Anti 11-plus primary schools/teachers

[Tolstoy]

Salsa the talk could hgave been part of the secondary and primaries transition programme. Schools are supposed to show they are enabling Y6/Y7 transition. I think the assumption that DC will attend the closest secondary school and helping to facilitate that is fine.

However I also think parents should be made aware of other options particularly if they are better for that particular DC and teachers are in a good position to give that advice. They will know how the DC fits into their peer group. They will have an awareness of the DC capabilities. Surely as part of a transition programme they could be given info on schools. This isn't just necessarily a Grammar subject. What about special need? I hate the fact that as parents with very little insider knowledge we are left to make this very important decision which can seriously affect our DCs future. My DCs primary head as well as suggesting Grammar would suggest some of the marginally better comprehensives in the area. For some SEN DC he suggested a different failing comp to the local one but one that was smaller and better equipt for teaching DC with specific learning needs. Many parents wouldn't have thought to look at these schools, most chose to go local anyway but at least that was an informed choice.

[wonderwoman]

Possibly totally professional but rather sad not to take some interest in what may happen to one's pupils once they leave one's care, or to make oneself more generally familiar with the educational set-up in the geographical area in which one is employed?

That is not what I said or implied at all and the assumption that I take no interest in what may happen to ex pupils is completely wrong. I and the rest of the staff at school have a very keen interest in our ex pupils. I encounter them frequently and am often approached in the street by gangly teenagers, and now I am quite old some of the next generation are at school. I love hearing about their successes. And we often work with receiving secondaries long after pupils have left us.
Holding an information evening about transfer to secondary and ensuring information from secondaries is given to Y6s is standard in most primaries, but what I am not happy discussing is what many parents want. That is to be told which is the best school. There is no answer to that and in private I do not like our most local GS. I could not stand at a meeting and say that. Neither could I realistically cover all the options. Some pupils go to the local secondaries and never look at any others, some apply to all the local GS, some opt out of the 11+, some go to private schools, some board at state boarding schools, some board at private schools, one was even taken out of school and home educated. It is simply impossible to cover all the options. It is for parents to do their homework and decide which is the best school for their child.

[mystery]

Our school provided nothing at all in any shape or form on school transfer apart from one email on the last day of the extended deadline for an online application to check that we had applied for secondary school.

[onebigdilemma]

We didn't even get that Mystery and know of one mum in my boys class who missed the deadline!

[guest201]

Here in Warwickshire all children receive a Moving to Secondary School booklet at the end of year five from Warwickshire County Council) which gives them all the options of secondary schools explains about 11+ how it works gives figures for school entry in previous years (how many children each school takes, down to which admission criteria they take and lots more information) Does this not happen in other areas?

[ToadMum]

Here in Warwickshire all children receive a Moving to Secondary School booklet at the end of year five from Warwickshire County Council) which gives them all the options of secondary schools explains about 11+ how it works gives figures for school entry in previous years (how many children each school takes, down to which admission criteria they take and lots more information) Does this not happen in other areas?

Yes, we get that info, too - unfortunately (at least in DS2's year - 2014 entry), the publication date hadn't caught up with the grammar schools needing to have their open evenings earlier due to the change in the rules about getting the results to parents before the CAF deadline.

[mystery]

We didn't even get that Mystery and know of one mum in my boys class who missed the deadline!

Oh poor boy and his parents. They must feel terrible now if their preferred school is generally oversubscribed. What happened to communication e.g. a letter in the post from the local authority saying that you need to fill in a CAF by such and such a date?

[Elibet]

Could it be that the primary school teachers don't suggest selective schools because they are wary of raising false expectations, and then being blamed when children don't pass the exams?