Colchester County High and Chemsford County High for Girls

[Essex mum]

Footymad, you contradict yourself. You say that the children from the private schools take the places of the children from the catchment area, but you have admitted that you were out of catchment. My son lives 5 minutes from the Chelmsford Grammer schools so has every right to go there, and yes he is currently in a private school, that too is less than 5 minutes away. But if you live where we do, you would have done everything you could to prevent your child going to the local school. We applied to several other state schools, but did not get a place.

The reason so many children have a private primary education in Essex and then do not continue into private secondary education, quite simply, is there are not enough private secondary schools in essex.

[Essex mum]

Sorry forgot to say. The private school my son is at, does not prepare for the 11+ exam as a lot of the children don't take it. They do prepare a child for Independant selection tests. I there, like most of you, have had to help my son at home.

[Essex mum]

Well, he done it! Wasn't half as bad as everyone thought. Most of the children seemed to be smiling as they went in. There was the odd parent giving their poor child a last minute talking to, telling them they will pass. It was all over in no time, and the children seemed to be quite happy as we picked them up. At least now those children who have been coached, week in, week out, can now sit back, realx and enjoy themselves.

[Essex girl]

Glad it was OK, Essex mum, good luck to your son. May the wait not be too painful for you and all (I know it will be but there's always hope!).

[Guest]

Out of area, but not at a private school, at state primary which is more of a disadvantage.
You're school may be in the small minority, but as I have heard from plenty of people most private schools coach frantically for the 11+

Sorry if I offended you, but we are all entitled to our own opinion, even if it did sound slightly contradictory to you.

Footymad.

[ZIGGY]

On the issue of sending kids in their private school uniforms. Our son goes to private school but we never considered sending him in his uniform, mainly because we don't want the school to take credit for the hard work which we feel my wife and I have put in to get him to a position where he can compete at this level. It seems a bit pretentious for them to go in uniform on a non school day anyway. Contrary to what some have said above, our school was not hughly supportive and seems mainly interested in forging links with private secondary schools which my wife and I can't afford.
Finally, I feel that the closing down of most of the grammer schools in England (there are none in Herts where we live) was an act of monumental stupidity on the part of previous governments. These were and are the most successful schools the country ever had, they were available to the less well off and it angers me that the likes of Blair, Diane Abbot and other politicians pretend to support the comprehensive system but then skulk off and send their own kids selective or private.
Personally I think the government should reopen several hundred new grammers, then maybe we wouldn't all have to hot house out kids for two years prior to the 11 plus to get into the few remaining grammers and then travel for miles to get there!

[ZIGGY]

I forgot to mention in my last posting, our son took the Essex exam this afternoon. Parking around Chelmsford on a Saturday was a bit of a nightmare and much worse than we expected! He thinks it went ok but time will tell. Like the rest of you we will have to settle down for the 13 week wait!

[Guest666]

We survived too! She came out smiling and said it went "OK" She wasn't nervous which was a relief. I did see a few girls looking a bit green! Does anyone know what the comprehension passage was - she can only remember something about Tom and Lucy?? Appeared to be fiction.

[Essex girl]

The mention of Tom and Lucy suggests to me that it was probably "The Mill on the Floss". A great classic with some interesting English dialect.

I did not have a child taking exam this year (all been through it thank God) but I really had to laugh when you mentioned Tom and Lucy because I have said to my children in the past that "The Mill on the Floss" will be coming soon and I am not at all surprised if the passage came from that book. It is a typical Essex consortium 11+ choice.

[Essex mum]

My son only knew that the passage was from a George Elliot novel, if that helps. I'm not familiar with his work so did not recognise it.