It’s got to that time in his life already… We need to help Lil Man make some decisions now, so we can fill in the relevant application forms in a few months time.
He has one year left after this one in Junior school and will then embark on his journey at ‘BIG’ school! Aaarrrgghh! When did he get old enough to do that? I’d love to keep him here, under my watchful eye, wrapped up in cotton wool but that is just silly, I know. The thought of big school and my petite Lil Man is scary enough, without the added stress of where to apply!
There are still Grammar Schools here in our area which children sit the 11+ for. Usually the more academic children go there, are pushed more. These are the kids who everyone expects to do well, go to university etc.
In our Indian culture, academia, studying, passing with flying colours is a great thing. Everyone wants their children to do well, regardless of their capabilities. I have seen, during my work at school, children tutored to to the end of their minds, to pass the 11+, only to gain entry into the hallowed Grammar School, and spend the next 7 years struggling.
But it’s ok, at least the parents can say with pride that their child has gone to Grammar!
This is where I am wondering, am I thinking right or wrong for my son? He is a bright little thing, loves reading and writing, tries so hard in Maths, enjoys the topic work he does, and excels at sports.
The thing is, though his enthusiasm is great, in Maths his actual achievement is not above average, or even average, for that matter. Though he loves what he does, is a little sponge, collecting facts and remembering them, he is not Mr Academic.
I know what Grammar School entails, and unless a switch flicks somewhere in his brain sometime soon, I fear if I push him to sit this test, after tutoring, and he somehow gets in, he will be the one who is at rock bottom in school, for the next 7 years.
Actually I don’t believe in tutoring to pass tests like these. If they need that much extra help, surely that indicates that it is possibly beyond a child’s reach?
I have bought him the home help books for the 11+ test, and I am fully behind him if he WANTS to take it. I’ll help him at home if that’s what it takes, but I can’t and will not force him.
If he doesn’t get to Grammar School who cares? Isn’t it better to go to one of the local schools, and be one of the above average, or average pupils, rather than spend a large chunk of his academic life feeling like he’s the thicko of the class?
I’d love some feedback on what you think…
The 11+ – To Sit or Not To Sit?
02 Feb 2015 6 Comments
in Children, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: 11+ Test, Blog, Blogging, children, Decisions, Opipinions, Secondary school
But I Smile Anyway... 
Mar 04, 2015 @ 03:47:46
Ritu,
Being good at Maths is not the be-all and end-all of all things. And Indian parents around you may want to send their children to Grammar schools but if your child is not going to be happy there, then with his consent , take a decision to keep him to the local school until he is ready to go elsewhere. Maybe you have a future cricket team or footballer out there, who does not need mathematical skills to flourish !
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Mar 04, 2015 @ 07:04:08
Exactly! Well he’s a mean Dhol drummer, plays football and is pretty good at badminton too… So I know he’ll do something good… Oh, and he loves to write… Might spell wrong, but he loves it!!
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Feb 02, 2015 @ 13:52:43
I agree with Ellen Hawley. Children sometimes need to be encouraged to excel in areas where they might barely get by, but forcing him to become a scholar when he has other interests won’t turn him into a scholar.
I know from personal experience with the dreaded Maths (at which I was dismal) that my resistance and seeming inability to grasp the concepts was that I couldn’t visualize practical applications for most of it. It was too much a rote exercise as taught, boring.
I got good grades in everything but subjects like geometry and algebra. The expectation was I’d go to the university (which I ultimately did), but Maths was my weakest area.
Later, when I worked in Quality Assurance in a factory that made industrial and hydraulic hoses, I worked through some problems in scrap where I knew how much total scrap I had by weight, but needed to figure what part of the gross weight was hose and what part was mandrel (an extruded wire-reinforced core used in hose manufacture – removal of which gives you the hole in hose).
I knew I had (for this example) 100 pounds of scrap with mandrel in it. I knew from the factory engineering specification that one foot of mandrel-less hose weighed 0.1 pound and the mandrel used in it weighed .25 pounds. I quickly calculated out the mandrel weight in the 100 pounds of scrap, then gasped: I’d used algebra to find x, the unknown mandrel weight in the hose scrap!
So that was what two poor old algebra teachers were trying to get across to me all those long hours! Eureka! I get it! I’d made this calculation in countless situations over years of work, but hadn’t really given thought to what I did to get the answer other than I know what I did worked, was simple, and — now! — was simple algebra! Yes, algebra had practical use in the real world, something I couldn’t imagine as a kid.
Other Maths similarly had work applications I didn’t think about because I just plugged values into formats on a speadsheet without thinking about how or why the numbers came out.
Once I understood the value of these tools, I found how to apply them in elaborate spreadsheets that allowed me to do fairly complex analyses of work scrap problems. I became very excited about Maths, then, and wished I’d had this same spark when I was a student.
I tell you all this so you can feel better about your decision to let your son find his own level. He will find something he likes and he will do well in it. It may not be what you or he think is his strong suit now, but it will be something that gives him the joy of understanding something in ways few others do!
I think my biggest moment of pure Maths joy was when I discovered an error in a complex formula used in design of experiments in a book that was written by one of the experts in the field. It was a typographical error in a formula (a missed “-” sign) that I found by reading the text description of the calculations and potential results, and that was so arcane I couldn’t believe I, Mr. Anti-Maths, actually discovered it on my own. At least three of my old maths teachers rolled over in their graves at that moment, and one or two had fatal heart attacks!
Your son will do fine!
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Feb 02, 2015 @ 10:59:44
I’m not a parent, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I think letting him have an opinion on this is great. If he wants to do it, he will have made a choice. If he doesn’t, again, he will have made a choice. He may learn more from the fact of choosing and exploring the results of that choice than he would in however many years of school.
And, speaking as someone whose math is and was always abysmal, I sympathize with him. I was good in other subjects, but in math the wonder is that I scraped by at all.
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Feb 02, 2015 @ 18:30:28
Thank you for your opinion Ellen!
I am all for him trying if he wants, I’ll be there totally, its just the tutoring I don’t agree with, and the typical Indian attitude that kids HAVE to go Grammar to be considered anything!!
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