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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that the 11plus forum is the scariest forum in the world!

498 replies

stillenacht · 17/11/2009 22:37

anyone agree??

OP posts:
squilly · 09/03/2010 22:17

Only read the first bit, so don't know what's kicked off on here. Will check out the 11plus forum though. Hopefully it'll be of some help.

ShellingPeas · 09/03/2010 22:27

Squilly, it should be very useful. Just ignore the shite about it on here, and the few vociferous posters on the 11plus site (and the feckin' annoying tickers) and concentrate on finding out what you need to know.

tittybangbang · 09/03/2010 22:30

Will have a trawl through the 11+ stuff at some point. Am thinking of doing some tutoring to ease myself back into teaching, after 6 years at home with dc's.

But on a personal note I'm so OVER my dd not going to a selective school. She didn't sit the 11+. There's a nuclear arms race going on with tutoring round here. DD is bright enough, but ALL the children I know who've sat the 11+ have had at least 2 years of tutoring as a bare minimum. And then they turn up to the exam and see buses disgorging dozens of children from the local private schools, kids who've had 5 years of tutoring, plus booster classes, and who've been taught in classes of only 15 for the whole of their primary education. How can kids from the local primary compete with that, when they've been taught in classes of up to 30?

It's so unfair it's laughable, but luckily the local comp is OK - despite being stuffed to the gills with kids from deprived backgrounds. I'm hoping that dd will be a bit like a peacock on a dung heap - that she'll have more of a chance to shine because she won't constantly be found wanting in comparison to all the little Sophias and Isabelles, with their grade 8 piano and their 20 A star gcse's that she'd be rubbing up against in grammar school....

Original poster
stillenacht · 09/03/2010 22:30

Have just read through whole thread here - when I initially posted I meant scary as in competitive and unbelievably full on. Agree with what YouCouldHaveFooledMe said earlier.

OP posts:
EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 22:31

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Original poster
stillenacht · 09/03/2010 22:32

grade 8 piano???Ahh I wish .

OP posts:
ShellingPeas · 09/03/2010 22:38

Dear EdTheConfessor. "They love their numpties" Would you be so kind as to clarify? That is so fucking cryptic I have no idea what it means!

But I am now happy as I am no longer invisible.

seeker · 09/03/2010 22:40

'I"m hoping dd will be a bit like a peacock on a dung heap " What a charming image . I hope she doesn't take that attitue to school with her.......

EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 22:42

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ShellingPeas · 09/03/2010 22:46

"But of late,it's very insular. Anyone who is not in the inner circle is a baddie until proven innocent."

But is that any different to MN? New posters here are frequently greeted with shouts of Troll, especially if posting something controversial or that goes against current MN thinking.

mattellie · 09/03/2010 22:47

So Ed you're visiting and posting on a website in which you have no interest and which isn't relevant to you, and they're the numpties...

Just talk us through that one, would you?

EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 22:47

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EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 22:50

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ShellingPeas · 09/03/2010 22:50

And finally, before I quit for the night, if you condensed all the threads in the education section in MN into one website, wouldn't you end up with the same effect of appearing completely, totally obsessed? It would be State vs Private, summer babies starting school too early, home ed, good school vs dump school that no one wants. Tis no different.

The whole point of the 11plus site is that it deals with preparing children for passing the 11 plus exam. If it weren't for that primary purpose, then the website wouldn't exist and the people posting on it would find something or somewhere to obsess about a different topic.

EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 22:54

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EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 23:03

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ShellingPeas · 09/03/2010 23:05

Perhaps Ed that is true but I can't say that I've ever posted anything particularly controversial there (apart from trying to support MN at one point!) and I rarely venture onto the 'Everything Else' or 'Rehab' boards as they are a little mundane.

I much prefer a decent bust up in AIBU where you can swear properly.

I just don't see the point of winding things up between two completely different fora which are there to serve completely different purposes and from that POV both 11plus and MN are at fault.

EdTheConfessor · 09/03/2010 23:25

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piscesmoon · 10/03/2010 07:37

'grammar school which was intended, by the originators of the system, for a very bright child from a disadvantaged background to give them a step up out of disadvantage. The system stinks.

My objection is that the whole system stinks! If people are defending grammar schools they always say that it is the way out for the bright, disadvantaged child but I think that most people would claw that place away from that sort of child by buying a tutor or practise books for their own child, and they would let their child have the place over the brighter DC whose parents couldn't care less. All the 11+ does is a crude separation of the above average child and the below average child. Sitting in the middle are the ones that you can't divide e.g. a line is drawn and on both sides of the line are DCs who are identical in ability but one does better on the day-(the next day the other might have done better.)
I take back the 'only for the academic' remark because it is far too early to tell at 11 yrs old who is academic and who isn't.
Any system stinks. I feel a hypocrite because I am a great supporter of comprehensive education, knowing that I have deliberately bought a house in the catchment area of a good school, having moved away from an 11+ area because my DC might not have passed!
I just feel sorry for the poor DC who is drilled from year 3 or 4 to pass the exam and I know, from experience, that it is possible to drill the child successfully to get the place. Unfortunately for the DC, that is the starting point and not the end. Those drilled then struggle. (There is a difference between helping and drilling).

Hardys · 10/03/2010 07:46

morning all.

sorry Ed that i had to leave the thread last night, and you to soldier on.

Must say, i bet the 11 plus forum are having a field day watching this.

So, all I shall say is I visitred their site because they were discussing us over there. Nothing wrong with that. I invited them over here to discuss their points. Nothing wrong with that. I was not rude, as my whole post has been copied and pasted higher up in this thread so you can see for yourselves.

It was all a bit of lighthearted fun. Nothing wrong with that.

But it is rather peculiar that, they allowed the thread to run with all the negative views about us, and only pulled the whole thing once I had invited them back here to discuss it.

So no need for anyone from here to get on their high horses to try and protect them. You may call it 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

Obviously, those who have become irritated about it on this thread are themselves, 11 plus forum users and each to their own.

EdTheConfessor · 10/03/2010 09:10

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QOD · 10/03/2010 09:19

Weird, I;ve been on that forum for about 18months and have had nothing but niceness and help/advice - but I do stick to the relevant topics to me - appeals and my area.

I have you lot for my inane chatter :O

QOD · 10/03/2010 09:19

(stupid smilies)

Pigghills · 10/03/2010 09:52

Quote:

By Hardys Wed 10-Mar-10 07:46:07

Must say, i bet the 11 plus forum are having a field day watching this.

End Quote

You think it's only them laughing at you all? How very wrong you are, it's causing a riot in other places too laughs hysterically

What so galling about all this is the number of you who are slagging the site off yet openly admit you've been there and taken advice. Hypocrites of the very lowest form

Hardys · 10/03/2010 09:55

really pigghills - where else?