Grammars, no thanks!
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:20 pm
The following e-mail has been reproduced with the kind permission of the author whose son attempted the eleven plus exams in 1998/9:
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Six years ago on a bitterly cold morning I stood with other parents like sheep grazing outside the gates of a sought after grammar school in London.
There was not one of us who had not been up half the night cramming in last minute coaching to try and secure one of the 160 places for our sons. Thousands now stood at the gate engaging in small talk, denying intensive preparation and being all matter of fact about the whole thing whereas inside our hearts were pounding away as failure was not an option. Every passing second was filled with mixed emotions, “what-if this … what-if that”, an emotional roller coaster. With so many parents herded outside the gate it was clear that the pass mark would be even higher than we all imagined. Failure to attain this and you are off the cliff edge, falling straight into the dreaded state comprehensive!
11+ had become an obsession for all of us over the last year (in some cases last 3 years – poor child!). Culminating on that make or break day, knowing full well that one in ten boys will be offered a place two months from now, nine out of ten boys will be mentally scarred for life, eighteen out of twenty parents will hold an unforgiving post-mortem.
It is at that point you have to step back from it all and take stock. For me it took six years to have the courage to re-visit 11+ in my mind as my son now prepares his final push for Oxford with his A-levels this summer. We were one set of parents that failed the grammar school hurdle.
We had opened the envelope in full expectation that our son naturally would have passed, after all his parents boasted five degrees between them. The phone was ringing off the hook with other successful parents calling us to share news of their success, but the letter read “We are pleased to confirm an offer of a place for your son at the XX Comprehensive School”. My wife was distraught and my son dejected as his three best friends had got in.
That September the boys went to their different respective schools but kept in touch, after all, all four lived on the same road. The grammar school piled the boys with stacks of homework whereas our son often went homework free and in fact went from one after school club to another to have something to pass the time. Whenever meeting the parents of other boys at the supermarket we held our heads in shame, my wife could not bear to face them.
Fast forwarding six years, two of his friends at the grammar school were ‘told to leave’ by the league tables centric grammar school headmaster who basically chose not to offer an A-level in a subject to any boy who was not going to score a grade A. They ended up in sixth form colleges. The third boy was ‘directed’ to do A-levels in less engaging subjects such as Social Studies if he wanted to remain, which he has.
My son completed all nine of his GCSE’s at A* and is doing the five A-levels of his choice. The extra work and piles of homework that the grammars did actually did not amount to much. The mistake that the egotistical grammars made was to get through the prescribed syllabus for the year in the first term and a half and engaged in ‘mind extending courses’ to stretch the minds of their gifted boys doing projects in the subject who presumably would otherwise be bored. What they failed to see was that many of the boys had been over coached for the 11+exams and failed to keep up or were finding the pace too brisk and soon resigned to being a failure in many subjects. They were further dejected by finding themselves in the bottom sets, since even in grammar schools they have setting, all the more upsetting having been at the top of their primary schools. My son in contrast was a star pupil in the local comprehensive, achieving set one in everything and the teacher’s favourite in all subjects. His school also paced the syllabus evenly throughout the year so the boys completed the syllabus at a cantor with minimum homework.
I would like to share this experience with your website as I expect the majority of the parents will feel like failures as we had. The message is that there is life after 11+ and in many cases the outcome will be a lot better.
A.D.
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Six years ago on a bitterly cold morning I stood with other parents like sheep grazing outside the gates of a sought after grammar school in London.
There was not one of us who had not been up half the night cramming in last minute coaching to try and secure one of the 160 places for our sons. Thousands now stood at the gate engaging in small talk, denying intensive preparation and being all matter of fact about the whole thing whereas inside our hearts were pounding away as failure was not an option. Every passing second was filled with mixed emotions, “what-if this … what-if that”, an emotional roller coaster. With so many parents herded outside the gate it was clear that the pass mark would be even higher than we all imagined. Failure to attain this and you are off the cliff edge, falling straight into the dreaded state comprehensive!
11+ had become an obsession for all of us over the last year (in some cases last 3 years – poor child!). Culminating on that make or break day, knowing full well that one in ten boys will be offered a place two months from now, nine out of ten boys will be mentally scarred for life, eighteen out of twenty parents will hold an unforgiving post-mortem.
It is at that point you have to step back from it all and take stock. For me it took six years to have the courage to re-visit 11+ in my mind as my son now prepares his final push for Oxford with his A-levels this summer. We were one set of parents that failed the grammar school hurdle.
We had opened the envelope in full expectation that our son naturally would have passed, after all his parents boasted five degrees between them. The phone was ringing off the hook with other successful parents calling us to share news of their success, but the letter read “We are pleased to confirm an offer of a place for your son at the XX Comprehensive School”. My wife was distraught and my son dejected as his three best friends had got in.
That September the boys went to their different respective schools but kept in touch, after all, all four lived on the same road. The grammar school piled the boys with stacks of homework whereas our son often went homework free and in fact went from one after school club to another to have something to pass the time. Whenever meeting the parents of other boys at the supermarket we held our heads in shame, my wife could not bear to face them.
Fast forwarding six years, two of his friends at the grammar school were ‘told to leave’ by the league tables centric grammar school headmaster who basically chose not to offer an A-level in a subject to any boy who was not going to score a grade A. They ended up in sixth form colleges. The third boy was ‘directed’ to do A-levels in less engaging subjects such as Social Studies if he wanted to remain, which he has.
My son completed all nine of his GCSE’s at A* and is doing the five A-levels of his choice. The extra work and piles of homework that the grammars did actually did not amount to much. The mistake that the egotistical grammars made was to get through the prescribed syllabus for the year in the first term and a half and engaged in ‘mind extending courses’ to stretch the minds of their gifted boys doing projects in the subject who presumably would otherwise be bored. What they failed to see was that many of the boys had been over coached for the 11+exams and failed to keep up or were finding the pace too brisk and soon resigned to being a failure in many subjects. They were further dejected by finding themselves in the bottom sets, since even in grammar schools they have setting, all the more upsetting having been at the top of their primary schools. My son in contrast was a star pupil in the local comprehensive, achieving set one in everything and the teacher’s favourite in all subjects. His school also paced the syllabus evenly throughout the year so the boys completed the syllabus at a cantor with minimum homework.
I would like to share this experience with your website as I expect the majority of the parents will feel like failures as we had. The message is that there is life after 11+ and in many cases the outcome will be a lot better.
A.D.
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