11+ being scrapped

[musu]

At one school in Essex here

Interesting development which follows on from Bucks CC overhauling their 11+ and trying to make it tutor proof (although everyone I know in Bucks is still employing tutors).

... 'so we will focus all our energies on making you really good at catching buses for the rest of your life'?

"Maybe one day you might even get to be a bus conductor! Not a bus driver, obviously......"

Why did I know that you wouldn't join in with a proper discussion? Or even a proper joke?

MTS- before you.....go.....again, please would you tell me why you've got it in for me so much? I would love to know.

except of course, BSOrganic, you can take the driving test again in a few months, eh?

So why post at all????????

whereas you're bringing something new and exciting to the debate, huh?

Ah. Missing the point again. Oh well.

seeker a top set is suitable for many bright DC. My DD for example thrives in hers.

Everyone will get an A or A* at GCSE in year 11. The pace is just right for everyone in the class and when they diviate from the curriculum, everyone will be at an appropriate level to enjoy it and benefiot from it. Perfect.

However, there are some DC for who this is not appropriate. The pace is too slow. The content simply not sufficiently challenging. They coast. Why is that okay?

I've already told you about my DS as a good example. He is sitting a few GCSEs at the moment. He's 13. What would you have him do for the next two years? Sit in a corner, teaching himself? Go over work he has already done and absorbed? For two years!!!!!

I get the sense that you don't actually care. You will snif and post side comments about how such children ought to be able to crack on nicely. Well be careful. Your DC will find himself in exactly this situation in his secondary modern. And how happy will he be?

Of course I care. That's why I say that there seems to be a case for the super selective.

But your ds isn't top 10%, is he? He's top 1/2%- a special case. To be honest, I don't actually know what the best way of dealing with outliers like him is. I just know that making education policy based on the needs of the outliers is a bad idea. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't have their needs met- I just don't know how it should be done.

And yes, my ds's secondary modern might not be able to cope with their high achievers properly- that's why I think they should be in a comprehensive so they can move up.

"Well, if one of you goes - hmm, MTS is right. Me buying a £750k house near the choice school is the same as me buying a better education - then I feel that I have achieved something."
Not the same, obviously, but yes, similar. Has anyone ever said that it isn't?

seeker I don't think he is top 2%. No where near. There are boys, much brighter, especially in math.

As I keep saying, he's not a genius! But top set in comp wouldn't work for him and many others like him. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he'd be damaged in any way, but he might get a very over inflated sense of his intellect. He might coast and get bored. He might never reach his true potential.

And the point I was making about your son, was that he is somewhere where the pace and content of lessons may be inapporpriate. You think therefore that he should be given access to a different kind of education. So what of those DC for who top set is inappropriate? They really are in the same boat as your DS.

Anyone who sits GCSEs at 13yrs has SN that need to be catered for- what is the school going to do with him for the next few years?

"So what of those DC for who top set is inappropriate? They really are in the same boat as your DS."

I don't know, as I said. I just know, as I said, as well, that making policy to suit the needs of the outliers is a bad plan.

Fair enough, MTS, whatever you say.

If he's taking GCSEs at 13 the top set of a grammar school wouldn't suit him either.....

exotic where he goes to school he's not particularly unusual. There's all bright enough boys and most will have been through the CE and scholarship syllabus which gets them pretty much to GCSE standard.

What happens to each boy is individual. DS will do some this year, some next year and some in year 11. The space left will then be filled with either the same subject (but the school's own syllabus), or a new subject. Or a slippery mixture of the two.

It must be a logistical headache, mind you.

Seeker And why can't the academic children who need faster paced learning get that in the top stream of a comprehensive?

Because there won't be enough of them. So either they become outliers and targets or they are forced to go at what is to them a snail's pace.

Having gone through this myself there is no way I would want to condemn anyone else to it. Being an outlier is shit. Being bored out of your skull and not stretched is shit. Being sacrificed for the perceived greater good is shit. And it doesn't even actually benefit the greater good.

Grammar schools are very popular. The 11 plus is hard to pass especially without tutoring. People are paying over inflated prices for houses to get into the right catchment area whether that be a fab comp or grammer school. It happens all the time here. They can then smugly say that they dont 'believe in private education'.

We do need to accept that just because you arent wildly academic you shouldnt deserve a great education and perhaps learn a trade or vocation. Forcing for example nurses to have a degree completely misses the point. Nursing is a great career and you can literally change people's lifes.

And secondary moderns (or whatever they call them now) just doesnt do it.

"Having gone through this myself there is no way I would want to condemn anyone else to it. Being an outlier is shit. Being bored out of your skull and not stretched is shit. Being sacrificed for the perceived greater good is shit. And it doesn't even actually benefit the greater good."

Being told you are a failure when you are 10 is shit. Why does it have to be one or the other?

Russians - I agree, the really academic inclined could well have won a scholarship to a private school or got into a grammar school. Ending up in a comp is not always where the very clever end up.

Certainly in my DS's prep schools there are a couple of boys on full scholarships who have been taken out of their primary schools because of their academic ability with the option to go to a high peforming senior private school again with little in the way of fees. My DS shared his room with one last year. Must say that the boy was COMPLETELY focused on academic achievement. He was very shy and geeky. Couldnt catch a cricket ball to save his life but the boys in the house just rallied around and kept an eye on him to stop any potential bullying

Seeker, if you choose to put your child forward for the 11+ then surely you must recognise that there will be a pass/fail. Its a test with a pass mark and its not secret that no EVERYONE passes.

If you dont agree with a test that has a pass mark then dont let your DC take it. But I know Seeker you did let your children take it and appealed when one of your children didnt pass....

You cannot have it both ways.