National Offer Day- From a Child's Perspective

[rebeccapm]

My daughter is very distraught about the outcome of National Offer Day. She wrote this [as a letter to the editor] this morning, thought I would share:

My name is Lucie. I am 10 ½ years old, and I’ve never been more stressed in my life.

We keep reading in the newspapers about how stressful secondary school application process is for parents, but what about the children’s point of view? Here is mine:

It started last fall, when I had to take a bunch of entrance exams. Months of studying, doing extra practice exams, weekends spend taking tests and visiting schools, trying to do my best on each exam, although they were all so different. I worked hard, and am at the top of my class. We even moved houses a while ago, to be in the catchment of the school that I really wanted to go to.

Then we applied, then came the big waiting game. I’ve never waited so anxiously, for so long. October to March seemed like a very long time.

March finally came, and the few days leading up to it, all the papers were talking about how bad the school admissions process in London is and how oversubscribed. But still, I had my hopes up.

I thought I had a chance to get into my first choice. It was really the only school I wanted, but the other five on the list would’ve been okay. Unfortunately, I didn’t get my first choice. Or my second, or my third, or my fourth, or my fifth, or my sixth. I was allocated a place at a failing school, based only on the fact that it is the nearest to my house. I don’t even know where the school is, and have never even heard of it.

Meanwhile, I started receiving texts from my friends at school, telling me where they got a place. Most got their first choice and were texting happy emoijis. I had have to have my mom text them back to tell them my news, as I was so upset. I cried most of the night, and today is not much better. Now I’m stuck on waiting lists, in limbo, wondering if I will get in, hoping against all odds. My parents are talking about moving out the suburbs, but I want to stay and be near my friends as London is my home now.

I would to the government to know how difficult this process is and that there are probably hundreds of children in London feeling the same way I do. New schools need to be built, the system needs to be improved. Children should not have to go through this amount of worrying at this young age, just to get a proper education. In most places, the most worrisome educational application comes at age 18 for university, not age 10/11 for secondary school. Please fix this process, so that other children living in London don’t feel like I do today, the day after National Offer Day.

Bolognese- possibly because a) that's no longer true, b) this girl presumably did not pass any of those exams she did all that awful prep for.

The exams etc were the parent's fault/ pressure, they're not compulsory. How does she know it's a failing school if she hadn't heard of it? You need to manage your expectations better.

There will be movement on the waiting lists of the other six schools, especially if you are in an area where private education is an option for some.
You also have the right to appeal.
You mention that the school is a failing school, what is the OFSTED rating?

I do feel very sorry for you and your dd, this is an awful place to be.

BUT the number one advice on any place about school places is that you must use one of your 6 choices to put down a school that you will get into. Either by distance or because it is not over subscribed.

It does sound as if you put down 6 schools, all of which were a risk in terms of being too far away etc.

You do have a school place, in a school which is close to your house. You are very lucky to have a place, given that you did not put down a realistic school on your application form.

I am very sorry that you are in this situation.
I also think that the exams, tests etc that you put your dd through are not typical of the system, and have led to her feeling so rubbish now. Lesson learnt in terms of managing a child's expectations.

Probably echoing everyone here (except for the unnecessary nasty "go home" comments) by saying that OP seems to have combined the worst of the process (the stress and the pressure and the obsessive nature of it) without getting the good side that comes with it, ie that with so much obsession, lots of the sound advice is actually well documented, such as

1. visit everything
2. book as sure a pick as possible at the bottom of your CAF
3. at 10/11 this is not a university pick or even GCSE revisions, and therefore stress should be all yours, not the child's, and bigging up all alternatives is a must precisely in the event of what is currently happening to you.

It's all done now so spilled milk now but I think it's important to stress this because this attitude that something wrong has been done to you (when the process effectively has worked as intended) and reluctance to take the allocated place will do you and your DC no good when/if it comes to the appeal process.

Practically, you need to take the place, cheer up your DC, try to see if the waiting lists work their way towards you until the fall, and look as some of the non competitive indies which I am sure would take late applications such as yours if you did some convincing.

PS: note here, OP, that I like many others have taken your comment at face value, ignoring the possibility that this is a manufactured vitality play of some sort. Hopefully I am not wrong there, and in any case, a child with such creative writing abilities will probably do well anywhere. There, I said it.

... and a primary HT telling you to reject your offered school also clearly knows little about the allocations/appeals process either.

reputation is an odd thing when it comes to schools.

There is one secondary in our area with the highest scores, an Ofsted outstanding, is a lead school/wins awards etc etc.

Some parents won't touch it/look at it or even consider it, because when they were at school, there was a notorious racist incident there. - 20 years ago!!

Having said that, we went to look at it, and didn't like it at all, felt like an exam factory, I did not get the feeling that it had good pastoral care.
I also know parents whose kids go there and are very happy.

rebeccapm Interesting that you managed to find out all you needed to know to ensure your DD could

• Take a bunch of entrance exams
• Undertake months of studying (I assume you researched study material and/or tutors)
• Do extra practice exams
• Spend weekends taking tests
• Visit schools (but not your nearest non academically selective one)
• Be in the catchment for those academically selective schools that the test were for.

But you couldn't manage to find out the name and location of your nearest non academically selective state.

You may want to bear in mind that your nearest non academically selective school may have earned its (possilby undeserved) reputation by being compared to the academically selective schools that your DD was trying to get into.

I wonder what the head actually said.

It could simply have been 'no, no, don't send her there' rather than 'what you need to do now is reject the offer'.

The first version strikes me as quite likely, as offers only came out yesterday evening and OP had caught the head before she posted this morning. So the head may have been under-prepared. Though of course, there are occasional examples of heads getting the admissions procedures spectacularly wrong, which would be the case if the actual words were closer to the second version.

Most of these replies are unnecessarily cruel. This mother is being judged without even a chance to say her adult version of events. And in a website where, as a foregin mum, I have come to learn about the "English system" you recommend her to learn better and I've seen a vast majority of well-off parents discussing grammar and selective public schools without an ounce of a problem with putting their children under inexplicable pressure. Some even stating their democratic right to make their children sit grammar schools exams as practice for their favoured public ones. Now, when reading a non-happy end story, you go for this mother's jugular?

Parents put way too much pressure on their kids and share too much. I tell my son all the choices are good and then he benefits of the one he has been allocated. Best not to share your stress with your kids, they dont need to know everything.

This was not written by a 10 year old.

ZOMBIE this thread is 3 years old
@florencia why did you ressurect it?