"My parents dont let me watch the news": reflections on 11+ interviews I have carried out

[hannaretch]

Over the past few weeks I have been carrying out 11+ interviews with new applicants to our school -independent day school, outside of London, thought of as the most academic school in our town.

I generally talk to the children for 20 minutes about their studies, hobbies etc and ask them to talk about themselves. The aim is to get an idea of who they are and whether they will fit in with the school ethos. We tend to interview almost all applicants as we feel that a good interview will allow us to get a better view of the individual even those with marginal entrance exam results. They get information on the type of questions they are likely to get before the day to allow them to prepare. We also ask them to bring in an item which they then talk about.

One of the standard questions I and others ask is along the lines of do you follow the news? Talk about a current news story/ what do think about Ukraine/ climate change? type thing. Nothing too major but it allows us to get an idea of their awareness of the world. Most are able to answer with basic knowledge and some understanding of the issues and it often leads to good discussions.

I was shocked that two or three of the ones I have interviewed this year stated that they werent allowed to watch the news and had no opinions/ ideas about the issues. Surely watching the news at 6 etc or online or even Newsround is basic preparation for life? (or school interview at least?)

I agree with @HighRopes I think, this feels like a question that is likely to end up playing into a class-biased selection process. That a child is able to say something coherent about Ukraine or COP will probably tell you more about their parents' education level than anything else. If you're looking to select students from highly educated family backgrounds then you're on the right track I guess.

I tended to let mine discover news/politics in their own time. I think climate change got discussed in a fairly systemic way as part of their primary education, other things (general elections, US presidential elections, major disasters and conflicts) tended to be addressed in PHSE at secondary. I'm a total news and politics junkie so they would hear me talking about it sometimes at home but i get my news from Twitter - never watch the tv news unless it's something really major and real time (eg COVID press conferences in the early days). So it wasn't on in the background at home most of the time.

Both of mine have done very well in education and are reasonably well-informed young men who take an interest in events. More importantly they hold their own views, not mine.

My DD is 16 and actively avoids the news as she says it just worries her too much. What a world we live in for it to be that bad.

Same. We were all in the lounge the other week and the news came on. The headline story was about a serial rapist. I'm sorry but I don't want my 10 year old listening to the details of that.

The majority of posters seem to have missed this:

Surely watching the news at 6 etc or online or even Newsround is basic preparation for life? (or school interview at least?)

So posting that you don't watch the news either, you get your news online, is missing the point. These kids aren't getting their news anywhere.

I do understand parents avoiding their kids watching the news, to be honest. I'd never have felt that way until recently, but Covid, followed by all the stuff that's happened recently, has been really worrying, even for adults. I stopped watching the news because I wasn't anyways in the frame of mind to hear and see upsetting stuff. But yes, I do get my news online, because I can choose when I'm in the right frame of mind to read, and I can choose whether or not to watch any video content and so on.

But yes, newsround is the answer for primary kids, and at 11, kids do need some awareness of what's happening in the world, and begin to have some opinions on it.

I did similar interviews for a London day school. We didn't ask about their news consumption (although the school itself often discussed news stories in assemblies, tried hard to teach critical thinking, etc). I think it's possible they didn't understand the question if it was phrased as "follow the news".

Something else to bear in mind is the customer group for this kind of school is i) moneyed and ii) often dual national. Their priorities are different to the average. For example the school had both Russian and Ukrainian heritage DCs (paying customers) and was educating a couple of Ukrainian refugees. That was tricky.

When I was at primary I remember discussions of the Ethiopian famine and Pol Pot in Cambodia. These were presented in a context of "What we can do to help" and were c00learly very far away. It was not like Ethiopian and Cambodian DCs were arriving at the schools needing places.

I think parents have to be careful about news nowadays. There are so many stories about missing women and DC for one thing. I had to ask a Premier Inn to turn off the breakfast news last summer that was being played on a gigantic screen at full volume in the bar where breakfast was being served. The lead story was the murdered girl in Liverpool, the same age as my DD. I didn't want her rare weekend trip to see her beloved grandparents to be mainly questions about whether she would be murdered...

I thought the news was soooooo boring at 11 but that reversed by the time I was 16 and my form tutor said I was very well informed.

Let the kids be kids as long as thry can. I was only interested in my bike, games and books at 11.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s. We watched newshound, then the 60o clock news every day. 6o clock news was dad's choice. As was the daily mirror. It was normal. It didn't make me anxious, but it did make me informed. The news today isn't any worse than thefamines in Africa, recession,child abductions, tory sleaze and umpteen foreign wars of my youth. But people seem less able to cope with it so bury their heads in the sand.

We've brought our kids up to watch/ listen to the news and we talk about it with them. I want curious, informed kids. Currently less successful with dc2, but we'll get there.

I can’t watch the news. I get the brief from the week to get top 10 news bulletin of the day. I protected my kids from the news when small (tho newsround at school, the week junior at home — accessible but not shoved down their throats). We sometimes talk about news stories at dinner. Two of my DC definitely tend to anxiety- climate anxiety in particular - and I want home to be a safe place they can retreat to if they want. I do think they miss out not getting random R4 in the car, but my car radio is broken so …,

I think you have a point here!

Plus, it's a little random which news stories matter the most. The OP has decided that climate change and Ukraine are the most important news stories because that's what the BBC had told her to think. What if the children come from families that believe the uyghur genocide is the most important issue of the day and don't consider the Ukraine war to be more important than any of the other many conflicts around the world? It's a little myopic to have "must be regularly subjected to mainstream media propaganda" as an entry requirement for school.

I would also love to hear, OP, what would you do if the kids have the "wrong" opinion? For example, if they were to say that Russian-speakers in Ukraine were treated brutally and the West provoked Putin into invading because many of our leaders are gunning for WW3? Or if they'd said that there isn't enough evidence to say that climate change is man made? Would they only have passed the entry if they'd backed down and agreed with you? Could you have accepted they think differently and still admitted them? Is it really just an 'awareness' that you're looking for or do they need to think like you/ the BBC?

Yeah I did too and I dont believe my life as a kid was in any way enriched or enhanced by it.
Why is everyone so obsessed with kids ‘growing up’ 10 year olds arnt babies but they are still kids. They have a whole life of adult misery horrors and scepticism ahead of them. No need to start it at 10.

Thing is OP, the news isn’t like it was when you and I were young. It’s become vastly sensationalist and over-dramatic, and often contains graphic and gratuitous descriptions of torture/murder. It creates a feeling of helplessness and depression by constantly bombarding the viewer with horrific situations that the viewer can do nothing about, and mainly spreads fear. (Look at all the threads on here by women scared to go dog walking after reading the last week’s news.)

Absolutely my 10 yr old child is not allowed to freely watch the adult news. He can watch Newsround, but in the last few years I have to keep an eye on the CBBC’s constant flow of propaganda encouraging children to become transgender and police free speech, the accompanying promotion of sexist stereotypes and surgery, and the advertising of dubious ‘charities’ where adult men are keen to discuss sex and sexuality with children.

If something historic happens like covid announcements or Prime Ministers coming and going (as they seem to so often!) I’ll show him a news clip. He’s well aware of the political situation with Ukraine, Russia and China but does not need to read the graphic daily accounts of mothers grieving their murdered sons.

He reads The Week Junior and I sometimes show him BBC website articles, if I can find one without rape/murder/torture in it. I wouldn’t let him read this which is on the BBC front page today for example. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63942615

If you think ten year olds should watch tales of rape/murder/torture then I’m quite glad that we don’t fit in with your school ethos. 👀

Children in the UK have some of the worst child mental health in the world, and that’s mostly down to our schools. Just something to think about.

Hmm, maybe others simply have more empathy than you do. Ever think that?

I question whether the OP's question is an effective way of establishing a child's potential to be honest.

Firstly they're making an assumption about a child's home life and likely to get some class bias in there as well, which isn't about a child's academic potential.

Then they're making a decision about what THEY consider the big issues of the day are, and judging a child based on whether the child knows about an arbitrary news event.

It seems like the OP's line of questioning is less about establishing a child's potential or whether the child could excel in the school and more about whether the child is the 'right social fit' aka 'are they like us and from the right type of family?'.

I've never really rationed news. Yes, horrible things happen but it's part of life and forms a basis for safe discussions.

The kids that I know, lovely as they are, who are wrapped in cotton wool, are generally the most anxious tbh. I sometimes wonder whether this lack of resilience might be behind the significant increase in mental health issues in the young nowadays?

I always think that, way back in the day, kids on average started working at 10! Of course, not harking back to the past but I think kids have the capacity, if we let them, to cope with more than we think.

Saying that, even if kids are offered to watch the news, it's not given that all kids show equal interest. I have two who are not the slightest bit interested, and one who is.

Also believe that a printed paper is much better for ensuring a wider range of news is on offer. Online you tend to go down a rabbit hole of being signposted to 'similar' stories.

I’m laughing out loud that you think watching main stream news develops critical thinking skills! Quite the opposite!

Couldn’t agreed more and this is why I won’t encourage my 10 year old to watch news.
A previous poster above actually wrote that if you don’t watch the news you won’t develop critical thinking skills. I mean how ironic can you get?

For those of you recommending the week junior, can you advise on its reporting of women's and trans issues etc, please? Do they report in a very TWAW style or are they more balanced?

I think it’s quite dangerous to shield children from the harsh realities of life. We always let DS watch the news but I do remember FIL and MIL criticising us. We talked about it, we still do at the dinner table. I found him reading the paper with his feet on the table, it was The Guardian before it lost the plot when he was 7, it’s not a stealth boast it’s an actual boast as he was such an advanced reader. He got told off for feet on the table.

Maybe children need to develop grit prior to adolescence in order to safeguard their mental health.

@LolaSmiles

Firstly they're making an assumption about a child's home life and likely to get some class bias in there as well, which isn't about a child's academic.

The OP was interviewing children for entry to a selective private school. I’m not sure how much they’re worried about a class bias.

Week Junior is excellent. I quite enjoy reading it myself and we discuss it together. We don't watch the news on tv as a family.

The OP was interviewing children for entry to a selective private school. I’m not sure how much they’re worried about a class bias
Many independent schools offer bursaries and scholarships.

Not all families, even naice middle class ones, sit down together round the 6pm news to discuss the day's events.

Plenty of families who have the money for private education are only just getting in from work when the news starts, and are likely to have other things they need to do when they get through the door.

At our local private schools you've got very wealthy parents with one SAHP parents right through to children there because grandparents pay the fees, others have bursaries and scholarships for certain areas, other have parents working long hours and cutting back many other areas to afford the fees.

The assumption that sitting round the telly at 5/6pm to watch the news together is absolutely assuming a certain type of household.

The OP choosing this type of questioning in an interview suggests they are more about getting people in the OP's image from households who do things the OP's way than they are learning anything meaningful about the child and the child's potential.

Yeah, because its so precise in revealing the school and the pupils concerned....and not useful info to the thousands of parents stressed out by 11+....

The OP choosing this type of questioning in an interview suggests they are more about getting people in the OP's image from households who do things the OP's way than they are learning anything meaningful about the child and the child's potential

When I was a child I looked at the news at 6 and Newsround and my parents discussed global world news with me. For my own kids, I do the same, we often watch newsround on iplayer and discuss the issues raised. To me its nothing to do with 'an image' or class, but all about intelligence.

I find it weird that you think a well rounded child knows nothing of current affairs aged 10. Mine are younger and aware of climate change, world poverty, at 6 they could tell you who the prime minister was and who's in charge in America and Russia and why those countries are important.

If you do not expose your child to some form of mainstream media, then they will grow up with (fake) news fed to them on Twitter, facebook or social media. They would not have enough of a base level of knowledge or critical thinking skills to know what is truth and what is propaganda/sales/clickbait.

Children have had to digest some pretty rough news growing up. It is sad that some children don't have the choice (those in or fled Ukraine) and others have parents who consciously decide their children don't need to know.

This level of anxiety in the general population in peacetime just seems unprecedented.