11+ EXAMS

THANK GOD the 11+ exams are over and most (but not quite all) of the children who have had to go through the harrowing experience of sitting entrance exams to a London day school know whether they have been offered a place or not. Some children at our local state school had to endure up to TEN entrance exams over the last few months which is stressful for them and their parents.

In a tiny little microcosm, the whole world goes mad for a minute. Parents seriously lose the plot over this. These schools cost an absolute fortune and we all seem to think there are far more children than places. I don’t believe that is the case. Every year there seems to be enough spaces for all the children. But anyway. Lots of children have been told they are only on the waiting list as schools wait for acceptance letters to arrive from Batch One – it’s not fair on those poor children to have to be dealt with like this. You can feel the tension rising over the preceeding months until it reaches panic proportions. Clever, intelligent and otherwise interesting grown ups are reduced to quivering wrecks, unable to talk or dream of anything else as they obsess about strategy. It’s enough to want to make you leave the country.

I chose to go for a slightly high risk strategy this year having decided that I didn’t want to put my son or myself through the stress immediately after the remarriage and house move of his father. For future reference, my strategy worked REALLY well – I simply told him not to worry if he didn’t get in to the school of his choice, the only alternative was that he would be lucky enough to be home tutored by me – clearly enough to put anyone off and it certainly made him try his hardest.

Even visiting the schools and trying to marry the opinions of your child with your own views and that of the other parent is a nightmare in itself. Everybody seems to have a different favourite and do you go with your child’s choice? What do they know about their future? More than we think possibly.

Even what you should wear when being shown around the various schools is a source of stress – you have to get the right balance between looking like you could easily afford to buy a new sports hall/biology lab once your child is accepted and looking desperate and “I’ll do ANYTHINGish” to get my child in. It’s not an easy look to pull off. Trust me.

Anyway, I am delighted to report that I won’t have to look at another school again (touch wood – unless something goes seriously wrong). My son got into the same school as my daughter and there they both shall remain until they bugger off entirely. I hope their father is happy with that option too and that this part of our lives shall remain relatively calm and clear from now on.  My parents have offered to pay for his first year to help us out, so that should take away even more stress all round and is hugely generous of them.

Fingers crossed.