GD terrified of 11+

I am sad that there is such stress for children throughout their school lives. It does seem to be the way of the world nowadays in the never ending effort to make all people the same. It will never work as we know that children develop at their own pace and they are not the same.
One of my friends is teaching her year 6 pupils lessons which she learnt in her teens and says the youngsters don't have the maturity to understand what they are learning. The brighter ones can learn parrot fashion but even they don't understand what could be the point/application of what they are supposed to be learning.

There seem to be far more exams nowadays than there ever were from the very first school day. DD teaches little ones in their first year of 'proper' school and she hates the sats system which even her 'babies' have to sit, most of whom don't know what on earth is going on. Could be because they cannot read or write!? Teachers are not allowed to grade them nowadays in order to spare them such stress. Some of the children in her class are not even able to cope with ordinary lessons and are only there because the parents wish them to be in mainstream school in order to be seen as normal. The teachers are not allowed to recommend a more suitable school to the parents which seems ridiculous. You can understand the aspiration but it is insensitive in many ways because the children struggle so much and are often very unhappy.
The other side of the coin is the grading of the teachers based on the improvenent shown in their next Sats results which the teachers know from day 1 is not going to happen. It is little wonder that some of the results really appear to be skewed when the teacher gets to know their new pupils and wonders how on earth a particular child was credited with the marks shown on their record. At this point the raised eyebrows tell the story.

I am just a granny who would like children to enjoy their school days - so what do I know except that commonsense has gone.

pollyperkins the one thing I did learn from my grammar school was that we were all very, very stupid girls. (A stream too.)

We learnt that we had to work as there was no way that the teacher could open up the top of our head and pour the knowledge in!

A pity really!

I've often wondered if putting on headphones and listening to something eg a language, whilst you sleep at night could work

HM999 my DGD1 has opted not to take the 11+. She lives in the north of Buckinghamshire and will be going to a non-selective secondary comprehensive school. I believe selective secondary modern schools for those not achieving grammar school standard are called community schools.

There are so many different types of 'clever' . Kids who have good memories, those who find it easy to learn by rote, those who 'get' non verbal reasoning, those who know instinctively how to solve problems, those who see patterns, articulate kids, kids who look at paintings and can talk about them, kids who dance spontaneously, kids etc etc. who have great social /empathy skills..the list is long. Sadly we seem to place greater value on certain skills and not on others yet we need people with different skills & abilities to make our world go round.

NfK Any school can be called a community school, it doesn't mean anything, except perhaps it has community-based activities evenings/weekends. In some areas, all schools have community in their title. Similarly a school describing itself as non-selective could be in an area which has selection, hence would have been referred to as a secondary modern years ago.
It seems Milton Keynes is the only Bucks area with no selection. And though the newish secondary in Winslow describes itself as comprehensive, I'd be surprised if some Y6 didn't apply to the Aylesbury or Buckingham grammars, hence stopping the secondary from being comprehensive..

PollyPerkins I totally agree.

Mandeville describes itself as a non-selective comprehensive, so I think the non-selective bit must apply to the children who opt not to take the test as obviously many are creamed off for the Aylesbury Grammars. I feel sure I read somewhere that the equivalent of secondary moderns are called Community Schools, but I can’t find where now. It seems a bit of a muddle.

Community schools tend to be those still overseen by a Local Authority rather than Academies /Free Schools.

There is no big deal about grammar schools. They do what they say on the tin:- provide a fast track academic education for those able to profit from it. There are other aspects to a person, yes, and sometimes the very able do not have the other life skills to succeed in life so grammar school is not a free pass.

But - Shakespeare, Coleridge, Pepys, Marvell, Berners Lee (amongst many others.) Do you really think they didn’t add to the sum of human happiness? Grammar school pupils who would not have flourished without their early education.

But the OP’s concerns are real. If the child in question is this bothered about the eleven plus she perhaps should not be put through it.

My DD did an Oxford interview and was not offered a place. It was a relief as even she says, being nervous, she would never have coped with the tutorial system. She went elsewhere and got her first.

Horses for courses.

Grammar school pupils who would not have flourished without their early education.
But most of those people were educated in the days when many children left school at 12 or 14 - if they went at all.
Not Berners Lee, obviously.

My DH attended same grammar school as Berners Lee but was a couple of yrs older. DH failed his A levels & did them again by correspondence course and did well! We are still in regular contact with several of DH school chums. All did OK but nothing special! No more than my school mates at the comp! At the time it was a gramnar for bright working class boys from mostly the local Clapham Junction area. ..it gave them aspiration beyond their fathers' brown collar jobs.There were middle class boys too..one of our gang was the son of a doc. They lived in the suburbs & obv. did not do well enough to get into his local grammar!

Where I live, primary school children have to take three lots of tests per year! I don’t understand how parents have decided to comply with this. Mind you, the teachers do say to them, ‘oh it’s no pressure it’s just for the government’.

The non grammars in some areas are also selective. Our local RC secondary is.

In other areas alternatives to grammar are church schools who non church goers won't get into.

There isn't a comp on every corner.

Its not actually that optional in some areas.

I'm amazed every time this subject comes up and there are a few posts from people who seem to believe the only way to get a 'good' education is to go to the Grammar School. The 11plus is socially divisive, extremely destructive for bright young people who don't pass. To say that by age 5, it's possible to identify who will pass is nonsense. As someone (was it Jalima) said earlier, the pass rate depends on the number of places. Traditionally, there were more places for boys than girls. A pass in one town would be a fail 4 miles down the road. disgusting way to treat children.
The move to bring back secondary moderns, as this government seem set on doing, despite not having a mandate so to do, will cause even further damage to our education system.
I agree that exams like GCSE aren't for everyone and deplore the lack of what used to be called technical education. We don't need to banish comprehensive education in order to make it possible for some children to study technical/practical subjects rather than GCSE.

IAM64 I'm amazed that people still think that there are an abundance of comprehensive school places available all over the place!

There is no "comprehensive" school near me.

There is a science academy

Church schools (one exam selective, all require church involvement)

Grammar

Private

Another that requires a bus pass that costs HUNDREDS of pounds to get to.

No comp

Most comps became academies and free schools have been used to provide school places that should have been provided by comps, but weren't, the job was outsourced and the money given to a whole spectrum of groups who run them as they please.

Some academies are great but many are themed. Next town over's local girls secondary academy is deeply sexist, offering mostly "girl" subjects like dance and drama and childcare/health and social care.

Our local academy for secondary is a science academy, great if your kid is into science, there are few resources for languages and other arts though.

These academies are okay if the theme matches your childs interests, otherwise youre going to be putting a square peg in a round hole.

Do people really think that traditional comprehensive schools still exist?

I can't name one in any of our surrounding towns.

As someone (was it Jalima) said earlier, the pass rate depends on the number of places
Yes, it was me; I remember that our local grammar school for boys was larger than the high school for girls - so girls had to achieve a higher 'pass rate' than boys.

there are few resources for languages and other arts though.
I'm not sure how many language teachers we are producing now; a young relative was offered several jobs as there appears to be a shortage.

Do people really think that traditional comprehensive schools still exist?
Well, they do in Wales.

According to Full Fact Secondary Schools in England 2017:
62% Academies, 31% LA, 7% Free.
163 grammars.
77% of primary schools are still LA.

Where do church schools fit into that Mamie?

I know some of the more obscure religious schools are free schools (such as steiner etc) but RC and COE which are either exam/grade selective or church going selective or both? Most if them are not freeschools, but they take up a big chunk of secondary school places. Are they under academies or LA?

(I'm pretty sure our local RC and COE schools arent academies so must be under LA. They are not comps and they have sometimes more hoops to jump for admission than grammar does)

For church secondary admissions sometimes you have to pick your kids secondary school when they are 3/4 so that you get them into a church primary so that they'll get into the church secondary. I know parents who have kids unhappy in church primaries but won't move them because that would then rule out the church secondary.

At least with grammar you don't really have to decide if its for them until they're 9ish. And you can send them to whichever primary suits them best as there is no "feeder" system.

So in that way, grammar is the LESS "pushy parent" route

notanan - I now feel even more fed up, cross, irritated and all round angry about the way successive governments have interfered, not left education to the educators and subjected us to their non expert ideas of how things should be.
I'm in the north west. Our (deprived) town has several good or outstanding comprehensives. We were the first town to have a comprehensive school way back when Grammar Schools still existed here. One of mine went to the early comp, it's still going strong with outstanding exam results. Same for the C of E high school (yes, church attendance needed for entry, unless 6 th form, when it's exam passes). My younger children went there and had a happy, successful time. That is becoming an Academy, sadly. One of the other comprehensives has become a Church high school and an academy. Previously it was run by the council, very very well. It served a mixed area of huge post war social housing and 60s onwards private housing. It did wonderful work with 'difficult' children from tough backgrounds and achieved excellent exam results.
Things are changing, and not for the better. I have young grandchildren and fear for their future. Our local primary schools are still good/outstanding but what will happen in high schools with the death of LA in high schools I dread to think.