Something to read if your DC has not reached 121

[Dad40]

Sorry, I haven't been around for a long time but given the time of year, I thought it worth re-posting this:

A true story of some Bucks kids

Many years ago, Kate, Rob, Gary, Will, and Pete all qualified at 11+ (or 12+, as it was then) and went to Grammar School.

- Kate was a brainbox, did stunningly well in her 10 O Levels and 4 A levels and went to a Redbrick university
- Rob got 9 reasonable O levels and went to Polytechnic
- Gary got 6 O Levels and left after one year of sixth form to work as a clerk in an insurance company
- Will and Pete constantly messed about at school, did disastrously in exams (2 O Levels each) and left school immediately.

So what happened to them all?

- Kate worked for one of the big five accountancy firms and now lives in a very nice house in a South Bucks village
- Rob is self-employed in the technology sector and is ‘comfortably off’ in a South Bucks village
- Gary is a postman and just about gets by financially. Lives on the edge of Wycombe
- Will runs a fairly successful but very time-consuming small business. Lives near Gary.
- Pete made his £million running printing businesses and then emigrated to Canada.

So surely Pete was the most “successful” in life? Well not quite, that prize goes to Tom.

Who on earth is Tom and where did he come in?!!

Well he didn’t pass the 11+ at all, went to upper school and flunked all his O Levels.

He is now a multi-millionaire business owner living in Beaconsfield.

But if he had also gone to Grammar School, he just might have got a handful of O Levels and gone to work as a clerk in an insurance company.....

[hermanmunster]

depends how you measure success!!!

Maybe Kate, Rob and Gary are the most content with their lives, health and families

Provided Gary and Will have "enough" money they will be OK

Pete and Tom may be just too stressed to be healthy

[jabba7]

I love this Dad40.

I think it helps realise that when it is 11+ time it feels like it is more important than it really is as our DC's have a lot of life in front of them and who knows what might happen.

[southbucks3]

I hope Gary is putting his share bonus to good use!

[Dad40]

Yeah I'm conscious it depends on one's definition of success. Suffice it to say, Pete and Tom both look incredibly happy, healthy/fit to me. Which introduces another key factor: that of sport. Both these guys were (as my dad used to snootily observe) always "fond of aimlessly kicking a ball around a playing field".

Actually it was that - the competitive sport element - which neutered and ultimately over-rode their academic shortcomings and made them what they are. They had a hunger allied to an element of controlled aggression which the rest of us never quite 'got' (with the exception of Will). Only all these years later do I now see the true value of competitive sport. Back then, for me it was just something to suffer twice a week.

Pete still tells me that he would like to take an 'A' Level in History and I know it's to prove that he always 'had it' academically. But I ask him "What's the point? Your acaedmic record is now, well, academic!"

[Jpk]

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.....