11 plus agony...

This is a big week for the Smith clan. Any of you with 10/11 year old children will know that 1st March is “National Offer Day” where local education authorities send out to parents notification of which secondary school their child will attend. Elliot starts secondary school this September and so we will discover later this week which school he is going to.

For many parents in many areas, this is a “no-brainer” as they simply have local comprehensive schools with a catchment area and all kids in that area go to that school. However in Essex things are rather more complicated than that!

We still have a partial 2-tier system in Essex and have some selective grammar schools – 1 boys and 1 girls grammar in both Chelmsford and Colchester and 2 of each in Southend (1 of which was my old school). There are also a number of schools which select by different criteria – 1 we looked at was mainly Roman Catholic but took some Christian children active in other denominations. 1 other specialised in languages and so would take children with extensive foreign connections.

We looked at all of them in September around the time we had to submit to the local authority our choice of 4 schools in order of preference. After a lot of debate, we came up with the following list:

1. King Edward VII (boys grammar school in Chelmsford, 2-miles from our house)
2. Southend High for Boys (my old school in Southend)
3. Westcliff High for Boys (the other boys grammar school in Southend)
4. Chelmer Valley (our local catchment comprehensive – about ½ mile from us)

In order to get into the top 3 preferences there is an entrance exam – thankfully run as a common entrance exam for all boys and girls grammar schools across Essex. This consists of tests in English, Maths and Verbal Reasoning all sat on the same day last November.

To further complicate matters the 3 selective schools operate different entry criteria. Both the schools in Southend reserve a certain number of places for local boys who reach a defined “pass mark”. Non-local boys (like Elliot) compete competitively for the remaining places based solely on the exam results. Sadly our local grammar school offers no such local places and all 114 places are therefore “first past the post” regardless of where the boy lives (we were told by the deputy head that the furthest away travels from Edgware Road in London every day!).

In reality Elliot’s chance of getting into any of the top 3 choices rests on his performance on that day in the exams.

Such is the standard of these schools, that places are highly over subscribed (over 800 applicants for 114 places) and in an effort to get in, many parents have private tutors to ensure their child is as prepared as they can be.

We decided not to go down that route feeling that it was wrong to put Elliot under so much pressure and that if he was bright enough he’d get in anyway and wouldn’t have to struggle to keep up if he made it (as some who needed tutoring might). His school did a small amount of preparatory work for the 8 children (out of 50) who chose to go in for the test, and Elliot performed really well in the prep. tests that he did.

We were therefore fairly confident that he would do well on the day as he went in as relaxed as he could be (compared to some of kids from prep. schools who went in in blazers and caps!) in his favourite “slob out” jeans and t-shirt. Elliot is a “happy go lucky” sort of kid anyway, not often phased by anything that life throws at him.

When we went to pick him up, he spotted us among the crowds of expectant parents, gave me a big hug and burst into tears saying “I don’t think I got in – I left loads of questions out”. Bless him – our biggest fear was that he wouldn’t perform on the only day in the process that mattered and from his reaction it seems that may have come true. We will find out for sure tomorrow (and on Monday when we get the actual test results) but we sadly fear he won’t make it into any of his chosen schools.

Fortunately the local comp. is OK and those parents we know with children there seem very happy with it. However there is still that sickening feeling that he won’t have realised his full potential.

I’m the worst at worrying about it and have been a frequent (Tania would say obsessive!) visitor to a web-forum for neurotic 11+ parents. I have also set up spreadsheets calculating the possible results and examined in detail results from other years, correlated with the number of questions he missed out and his average performance in prep. tests to see if there is a chance he’ll still do it. Realistically the local school is probably beyond his reach but if he did as well as he can (on a good day) in the questions he attempted then the Southend schools are a possibility. Of course everything depends on how all the other boys did too as the results are comparative not absolute.

Tania has been amazingly philosophical about the whole thing, saying that we dedicated Elliot to God when he was a baby and therefore God has a plan for Elliot now. I wish I had the faith that she has as I’m feeling quite low at the moment.

As a parent I realise I have the responsibility of encouraging Elliot whatever the result tomorrow – I just know that kids are perceptive and he will read any disappointment that shows on my face.

PRAYERS PLEASE!!!!