the interwar period. Three levels of secondary school emerged in England and Wales: academic grammar schools for pupils deemed likely to go on to study at university; central schools which provided artisan and trade training, as well as domestic skills for girls; and secondary schools which provided a basic secondary education. Educational practice in the 1940s developed this system so that children were tested and streamed into the renamed grammar, technical and secondary modern schools at the age of eleven. In practice, few technical schools were created, and most technical and central schools, such as Frank Montgomery School in Kent, became secondary modern schools. As a result, the tripartite system was in effect a bipartite system in which children who passed the eleven-plus examination were sent to grammar schools and those who failed the test went to secondary modern schools. At a secondary modern school, pupils would receive training in a wide range of simple, practical skills. The purpose of this education was to mainly 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, but the curriculum at the Frank Montgomery School in Kent was stated as including "practical education, such as cookery, laundry, gardening, woodwork, metalwork and practical geography". The first secondary moderns were created by converting about three thousand elementary schools, as well as central schools, which previously had offered a continuation of primary education