To tell my daughter she's passed 11+ even if she doesn't?

[Incogweeto]

DD2 will take 11+ in September. She's a lovely, funny, bright child, but not as academic as DD1 who got an extremely high 11+ score and is at grammar school.

Our options here are grammar or private. State is absolutely awful (this isn't a comment on all state schools at all, just the ones we have access to which are in the failing category). I would never send her to our state options.

I've already told her that she'll sit 11+ and private school entrance tests and then we as parents will decide which one is best for her needs, and that grammar school isn't right for everyone. She really wants to go to grammar.

If she doesn't pass 11+ I'm planning on telling her she did and that we just decided to send her to the private school. Is that terrible? It will obviously involve maintaining the lie, potentially even when she's an adult if it ever comes up. There's no way she'll find out.

I think she may well pass, but if not I just don't think a 10 year old needs to be feeling that they've 'failed' at this stage. Or that they are less capable than their older sibling, which I know will hurt. DD is a really lovely, kind and caring child and in many ways more well rounded than her super academic sister. She's also sensitive and a worrier and it's the kind of thing that will affect her self esteem for years. I'd tell her she passed by a few points (not make up some super high score). She'll definitely get into the private school, no question, and be happy there.

Are you having her tutored?

If she scrapes a pass with a tutor she will probably struggle in a grammar school.

If you really believe it may be a tight thing then don't have her sit the test at all.

I fully believe honesty is the best policy.

Do some past papers with her, then discuss her results.
Ask her how she will feel if she doesn't pass.
Give her the option of backing out of the test.

I’d be inclined to talk to her tutor. If they regulariy tutor kids for the Grammar school exams then he’ll have a pretty good idea of whether she’s likely to get in.
If it’s pretty likely to be no
Then I’d call time on it and go for the private option. It’ll give her time to come to terms with it and hopefully spare her the feelings of failure if she was to fail x

My eldest failed the 11+. Failing the exam made her never want to fail again. She has an amazing work ethic. She went to a fabulous secondary school with a grammar stream and nailed her GCSEs. She then went on to a boys grammar school for sixth form studying maths, history and Cambridge preU English literature. She nailed her A levels too. She's now at a top university studying law and gets great results in her exams. She's always had to work for her results and her hard work is paying off.
I personally think, if a child doesn't pass an exam, she has a moment and moves on. Failing is a part of life. My son is taking the 11+ this year too and if he fails then he fails. He knows it's not the end of the world as he can also go to a great secondary school.
Why can't you tell your daughter that if she passes she can go to grammar but if not she gets to go to a good private school.

You may have read the posts @Incogweeto but you seem set on lying to your daughter and to make the overall decision on where she ends up going to school.
You think that the lie will not be found out because there isn't a 'paper trail'...well, there will be a digital trail of it and it is very possible that when your daughter grows up, she may ask for documentation or data that has been held about her and lo and behold there pops up the lie.
Just don't lie to your children. Any of them. It's really easy then to not live under the shadow of a lie because there won't be a lie to live under. It's not rocket science. It's just being a decent human being and an honest parent.

I think it’s a very odd thing to do tbh ! Talk about wrap her in cotton wool ! I think it’s the Mother that’s going to be most upset nit the child !!!

Please don't lie. I guarantee you she WILL find out at some stage, and feel incredibly betrayed, even if it's 50 years later. Also as previous posters have said, if she's got her heart set on grammar school and you tell her she's not getting to go despite having "passed" her 11+ she's going to feel very resentful and it will damage your relationship. Apart from that - it's just kinda tawdry to lie to your kid!

Why would you even consider this, in life nothing is perfect & we all fail at some point you can’t protect them forever kids need to learn that sometimes you can fail & learn to move on it’s part of growing up, I’m more disgusted you have no faith in your child to pass if you are so sure why haven’t you got her a private tutor to help her achieve her goal

I think the 11+ is the devils work personally and by any account I’ve ever heard, failing it only causes issues. So I’d not make her do it and send her straight to the private.

Can’t you sort of fudge it a bit and say it isn’t exactly a pass-or-fail thing. People get a score and the grammar school takes the people with the highest scores. If she wasn’t in that group it doesn’t mean she failed, it could just mean there were loads of super brainy people applying that year, who did better than her on the day. You’re not lying to say all of this.

I wouldn’t lie. Emphasise what matters : she worked hard and did her best, she’s good at loads of other stuff, and the private school will really suit her. You could add that things happen for a reason and you liked the look of the private school cohort for her year group more than the grammar school cohort / have heard there are some kids going to the private school that she’ll have a lot in common with / really like the teacher or department for her favourite subject at the private school...

I teach year 6 and although we all know that 100 is the pass mark for sats, I try to present scores in a positive light even to those who have failed eg saying that the range of possible scores is 80-120 so if you got over 80 well done you, you’re working at ks2 standard; if you got in the 90s you weren’t far off, and if you got high 90s you only missed out by a hair.

It’s incredible how parents can warp their children’s perception of how clever or successful they are just from their reactions. I remember one year when 2 kids who struggled with maths got 98 in the sats. A fail. But also, a valiant effort after months of hard work. Child 1’s parents congratulated her, ordered a takeaway of her choice to celebrate and all had a nice jolly evening. Child 2’s parents lost their shit, consoled him tearfully, scheduled emergency meeting with me and the head to demand an explanation, and periodically (years later...) still get in touch to let us know that he’s had a panic attack during a high school maths test and it’s all our fault. All kids want to do is please their parents so if you can put on a genuine show of pride regardless of the outcome of the test, she’ll be fine.

But it's not a question of pass or fail is it? It's a question of getting a place or not - same thing but sounds very different and is not as crushing. If she doesn't get the place, I'd tell her that - that she did very well (as she'll have done her best) but the school simply doesn't have enough places to admit all the children who do well. Which is the truth. I definitely wouldn't burden her with the concept of "fail" at this age, so YANBU.

Please don't lie to her. It makes it more than it is. It is one exam in a point of time. Children mature differently. I would be very positive about both options ahead of her and discuss her reasons for her school preference. Are any of her friends likely to be going to the private school?

Very bad idea to lie. It doesn’t set a good example to your child and it’s best to be honest. If it’s not meant to be it’s not meant to be. Plain and simple.

I don't think the lie will do much damage it will pick up her confidence and give her the extra drive she needs- kids nowadays have so much pressure and go through so much mentally that us adults are not even aware of - I personally think a tiny lie to build and lift her spirits and push her further academically will be fine.
It's not like you are faking her degree or anything !

Lying to her will turn it into a big deal.

If she doesn't pass and you tell her honestly, support her, and make sure she knows that she's not a failure, there is no reason she should be traumatised. She will go to a good school no matter what.

But if you lie, and she finds out, she will believe it was a big deal for her to fail. That she is a failure as a person. Because why would you lie otherwise? Why would you lie if this one exam didn't really matter? She will take the result much more to heart if you lie about it than if you are honest.

From what you have said, the ideal scenario is for her to pass the 11+ and go to the Grammar school she wants to.

If you want to improve the chances of that happening then you might want to invest in a tutor for a few sessions to enhance what you are doing, even to guide you as a non-teacher with what her specific needs are.

Your eldest is a different child, more academic, so not as much need for a tutor. Your second child could maybe benefit from some exam technique skills. You can help her understand that it’s just something she might find useful to be able to pick up marks a bit more easily.

Whether you tell the truth about the actual result will be something you will work out yourself. Trust your gut feeling, you know your child. Even if you don’t tell the correct result and decide to tell her as an adult she will understand that it was the right decision for that time as you didn’t want it to influence her belief in herself just based on how she answered a limited number of questions on just one day in her life. I don’t think she would ever need to know through. Kids don’t find out about Santa and never trust their parents again 🤷🏼‍♀️
Good luck with whatever you do.

Even if you don’t tell the correct result and decide to tell her as an adult she will understand that it was the right decision for that time

Will she? That is one MAMMOTH assumption you've made there. I would suggest the opposite - finding out your parent lied is likely to turn the issue into something bigger than it should have been, and seriously erodes trust.

A couple of things.

Perhaps the most important, part of our jobs as parents is teaching our children that sometimes you fail, but that does not make you a failure. She will be disappointed, but she will survive this. Support her, remind her that these tests do not encompass all of what a person is, and that she has qualities that cannot be measured on paper.

Second, should she find out, and she almost certainly will, her trust in you will be shattered if you lie to her about something that important.

Tell her the truth, then help her make good plans for going forward inside that truth. That is the most loving, caring thing that a parent can do for a child. And she may just fool you and PASS THE DAMNED TEST!

If you don't want her to feel like a failure.dont make her sit the exam in the first place. She's a child FFs.

And no i haven't read the full thread because it's 25 pages long.

I do feel sorry for the poor girl and all 11 plus victims though. The government should ban it and hopefully the next Labour government will.

@Incogweeto haven’t read the whole thread, but have read your posts, so sorry if this has already been mentioned - is there a sibling rule at the grammar school? Wouldn’t DD2 be more likely to be offered a place if her 11+ score was borderline because DD1 already attends?

No! That is a huge lie and in the long run be more damaging to her that she cannot trust you. People fail to achieve things in life, it's about learning to pick yourself up and try again. I'm sure she has other talents. I had my daughter at one of the top Grammar schools in the country, and my son at a local state school, I'll tell you now my son is far happier and well adjusted than my daughter, because he has time to grow and not be studying constantly, not having the pressure of being at a top school and not letting them down by performing badly. So no please don't lie to her, by all means send her to private if that is what you want, but don't base her educational life on a lie, let her be herself.

I can't help but feel much of this could be headed off by talking to DD2 and finding out what she would like you to do. She already knows she'd like to go to the grammar and that to do so, she'll need to get a high enough score in the 11+. Explain to her that you believe she stands a good chance of getting a high enough score but that there's no guarantee of a place (maybe explain about waiting lists if relevant for the school she likes) and when the time comes, you will be able to give her details of her score but also - if she wants it - information about whether or not that's high enough for a school place or if it puts her on the waiting list.

Assuming the private school entry exams are later than 11+ results, you may be in limbo for a couple of months at least so might not be able to say she had definitely got a place at the private school when 11+ results come out. By offering her the choice of being given the full details vs. waiting to see which school you've chosen for her in the March of Y6 (or whatever date your area gives out secondary school allocations), there's no need for any dishonesty as she'll ask for the information she can cope with.

I think it would be damaging to you and to her to tell this lie. If it were me, it would always be at the back of my mind that I had lied, and if it came out accidentally at a later stage she may never trust you again about anything. Can you say that she nearly got through? Won't she be able to see the results? Even doing that I'm not too sure about.

Sometimes life is tough but everybody has to go through tough times and they have to learn how to come to terms with disappointment.

Perhaps you could say that although you understand she is disappointed you personally feel that the private school will suit her much better.

This is one reason I hate the 11+. I didn't pass it. From my recollection, I didn't feel especially distraught at the result because my parents didn't make a big deal of it. But I did feel it was confirmation that I was not clever enough to pursue higher education and aim for a more interesting and meaningful career. I think I was capable of more - as I am sure were most children who, in those days at least, were not expected to amount to much so far as employment was concerned.

How do all the other children cope with it when they do not pass the 11+. They seem to manage to accept it, rather than say they failed it, better to say that they didn't get the grade needed. Also, what would you do if your daughter surprises you and passes the test? Would you still send her privately? How would that make her feel? Ask her why she really wants to go to grammar school, is it because her friends will be there? If you think she would struggle, I don't think it is the right school for her, better for her individual needs at a private school. If she has to take the test at all, I would not lie about the results, but there are ways of taking the edge of the 'fail' label, she has a right to know where her strengths are.

Lying is wrong

Learning to deal with failure is a part of life. Someone once said to me that it was a stepping stone to success. The way you teach her to react to failure today will determine how she deals with every successive difficulty in her life. Don't lie! When she finds out, because she will, she'll think you were ashamed of her, and that will do far more damage than not getting a place!
Until reading this I'd actually forgotten that I failed the entrance exam for a well known private school at age 7. I retook it at 9 and got in, passed my A levels, got a degree, a big 4 job, so definitely was not traumatised by missing a school place earlier on, because my parents never made a big deal out of it. For info, one of my sisters regularly failed many exams, and I'm not advocating this, but it gave her the opportunity to explore avenues that those who follow the traditional path don't. Today her career outshines mine. She learnt from her mistakes. Your daughter may not miss her grammar school place, but if she does, let her learn the life lessons that go with it. Lots of people don't get places, but life continues. They don't become second class citizens over night. It's how you teach your daughter to deal with it that counts. You have to teach her not to be afraid to try, it's how she grows. As someone said on another thread, if you don't do this, adults would just be oversized children, completely unprepared for the reality of life.