11 plus wobble

[Paddingtonthebear]

Anyone else wondering whether it’s all worth it?

Whatever happens, the DC that took the 11+ breezed through year 6 and SATs.

Good luck

Yes, great effort for secondary school. We found primary school Maths teaching was dire and had to do lots. Now great Maths teacher in secondary school, loving the subject and wanting to do Maths homework first.

Yeah. Ours is tomorrow. He’s so clever but is going to have difficulty accessing the test for a number of reasons. I do wonder whether we have done the right thing putting him through this and the fear of what failure will do to him is such a worry (been working on strategies for this tho). He’s been getting 95% + in his informal baseline SATS testing at school as his new teacher is brilliant at running a test informally with no pressure.

I just don’t have much confidence in the local state comps as the grammars here cream off the specific 11+ cohort, obviously.

DH and I have tried to keep the pressure and expectations low at home and we’ve lined up open evenings at all the schools not just the grammars and will really inject as much positivity as we can about the other options.

Not sure what else we can do now

We have a private tutor for my DS twice a week. He takes the exams next year. Read a lot of opinions on FB groups on what other children are doing and we decided to stick the twice weekly sessions. We are based overseas and need to return to the UK to take the rest. So have to relocate. Which sort of complicates things. From what I have read grammar schools seems to be worth the hassle, but to be honest, there are too many variables once they go to secondary schools.

We decided not worth the hassle. we had a tough lockdown experience. My dd aced her SATS despite going to an awful primary school. She is now great at maths and thriving at a strong comprehensive (we are lucky to have one) and predicted all 9s at GCSE except English.

What they are capable of at 11 doesn’t really tell you how life will unfold. If the preparation for the test is building a gritty determinism, resilience, a realisation that hard work is worthwhile, and most of all a love of learning, then what’s not to like?

If it’s not achieving those things then - well, yes I’d ask is it worth it? You could save time, energy and cash for extra cultural or museum visits, books, a pet to care for, new pastime/sport/hobby, music lessons, online enrichment of the curriculum, or teaching the kids how to grow plants or saw wood or go camping or culture yoghurt or plan a holiday etc.

There millions of ways to grow a child.

So have a go with the test, final push, then live.

We moved to an area with a brilliant comprehensive and doesn't have a grammar school system as we decided it wasn't worth the stress.
Surprise, surprise, our excellence local school has produces kids with excellent grades and outperforms many grammar schools. Admittedly it's a very middle class area and there are also no private schools nearby (closest is Newcastle - 35 mins away).

*excellent