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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not enter my ds for the 11+

242 replies

Minifingers · 30/07/2014 08:44

DS is bright, top of the top set for maths at school and good at music, but his literacy is weak - dreadful handwriting and syntax.

DH wants to enter him for the 11+ for a super selective. His mum has given us the money to pay for an intensive 15 hour 11+ preparation course next week, but I think it's not a good idea.

The grammar school in question selects on the basis of a maths and English test. The test covers level 6 maths and the English test involves writing an essay. DS hasn't had any tutoring up to this point and has not done any level six maths. He's never, in his whole life written more than a page and a half of anything, and his writing is slow and very messy.

DH is pissed off and I know he feels that I'm turning DS into a wuss by trying to protect him from failure. He's also angry with both of us for not having dealt with it earlier. Neither of us has ever done more with ds than support his music and do the things which all parents do - read to him every day, take him to museums, talk to him etc. We don't do regular maths or writing practice with him. Actually I've never sat down and supervised or looked at any maths with him, and precious little literacy.

DH thinks we should just 'let him have a go' at the test. I think it's unkind to enter a child for a test you believe they can't pass when it's for something as important as secondary school choice. Particularly when they'll be sitting alongside children who've had YEARS of tutoring.

AIBU?

OP posts:

diddl · 31/07/2014 12:57

"All taking the 11+ does is open up the possibility of going to the grammar, it doesn't make any difference to your chances with the comprehensives."

In the LA that I used to live in, entering for the 11+ meant that you were putting that down as your first choice of school.

NewtRipley · 31/07/2014 13:03

diddl

Where I am, if you put it first, and you get in, you won't be offered your second choice.

You have to put it first to have a realistic chance of getting in,

BUT if you don't get in, you'll get your second choice.

Now that might be because it's a Superselective, and by definition takes children from several boroughs (ours is not the closest borough to it)

TheWordFactory · 31/07/2014 13:04

Ah diddl now that makes more sense.

If the the application to a SS meant using up the first choice, then using that up on a very slim chance is a risk...

Personally, if I were OP, I'd still roll the dice, but then I'm not risk averse and I'm a big fan of the eucation provided by superselectives...

NewtRipley · 31/07/2014 13:07

Your attitude to the Comp seems to have hardened. Earlier in the thread you said:

"The alternative is a popular and oversubscribed comprehensive, with a 'good' OFSTED rating, not some hideous sink school on a grim housing estate"

But now you are talking about hoodies!!

cathyandclaire · 31/07/2014 13:08

You have said that your son is bright, excellent at maths and an avid reader. He isn't highly motivated and probably bored. He sounds like he would have a fighting chance of getting in with work over the summer.

He has no chance if he doesn't enter.

Many of the tutored children will be less intelligent than your son.

Show him the schools websites today, see what he wants. But make sure he knows that there is no pressure on him to pass.

If he does the tutoring and fails, he will be better off academically in secondary school anyway.

Kikaninchen · 31/07/2014 13:08

Putting something down as your first choice doesn't mean that you are somehow disadvantaged with choices lower down if you don't get into your first choice though.
Everyone is treated equally, you don't get higher admissions priority if you put something down as first rather than second choice.

The only issue would be if the OP wanted to put the "good" comps as first and second choice and the grammar third - and I think in some parts of the country you can do that, so it just depends on individual area.

NewtRipley · 31/07/2014 13:13

yy Kik, that's how it is here

It only matters to the Grammar where you put it

whatever5 · 31/07/2014 13:23

Where I live most children take the test for the super selective grammar if they have a chance of getting in even if they don't really want to go. It's just an insurance policy in case they don't get into one of the local oversubscribed (very good) comprehensives. If they would prefer the nearest comprehensive they just put it first when selecting secondary schools. They are then only offered a grammar school place if the comprehensives are full.

KnittedJimmyChoos · 31/07/2014 13:26

Many of the tutored children will be less intelligent than your son

Many many many of them.

KnittedJimmyChoos · 31/07/2014 13:27

DH is pissed off and I know he feels that I'm turning DS into a wuss by trying to protect him from failure

This is the strangest thread I have read in a long time,

So you want to protect him from one exam but happy for him to pretend to be thick and exposed to violent hoodies for day in day out until he leaves schools?

Kikaninchen · 31/07/2014 13:28

Actually, it is probably not that the grammar want people to put them as first choice. It's that if you put somewhere else as first choice and you fulfill their criteria, you'll get offered a space there - you only get considered for your second choice if you aren't eligible for your first choice.

NewtRipley · 31/07/2014 13:29

yy Kik. That's true

Missunreasonable · 31/07/2014 13:37

Oh why do people continuously peddle this crap??

Because this is the same OP who started a thread about private schools, charitable status and tax breaks and church schools and grammar schools (which she said he DS didn't stand a chance of getting into) and the unfairness of it all.
It's all fair now though because shiteville is full of hoodies who will beat him up at lunch time. Selective education is apparently okay if your only other option is shiteville with bullies in hoodies who beat the crap out of people on a daily basis. Much better to be with those children who OP had previously considered to be overpriviledged

Hakluyt · 31/07/2014 13:39

As I said. The OP gives us respectable anti selective education campaigners a bad name.

Missunreasonable · 31/07/2014 13:42

Many of the tutored children will be less intelligent than your son

Not necessarily. Many very intelligent children also have some tutoring or support at home as the parents are well aware that a non-prepared intelligent child might score less well than a highly prepared average intelligence child. Some people don't like to take chances.

Missunreasonable · 31/07/2014 13:45

As I said. The OP gives us respectable anti selective education campaigners a bad name.

Agreed. I actually have quite a lot of respect for a few of the anti selective education campaigners (despite my opposite views) who post on here because I know that they stick to their principles and genuinely support fully comprehensive education rather than spout things through bitterness or jealousy.

TheWordFactory · 31/07/2014 13:45

I think 'anti-selection campaigner' is a tad high falutin'...

Essentially, you've got people who like to wag their fingers at others on t'internet. OP has a particularly long reaching finger!

A salutory lesson: spend less time telling other parents how to live their lives, and more time on your own watch .

Hakluyt · 31/07/2014 14:00

"I think 'anti-selection campaigner' is a tad high falutin'..."

Really? You won't have read anything I've written, listened to me on the radio or seen the lobbying of MPs I do then.

Hakluyt · 31/07/2014 14:01

I admit that my success thus far is.....er.......unmeasurable. But I am still a campaigner.

NewtRipley · 31/07/2014 14:03

Hakluyt

I think WF meant the OP, not you

I am intrigued now, and respectful ......

TheWordFactory · 31/07/2014 14:10

Ah Hak I have no doubt you do things beyond MN.

I have no doubt that you are utterly opposed to selection (though you know I find some aspects of that a little hypocritical).

But the OP?

Well maybe. To be fair, I don't know.

But I know too many people who spend a lot of their time being uber opposed to things and telling other parents why they should be uber opposed to them...when their own house is not in order!

KnittedJimmyChoos · 31/07/2014 14:10

The OP gives us respectable anti selective education campaigners a bad name

Oh I see I wondered what your agenda was.

I would say that bad schools, give anti selection a bad name. over subscribed schools with bad teachers or good teachers struggling in bad environments!

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 31/07/2014 14:14

From what I've read of this thread, there's a lot more at stake here than whether it's right to put the lad in for the exam. It seems to be about status in the family, noses out of joint, credibility, reputation etc, and I think there are too many issues behind the dilemma for anyone to give a helpful suggestion about this particular case.

I would think that if someone was that keen on the SS option, like OP's DH, they would probably have piped up long ago that they saw this as the long term plan - it all seems a bit ad hoc and spurred by family rivalry.

NewtRipley · 31/07/2014 14:16

Yes,

Or at least he has no right to begetting aerated about it now.

Missunreasonable · 31/07/2014 14:16

But I know too many people who spend a lot of their time being uber opposed to things and telling other parents why they should be uber opposed to them...when their own house is not in order!

That is a good way of putting it.

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