Beating the system?
The other night we went round to the neighbours for a curry. Instinct encourages me to describe them as a 'young couple' but really they are not that much younger than us, it's just that their children are young, 9 and 5. As is usual we got on to the topic of schools, education, 11-plus. Yes, we live in one of the areas that openly selects children for a type of school. Now all my children have waved goodbye to that traumatic period of their lives I think I may be more censorious of the process. At the time we only had cause to question whether one of our lovelies would 'be selected' (you must not say passed or failed). After a chat with her teacher, where we were advised that "he could teach a monkey to pass the 11-plus, but would it do the monkey any good?", we took the decision not to enter that offspring for selection, but send her out of county to the nearest church school, which was a well spoken of comprehensive. The other two, as predicted, were selected for grammar schools. Well, to get back to our neighbours........ their 9 year-old son is already being coached to be selected (pass). It turns out that nearly all the pupils in his year, at all the local junior schools, are attending tutors. I'm amazed, horrified really, on several counts.
Why train a child to perform well in a certain type of test when s/he is probably not suited to that type of education?
It is devaluing the test itself, it makes it a screening tool only capable of indicating whose parents have the financial ability to provide tutoring.
It disriminates against children, who may be very able, but who come from a less affluent background.
There are practice papers available in the local bookshops, whats wrong with parents spending time with their little einsteins and doing the tutoring themselves? At least that way they may appreciate that although little Jimmy can achieve a high score in verbal reasoning he is actually not a high flyer academically and that to enter him into an extremely academic environment may not be the best choice. It could stress him +++, he may decide that since he never achieves, however hard he works, to give up, and what often seems to happen, in this area, is that the parents have to employ tutors to help their hard-pressed child get any where near the standard expected of him/her.
The more I have dwelt on this, the more angry about the whole selection proceedure, I have become.
I have finished decorating, making curtains, lampshades etc. for the grandchilds 'room away from home'. My lawnmower is still with the repair man so my grass is now of meadow proportions. My obsession with E-Bay continues, kooshie nappies and a new computer being my objectives at the moment, and Jack has gained 300gms since he was born.
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(11.5.04 00:00) got a space on your soap box for a gobby one. Children should be outside plaing not being crammed, from a class of 30 children 12 would be expected to pass teh 11+ of those 12, 4 would have gone on to university, and now they expect 50% to go........... try getting a plumber, or a find a nurse that does real nursing not admin, I read form the painting table that a yong nurse had told a journalist that she hadn't got a degrre to wipe bums.......(basic nursing skill I bellive) |