Good luck - 11 transfer Northern Ireland

Freefromdebt_2

Silly question - but where are the results posted from ? the school they sat the exam in or GL/AQE ?
I rang our local sorting office earlier and am picking up the results first thing in the morning - post normally doesnt arrive til later.

Snoozle

sorry if this is veering a bit off what is being discussed but I wanted to ask other parents about some things that were posted at the start of the thread.

What I was wondering is, as a parent, when you are looking into secondary schools, how much of the decision is yours and how much have you allowed your child to decide? I've a few years before I have to worry about this, but thinking back, my parents didn't even let me go to the school's open nights, they told me I was going to the same school as my elder siblings (and which my parents attended as well) and that was that. I came dangerously close to a clip round the ear for suggesting that I might prefer somewhere else!:rotfl: As it happens, I had a miserable seven years at a top grammar school, and I left with great academic results, but bad memories.

But honestly, my parents weren't concerned about me being happy at school, they were concerned with me achieving good results, which I did. I'm not sure if I would want that for my own children, although I wouldn't want them to have a lovely seven years at school and leave with poor results.......is it possible to have both a nice time at school, and good results? Does that ever happen?

I was just wondering how other parents have approached this......

happymummy24-7

snoozle i think its a question we all ask ourselves really but we allowed our dd the choice now dont get me wrong if she hadve picked somewhere that i thought was totally wrong for her then yes i would have voiced my opinion however she picked as we would have picked so thats ok!
As you will see from my posts i feel very strongly about the happiness factor because as you pointed out you can be forced into good grades but be utterly miserable getting them and its a very hard way to start your grown up life!
This of course depends on your child because you know them best-if you feel they need pushed to achieve any sort of good grades ect then they need to be pushed perhaps a little harder but my own thoughts on our dd (actually our headmaster and p7 teacher said the same thing to us about dd) is that she pushes herself very hard and with the backing of parents she will never fall behind and will achieve exactly the same results in either type of school ....if you send you child to a secondary school-or grammar-and dont take an active interest in how they are doing,getting them help if they are falling behind ect then you can only expect the grades to fall behind...you will already see this im sure with some kids in you primary school-their parents take no interest,dont check homeworks,wouldnt know their own childs ability they just put them through school without a concern for their level of education!
So i feel good results come with the child feeling secure and happy in their enviroment-the grammars we looked at put a feeling of dread in me,i dont think dd would bloom there and would struggle with the whole enviroment,the secondary felt like a bigger version of her primary school were each teacher knew each pupil without having to check down 6 pages to find their name and a picture of them so they know who they are talking about at the parent nights!!

Pink.

Snoozle wrote: »

sorry if this is veering a bit off what is being discussed but I wanted to ask other parents about some things that were posted at the start of the thread.

What I was wondering is, as a parent, when you are looking into secondary schools, how much of the decision is yours and how much have you allowed your child to decide? I've a few years before I have to worry about this, but thinking back, my parents didn't even let me go to the school's open nights, they told me I was going to the same school as my elder siblings (and which my parents attended as well) and that was that. I came dangerously close to a clip round the ear for suggesting that I might prefer somewhere else!:rotfl: As it happens, I had a miserable seven years at a top grammar school, and I left with great academic results, but bad memories.

But honestly, my parents weren't concerned about me being happy at school, they were concerned with me achieving good results, which I did. I'm not sure if I would want that for my own children, although I wouldn't want them to have a lovely seven years at school and leave with poor results.......is it possible to have both a nice time at school, and good results? Does that ever happen?

I was just wondering how other parents have approached this......

I have two children who have been through what was previously known as the 11+. Both got 'A' grades. Before we had the results we visited all the schools, both secondary and grammar, that were accessible to them. I would have preferred them to go to the local grammar that Dh and I attended as they would have much less travelling time and the school 'fees' were much less than the schools they both eventually chose, however they had different ideas. In the end they both had a favourite school and after much thought we decided that they were the ones who had done the work and would have to attend the school on a daily basis, so after much discussion of the pros and cons we allowed them to make the final decision themselves. Dd chose an all girls school, got excellent A levels and is now in her final year at uni. Ds chose an all boys school and got good GCSE's and is now doing AS levels in the same school. Neither of them regrets their choice of schools. So my personal experience is to let your child have a large say (within reason) of what school they want to go to.

Tomorrow we are going to get the transfer results for Ds2. He is less accademic than his brother and sister and we have no idea what the result will be. It was his choice to take the test (we gently tried to discourage him) but his attitude was that if he didn't try he would never know how well he could have done. He worked much, much harder for the test than either of his siblings and my stomach is in knots over the result tomorrow. Not because of the result or what it will mean, but how it will affect him if it's not as good as he hopes. After all that effort he deserves to get a good mark but if he does, will he be able to cope in a grammar school or would he be better off in a secondary? Unfortunately our local secondary isn't a great school and he is low on the criteria for others nearby. Roll on tomorrow and least we will know what we're dealing with.

Sorry for the long ramble, can you tell I'm nervous. I'm thinking of all the children and mums and dads awaiting results tomorrow. I hope all of our children get accepted into the right schools for them.

Pink

sallyanny

I saved the results tables from the BT last year - should be below if I've attached them properly!

butterflymum

Well done you! :T

cashcrisis

That's brilliant thanks, I can't believe that it's nearly here!!! We know that we need an A (not very likely) on the GL or around 100 for the AQE which is a bit more possible. Like some of you I was very impressed with the high school actually more so than the grammars, and if we don't get the result we're after it would be fine for her to go there. I have my meeting on Monday, so I assume that I will have to be sure of the school choices then.
I'm now panicking that my letters will get held up and not arrive til Monday or something and quite frankly I'll not cope with anymore waiting so they had better come!!

Freefromdebt_2

A big thank you sallyanny

facingthefuture

Great Sallyanny - good luck everyone...may your god be with you!

Freefromdebt_2

Have been up since 4am floors washed, washing done etc. DD talked about the whole transfer process last night. She didnt score overly high in practice papers and lacked confidence. I think I will open the envelope first.
GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE FOR LATER AND ENJOY LOADS OF NICE TREATS TODAY - YOU ALL DESERVE IT