"tall school and short school land" an allegorical tale

Eleven Plus (11+) in Buckinghamshire (Bucks)

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

11 Plus Mocks - Practise the real exam experience - Book Now
Tree
Posts: 536
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:19 pm
Location: bucks

"tall school and short school land" an allegorical tale

Post by Tree »

This story is inspired by the outrageous state of affairs where a child can get over 91% in an exam and "fail".

There once was a land far away where it was decided that children who were tall would be sent to a school for tall kids and those that were short would be sent to a school for short people as you could save money on chair and table legs and smaller doors in the short people schools.

This was initially rolled out across the whole country but after a few years a government of short people got in power and said 'this isn't fair' and made most of the country revert to all size schools. However a few areas retained the short school, tall school system.

It was decided by the government that the measuring of the height of kids in year six would need to be fair and so a standard ruler would be made centrally that would then be sent to all schools who still had the height selective system. So they got few thousand kids from around the country and measured them all and nearly all of them were under 80cm with an average height of about 40cm. Great they said and went to the great ruler makers (Northern Fabricators and Engineeers of Rulers) or NFER for short who made a standard ruler 80cm in length and it was decided that children who were in the top 30% by height ie 1.3 sd above the mean or about 60-65 cm would be sent to tall schools.

This was fine but then the parents of children in these selective areas decided that they wanted the tallest education for their kids and so they started stretching them from about 6 months or so before the measurement day some of them even sent their kids to profesional stretchers who had fancy methods, this had the result that the children in these areas got really tall. This was denied by the government who declared that there was no proven benefit in stretching and so wasn't worth doing. However a strange thing started happening to the results of the measurement the average height of the children started rising until more and more children were starting to be too tall for the rulers and it was getting more and more difficult to fit 1.3 sd's onto the ruler, the NFER people said to the government maybe we need longer rulers? ridiculous said the government there must be something wrong with the rulers, so NFER altered their ruler in a clever way up to the 65-70cm mark the distance between each mark was 1cm but after 70cm the distance between each number was a bit bigger between 70 and 71 it was maybe 1.2 cm and between 73 and 74 it was 2 cm and and increased until between 79 and 80 it was about 20cm. But it was still called an 80cm ruler it was just that a cm was redefined between 70 and 80. The problem with this was that the height of the children was always rounded down so if you reached the 73 cm mark but were not quite tall enough to reach the 74 mark even though you were actually nearly 2cm taller than 73 you would be called 73 which was actually the 1.3 sd place and were chosen for small school.

Everyone at the popular ruler forum were outraged by this rediculous ruler situation and took to the streets and protested and battled with the government who finally capitulated and made a new set of 100cm rulers and everyone lived happily ever after.

Any resemblance to real countries, or companies or goverments , living or dead is purely coincidental
Ed's mum
Posts: 3310
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:47 am
Location: Warwickshire.

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by Ed's mum »

Excellent. Except I would have missed out on a GS place.
However, I would appeal on the grounds that, had the egg not divided when I was in utero, I would have been twice the height!
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by yoyo123 »

:lol: :lol:

Love it!

I would have made it at 11, but as I failed to grow even a measly inch since I would not qualify today..
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by mystery »

:lol: :lol:
Great story tree. I'd love to see your thoughts on information that appeals panels liked too see in small tall world to back up non-qualification appeals - stuff on relevant extenuating circumstances at the time of measuring, and blurb about how to show future growth potential.
hermanmunster
Posts: 12817
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by hermanmunster »

splendid - reminds me of years ago when THE GOODIES did a programme on Apart- Height.. When little Bill Oddie couldn't go where his taller colleagues could and the world was divided into Lil'uns and Big'uns.....

I remain your most vertically challenged crumbly,

herman
Looking for help
Posts: 3767
Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:12 am
Location: Berkshire

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by Looking for help »

Absolutely fabulous :D
watfordmum66
Posts: 314
Joined: Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:45 pm

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by watfordmum66 »

lovely to start a day chuckling Thankyou :D :D
guest1144
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 17, 2010 1:42 pm

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allogorical tale

Post by guest1144 »

Brilliant!
I can see a new type of advert for 11+ tuition appearing - a little boy 'before' and 'after' professional stretching, with a stamp saying ''I've been professionally stretched" and mum with wads of 'bucks' saying "I've been perpetually stressed"!
pippi
Posts: 320
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:33 am
Location: Bucks

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allegorical tale

Post by pippi »

Tree wrote:(Northern Fabricators and Engineeers of Rulers) or NFER for short
Now Granada Length Assessments, or GLA for short? They are also the producers of the "official" practice stretching exercises (no possible conflict of interest there then!) according to their advert on the popular ruler forum...
Dad40
Posts: 359
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 4:40 pm
Location: Chiltern District, Bucks

Re: "tall school and short school land" an allegorical tale

Post by Dad40 »

Meanwhile back in most of the country where they had all size schools.....

After consecutive governments dominated by short people, shorties among the electorate couldn't help noticing that billions and billions of pounds were being thrown at the all-size school system and yet performance was slipping (or rather plummeting) down the OECD's international league tables. And all the while, the new monsters of "postcode lottery" and "grade inflation" seemed to be growing in stature and terrorising people with names like Fiona Millar.

A tall person then got into power and suggested that perhaps - shock horror - central government doesn't actually know how to run an education system and a diversity of local approaches should be encouraged. Short systems, tall systems, and hybrid systems were allowed to bloom....and even systems based on merit were also allowed. Bucks, which had attempted (in its own ham-fisted way) running a merit-based system, started to look 'ahead' of other regions of the UK.

Naturally the cartel of short teachers weren't happy about these developments but as they had been cheerleaders for a country-wide system now widely seen as an abject failure, they were eventually marginalised by all right-thinking people.

And we all lived happily ever after.
Post Reply