"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?)

If the aim is to teach OMAM but do it in an age appropriate way, then for an 11 year old that means to ignore a lot of the book's context and to gloss over many of the representations in the text.

So can I ask which themes are unsuitable for 11yos ? Obviously we did it too young so I may not truly understand. The depression of the '30s had great resonance in '88 in Thatcher's Britain, so I don't think we struggled too much with that. We understood the co-dependancy of the 2 men and spoke about other examples both in literature and film but also in our lives of such relationships. We already had an understanding of the apartheid system and slavery (thanks to South Africa and Nelson Mandela, also opening scene of Dumbo and Gone with the Wind). Rape was as it is now constantly in the news and there was a particular case I remember of a 14 yo girl from NI who was refused to come to the UK for an abortion following a rape. Then there is the concept of merciful killing, with echoes of euthanasia, which we also debated regularly.

If don't study it till yr 10 when do you do Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen

Hopefully never, in the case of Austen.

If not Austen what about Blake or Forster ?

Also reflecting on this (and I do need to get on with my day shortly) we all were familiar with the Bible from a very young age, where there is plenty of murder (of babies even, Herod anyone ?) some rape and lots about sex. So I that sense we were quite worldly. I do worry about these 11 year olds who are totally protected from such things, I can't help thinking it makes them vulnerable.

I don't think the news is an appropriate things for children to watch at all. Details of murders, missing people, genocides, children starving to death, bridges collapsing. There are some really awful things discussed in detail on the news that are not suitable for small ears. There is so much bias and very little positive.

I don't watch the news, if I do after a few days my mood gets very low. I flick through a news website daily, that's it.

Newsround is okay - they watch that at school and we discuss it if they come home with questions. Anything more I think will have mental health repercussions.

We are a family of academics and have bright children, they don't need to watch the news. Do you encourage these young people to think critically about the news item they discuss with you?

So can I ask which themes are unsuitable for 11yos ?
False allegations of sexual assaults
Using false allegations as a death threat
Many of the representations of women

Teaching OMAM to 11 year olds sounds like the curriculum decision is being made based on what books are in the store cupboard rather than what offers a good quality, age-appropriate study of literature.

I don't think it's making 11 year olds vulnerable to select any one of the brilliant books that are age-appropriate over selecting the one you have loads of copies of from when the GCSE specification changed.

I wonder how many of these kids who are being sheltered from the news also have mobile phones? If they are not in social media they soon will be by the time they reach secondary school. IMO this is far more likely to impact young people negatively than watching the 6pm news with parents who can explain and discuss what is happening.

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?)

Indeed. But why let the truth get in the way of a satisfyingly indignant response? Whether I let my dc read the news age 10 or not, I'd certainly have chatted with them about a few current issues before sending them off to an interview. I never watch the tv news, but I do talk to my children about current affairs.

I was 11 in 1986, I don't think the GSCE curriculum had changed yet ! False allegations of sexual assault are highly relevant in today's world. Discussions around consent cannot start too young IMO and it is important for young people to understand that universal suffering and inclusively is a relatively recent and precious thing- how can teaching that be wrong ?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Certificate_of_Secondary_Education#:~:text=GCSEs%20were%20introduced%20in%20September,A%2DLevels%20or%20university%20degrees.

Universal sufferage not suffering !

SilverGlitterBaubles
That's a very good point about social media. I'd like to think that parents who take the time to think about how they wan to keep their children informed about the world without sticking the adults news and/or arguing primary aged children should have access to almost anything because otherwise they're vulnerable/need toughening up/are wrapped in cotton wool/are being mollycoddled are probably parents who also take a sensible approach to technology as well.

Primary aged children with unlimited or almost unlimited access to social media and the internet in their pocket is a safeguarding nightmare waiting to happen.

I'm always seeing people on here expressing outrage that 16yos or students or young trainees at their workplace (or whatever) don't know a whole bunch of really basic things about the world. Knowledge takes years and years and years to build up. Watching the news with parents from the second half of primary school onwards, and talking through bits of what you see, having words and concepts explained to you, is a good start. It's daft to "shield" children from current affairs until they are at some indeterminate point in their teens, and then immediately get angry and upset about them not suddenly and immediately developing wide-ranging knowledge of a whole bunch of things at that point.

If we're worried about kids' mental health, heavily restricting mobile phones and social media is what we should be doing. Not keeping them away from the news.

I was 11 in 1986, I don't think the GSCE curriculum had changed yet !
It's changed several times since then!

OMAM was removed from GCSE almost 10 years ago

There's some text changes going through this year as well.

I have protected my DCs from all scary news during covid and stopped watching news myself. Does it make me a bad mother? I don't think so.
We talk about Ukraine, Palestine and, to a lesser extend, climate change and I am sure that is quite enough for them. A 10yo does not need to sit and watch the news every evening.

I am saying it hadn't changed in '86

What's the GCSE specification in 1986 got to do with whether Of Mice and Men is an appropriate book for 11 year olds though?

There's a wealth of literature out there covering a range of themes and genres and sadly it doesn't always translate into a broad range of decent, appropriate English texts in Year 7-9. OMAM makes sense in Year 9. It doesn't for Year 7.

Fairislefandango
I think where the stronger responses come from is that some people seem to believe that if you don't stick the adult news on and expose your primary school age children to anything and everything that's going on then you're somehow mollycoddling them and responsible for young adults not knowing anything about the world. It's not surprising people would disagree with that.

To be honest I'm happy showing newsround and age appropriate children's news. I still think the interview question that the OP chose is a poor-quality interview question. They could gain much more insight on a child by asking them about a topic that interests them rather than what their views are on the Ukraine situation.

LolaSmiles

Some one suggested it given in yr7 because they had a pile of them in the cupboard from when it was dropped from the GCSE syllabus. I was saying that couldn't have been a consideration when I studied it in yr 7 in 1986.

Some one suggested it given in yr7 because they had a pile of them in the cupboard from when it was dropped from the GCSE syllabus. I was saying that couldn't have been a consideration when I studied it in yr 7 in 1986.

I might have missed an earlier post about your school days, but you said your DCs studied it in year 7, and they're 18 and 16 now. That means that when they were in Year 7, OMAM was a GCSE text on the specifications, and one that was commonly studied by a lot of schools.

When OMAM was removed from GCSE, many schools did move it into Key Stage 3 because they already had the texts in the cupboard.

It's not commonly recommended as a text for 11 year olds. Even in schools today it's more common for OMAM to be used as a bridging text in Year 9 to prepare students for GCSE, not as a year 7 class reader.

Anyway there's a fairly obvious difference between a parent deciding what their personal approach to sharing content with their children is and making curriculum decisions for whole cohorts of 11 year olds.

@LolaSmiles it isn’t about that if you don’t expose your children that you are somehow mollycoddling them. It is more that selective schools are looking for children who can perform at the highest level. The real world is a big part of that. For instance in RS my children started debating very difficult philosophical questions from day 1. (Way way harder than what I did 30 years ago). They bring in real world issues into these debates. The schools also have variations of Model UN/politics society/ debating club which they will be looking for some of the children to engage with. One of my children had to write an essay on decarbonisation when in early teens so it helped to have a bit of real world knowledge she had built up over the years from the news.

it isn’t about that if you don’t expose your children that you are somehow mollycoddling them. It is more that selective schools are looking for children who can perform at the highest level. The real world is a big part of that.
Again, you're conflating understanding about 'the real world' with having access to large amounts of news content that is designed for adult consumption.

They are not the same thing.

Children are not more academically able because their parents give them adult news content whilst patting themselves on the back for how great a parent they are.

The OP could have asked:
"Tell us about a topic or issue that interests you"
Or
"What do you think is a big issue in the world today?"
Or another similarly open ended questions that allows children to draw on their wider experiences and interests.

But they didn't. They focused on what do you think about something on the news/tell us your views on climate change/tell us your views of the Ukraine war. That says everything about the OP and that they're only looking for children in their image, not rounded children with a lot of academic potential.

It’s not my experience of selective schools in any case. I agree it’s an odd way to select.

The idea that dc need to answer this question to perform at highest level isn’t necessary, and can lead to selection not based on talent / academics. Which is why some schools are very careful about questions they use.

Who knew OMAM was such a hot topic ? I think DS did it in yr 7 (SS grammar school) they "skipped" much yr7 content TBH. His text books in yr7 were all yr8 or yr9. In keeping with that he did his GCSE maths at the end of yr10 (with half the year) so he may experienced an accelerated KS3 curriculum. Dd was in yr8 at the first lockdown and she definitely covered it before then, it may have been 1st half of year 8.

2 to 3 candidates is not that much out of total number. Not watching news is also not that much of an issue. But if one has to use every single awake moment to revision for exam, then future potential is limited.

11+ interviews that are asking a 10 year old how much of an adult they are seem completely worthless to me. What is the aim of the interview process after all? Is it really to select only children who are already living like mini-adults?