Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

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Kazanskoe
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:36 am

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by Kazanskoe »

I am one person who completely understands you. In terms of the 11+ exam, I think no-one on the planet could have had their life so badly affected by it. In fact maybe I should tell you my story.

In 1964 I failed my eleven plus exam. I do not remember any preparation for it, and coming from a very turbulent home life in terms of parents fighting, and splitting up around this time, my nature was a large part of this. I also had very bad asthma up to 14 years old, but both my parents, I know consider this an excuse, and my father has said this openly.

I am unfortunately hyper-sensitive. My brother who passed the exam two years before has skin thicker than a rhino.

From that day both my parents treated me and acted towards me in a way that devastated me. My brother was 'the man', and I was written off by both parents and treated openly as ideal supermarket shelf stacking fodder. That attitude exists to this day. My father and mother are both still alive aged 86 and 85 respectively. I am 60 years old now.

My brother did nothing to dissuade this attitude, and in fact constantly acted superior, and still does to this day. However privately to me, he has said I am very intelligent, but has never said it to anyone else.

In 1970 things at home reached a head. My mother was very bitter towards my father, and would have frequent violent outbursts. My brother had got a place in university, and I was still in the GSCE stage. My father was living with another woman (my mother would not divorce him), and came to our home town to try to convince me to emigrate to South Africa. He told me I would end up on the street if I did not, and at 16 that scared me, so I left for South Africa.

All the time in South Africa my father spoke in glowing terms of my brother and treated me as a no-hoper.
My confidence was long ago broken. I never dated girls, as I had no confidence to ask them, despite being told by my step mother (and others) that I was good looking.

In 1977 my father convinced me I needed to enter a mental hospital, as I did not date girls (and am not gay). He has been a womanizer all his life (he is now on his third marriage because of that), and so I went in a hospital near Johannesburg. There I did an intelligence test, which gave me an IQ of 138 (which has been repeated through other tests since).

After leaving this hospital I learned to play chess, and found out I was very good at it, and have many trophies for this at home now.

Eventually I returned to the UK, and only married a pen-pal when I was 45.

After many many periods of employment and unemployment over the years, I finally had a lucky break at 57, and someone agreed to train me in the law. I am now a successful Estate Planner, and at 60 have finally started to have some real success in life. However this has been down to my own decision to never give up, although several people have told me over the years they would have committed suicide if they were me (including my brother).

I only got a driving license in my 50's because of my fear of exams, and on the day I did the driving test I steamed up the whole car because of my nerves and perspiring. I still managed to pass.

When people put a story in the newspaper saying their eleven plus failure never affected them, I know they had very different parents to the type I had, and/or they had a thick skin like my brother.

If this Gove fellow tries to bring this nightmare back into this country, ... well I don't wish to say what will happen. I saw apartheid first hand up close, and all the aspects of this, however nothing but nothing comes close to the insidious cruelty of of this exam. How any society could allow this is beyond me.

I remember as if it was yesterday the day I got into my parents car after the 11+ failure, and my father shouting at me, and something just snapped inside me. This is an understatement, because I could never possibly express in this forum how hurt I felt, that day, and many times afterwards.

P.S. My father asked me for money recently (£800). Do you know what true silence sounds like? That is what he heard.
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by Sally-Anne »

With Kazanskoe’s permission, some information was edited from the above post to protect his privacy.

Would forum members please note that we have, as far as is possible in cyberspace, established that Kazanskoe is entirely genuine and that he has no connection with any other recent posts concerning the long-term impact of the 11+. Nor is there a connection between Kazanskoe and “codestud” who started this thread.

Sally-Anne
laretta
Posts: 179
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:51 pm

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by laretta »

Kazanskoe
This is a heart wrenching story and I am very sorry that it has affected you so badly - it is a testament to your character that you have managed to overcome it after all this time.
I do however feel that it's not not passing the 11+ that affected you so badly, but the awful treatment by your parents upon the news of your not passing. Unfortunately whether there is the 11+ or not there will always be parents who make their children feel rubbish about themselves. I'm a firm believer that schools should teach parenting classes from a young age - perhaps they should have a parenting + exam before letting people have children lol. There are many different ways to parent which is fine, but there are some definite no no's such as telling children they are useless, rubbish, stupid... Under any circumstances.
Best of luck for the future x
DC17C
Posts: 1197
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:34 pm

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by DC17C »

laretta wrote:Kazanskoe
This is a heart wrenching story and I am very sorry that it has affected you so badly - it is a testament to your character that you have managed to overcome it after all this time.
I do however feel that it's not not passing the 11+ that affected you so badly, but the awful treatment by your parents upon the news of your not passing. Unfortunately whether there is the 11+ or not there will always be parents who make their children feel rubbish about themselves. I'm a firm believer that schools should teach parenting classes from a young age - perhaps they should have a parenting + exam before letting people have children lol. There are many different ways to parent which is fine, but there are some definite no no's such as telling children they are useless, rubbish, stupid... Under any circumstances.
Best of luck for the future x
Agree with this-the turbulant childhood, callous attitude and lack of support from your parents obviously have had a devastating effect on you. My DS did not get a score high enough offered a GS place in the allocations but I never let him feel a failure over it. He was upset but he has coped and went on to pass a scholarship test to a private school so that helped a lot. It made me determined to put up a good case for appeal as I know my ds is capable and he now has a GS place. If I had not felt that he was really suitable for GS I would have said something along the lines of "Oh well the sorting hat has decided for us and this is the right school for you" and moved on. Learning resilience is something we have to teach our children - I know my Mum had a rubbish time as she passed the 11 plus and then because they moved to Wales she was not allowed to go to a grammar school because she had not learned welsh. She left school with no qualifications but has mangaged to do a diploma in counselling and A level in photography in later life. She is so pleased my DC are both going to schools that suit them - even if they happen to be grammar schools
Kazanskoe
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:36 am

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by Kazanskoe »

Thank you for the replies.

I have always understood there was a collision of unfortunate (for me) circumstances. Obviously I am totally against the 11+, and I have a mental freeze up whenever I am in a test or exam situation where the outcome is important.

As Sally Anne said, several parts of the content have been removed about the effects on myself, and my life. I had been very graffic so the impact of it was made clear, however you have to read between the lines a bit now.

I could not, nor never will be a supporter of such an exam, and although I understand the separation of brighter children for their benefit, I was one child who knew in my heart I had not deserved to be in a school with classes, where half of the pupils constantly disrupted classes, because they had no interest.

Many of those who went to Grammar School at that time ended up with very ordinary jobs, and some even manual work, while my own deep sense about myself proved correct in a no pressure IQ test (I was conned because I did not know I was being tested) with an IQ of 138.

As a matter of interest I recently tried an 11 + exam which was timed. I had to look up certain terminology as it is so long since I was at school (44 years ago), however even with that I got 88%. It was 3 am in the morning, quiet with no pressure.
Put me in a situation where something very important was at stake, and I would have panicked without doubt, as I do and have done in other tests in life.
tiffinboys
Posts: 8022
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:00 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by tiffinboys »

Some parents are happy to .... come on websites like these to give themselves an advantage, so if a child can be taught to pass an exam then that tells me none of this is a level playing field.
If it is an unfair advantage to come to websites like this, then in this age and time, this advantage is open to every one.
And so - this judgement that is reached on ONE DAY then affects the child psychologically for several years. The age of 11 and 12 is an immensley sensitive time in a child's emotional development, and maybe some adults who defend the system have completely forgotten that.
That is very sad. I think that the children who do not get enough score to get into GS, should be supported. My DC got in but some of friends did not. We all had the sense not to gloat about passing; instead, all the choices were praised and each one encouraged to do as well as possible. Some of the school dropouts are doing very well (Lord Alan Sugar, for example). One doe not have to be in GS.
What's happening right now is this. There are less and less grammar schools now in existence, and therefore the competition to gain a place at one is becoming even fiercer because they are still seen by some as the holy grail. This is becoming an even more vicious circle of pressure put on both parents and children.

IT'S WRONG. So it's time to abolish the 11 plus so that this vicious circle can be put to an end.
It is very sad that there are less and less GS. The solution is not abolishing the remaining ones, as then only the independents schools would remain option for some of the very bright kids. This is loss for the country - not an achievement.

Instead the government should allow more grammar schools and at the same time, improve the comprehensives. Already more streaming goes on in these schools. Is it a failure not to get into the top set? Some may demand to stop streaming as well as those in the lower sets might be getting upset and traumatized by not being able to get into top sets.
I won't be having any part of it and will, if necessary, move house in future to an area where I know that there will be more of a level playing field and equality of opportunity in the education system, rather than this insidious and pervading culture of elitism.
Happily, there is no need to move for this reason. I wonder if there is any area without comprehensive schools? In fact, people move for the reason that there is no GS in their area.
studio1972
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:50 pm

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by studio1972 »

Wow, what a crazy thread. It seems to me that the OP, and some others, are simply bitter that they think they should have gone to grammar school, but they were robbed.

Going to grammar school is an advantage, for sure, but my father failed his 11+, and he's now an engineering professor, many others have similar achievements.

If you think you have failed in life, you really need to stop looking for a scape goat to blame, and take responsibility for your own actions.

My daughter is no genius, but she's worked really hard preparing for the 11+, and stands a good chance of passing. Either way, she's probably not going to be a brain surgeon or rocket scientist, but there's plenty of great things she can do, whatever school she goes to.
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by Amber »

tiffinboys wrote: It is very sad that there are less and less GS. The solution is not abolishing the remaining ones, as then only the independents schools would remain option for some of the very bright kids. This is loss for the country - not an achievement.
There is no evidence that 'very bright kids' need to be taught separately from 'not very bright kids'. I think the loss to the country of all these very bright kids, suddenly disadvantaged by the withdrawal of special provision for them, languishing away in dead end jobs or on benefits, would be more than offset by improvements in equality and social justice.
tiffinboys wrote:Instead the government should allow more grammar schools and at the same time, improve the comprehensives.... I wonder if there is any area without comprehensive schools?
Not only are there no truly comprehensive schools in England any more, there is no aspiration from any political party to have them. The Blair Government put the final nail in their coffin and they will never return. You cannot have a comprehensive school in an area where 30% are creamed off to go grammar school.

Selective education in any form, be it grammar schools or independent ones, will never lead to 'advantage [being] open to everyone.' It will be open to the middle classes. The more you segregate, the less equal your society becomes. This is not rocket science.
hermanmunster
Posts: 12817
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by hermanmunster »

tiffinboys wrote:Happily, there is no need to move for this reason. I wonder if there is any area without comprehensive schools? In fact, people move for the reason that there is no GS in their area.
There are plenty with no comprehensive - Skipton has 2 GS and a secondary school that is no way a comprehensive. The nearest comprehensives (ie non selective intake .... other than by residence ) are 6, 11 or 15 miles away only the one 15 miles is likely to be reliably able to offer a child in Skipton a place.

I suspect many other places where there are GS cannot be said to have comprehensives.
studio1972
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:50 pm

Re: Still haven't recovered, 24 years later

Post by studio1972 »

hermanmunster wrote:
tiffinboys wrote:Happily, there is no need to move for this reason. I wonder if there is any area without comprehensive schools? In fact, people move for the reason that there is no GS in their area.
There are plenty with no comprehensive - Skipton has 2 GS and a secondary school that is no way a comprehensive. The nearest comprehensives (ie non selective intake .... other than by residence ) are 6, 11 or 15 miles away only the one 15 miles is likely to be reliably able to offer a child in Skipton a place.

I suspect many other places where there are GS cannot be said to have comprehensives.
Where I live, Wirral, one of the comprehensives (effectively a secondary modern) just had 87% of its pupils achieving 5 GCSEs (C-A* inc Maths & English). An excellent result, well above the national average for true comprehensive schools. It's quite possible for both the selective and non selective schools in a grammar school area to have excellent results.
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