Transfer Test AQE 2015-2016 *NEW THREAD*

Flashfriend

I'll tell you my experience on tutoring. In p6 the teacher more or less told me to forget AQE as my DS won't pass which I found hard to believe. So I sent my DS to a tutor who told me 6 weeks later that my daughter was more than capable and did not need tutored through AQE!!! I continued with tutoring for my own piece of mind and I think she will manage well in grammar school. It is terrible how one teacher's attitude can ruin a child's education.

BOBS

Flashfriend wrote: »

I'll tell you my experience on tutoring. In p6 the teacher more or less told me to forget AQE as my DS won't pass which I found hard to believe. So I sent my DS to a tutor who told me 6 weeks later that my daughter was more than capable and did not need tutored through AQE!!! I continued with tutoring for my own piece of mind and I think she will manage well in grammar school. It is terrible how one teacher's attitude can ruin a child's education.

thats awful - did you address at primary school interview ?

Flashfriend

Yes I did address the issue with the principal. Thankfully my daughter grew in confidence and by the end of p6 I was told she would pass!! I think you have to do what is right for your own child.

Rox12

Thanks for all your replies everyone, you've all been so helpful already, it's great to hear from ppl who have already been through the experience. Our school is definitely not a pushy school so I know they will try to do enough to get children through but not go above and beyond if you know what I mean so the pressure will be on parents. :-(

Rox12

Neveranymoney thanks v.much for your reply! You put it very well! Definitely helped me to get my head around my decision to stay away from a tutor. X

Sugarmummy

It all depends on circumstances, my eldest did the AQE last year and I took him to a tutor, purely because I had just had a baby, we were in a house where he had no means of sitting for even an hour to do practice papers etc I didn't have the time either to sit with him to go over the papers as well as much as I would have liked.. I felt that tutoring gave him that hour and a half every week as time for himself, away from his two younger brothers, where he could apply himself and get the needed help going through the papers. Thankfully he did well enough to get into his first choice school and I do believe that the tutoring was good for him. Oh and no the school did nothing with him either so I felt this was his only choice. My second child was due to do it this year and although I now had time as the baby is now a toddler and less work, he didn't want to do it so I pulled him out.

Rox12

You're absolutely right Sugarmummy, every individual parent has to decide what's best for their child, and circumstances play a big part in it too. From what I've been reading I'm guessing that AQE will take up most of my thoughts for the foreseeable future. It's so daunting! :-(

neveranymoney

Tbh I am completely dreading the whole thing, having gone through it before with my eldest, who is a completely different kettle of fish. That was the year the AQE was brought in and no one knew what the heck was going on.

I really do want my son to go on to the grammar my eldest attends, we have a great relationship with the school and know quite a few of the teachers well through various things eldest did in school, it is the closest secondary school to us as well but I know that if I push, my son will be utterly miserable. He has told me the little girl who sits beside him in class has said her parents really push her and I thought back to when I was in p.6 and whilst we were aware we would be doing the 11+ the next year, it wasn't rammed down our throats and we certainly weren't talking about parents pushing us.

I think maybe because I've been through it before and this is my last child, I'm more aware that this is his last real year of childhood. Santa will be gone by next Christmas if he hasn't cottoned on already, the safe and cosy primary school life will be over soon, he will be navigating buses etc on his own whichever secondary school he ends up at and I want him to enjoy being a kid for just a little while more.

A tutor also isn't a guarantee to grammar, eldests Childs friend, who's back garden backed on to the grammar was tutored continuously and still didn't get in unfortunately, same as one of my sons friends siblings this year, who is now utterly devastated.

It's a rotten blooming system, dependant on so many things, population that year, popularity of the school your child wants to go to, never mind your own child's capability. To make them sit it in the grammar school and then possibly not achieve entry to it is the height of cruelty to me.

Rox12

Totally agree that it's a rotten system!! I don't even understand the scoring system never mind anything else. Are you just going to let your youngest go at his own pace then? I thought they had plenty of time to get ready for full practice papers but after a meeting at school where other parents admitted to tutoring already it makes me really confused about the whole thing. I'm definitely not getting a tutor for him,number 1 he really doesn't want one. :-)

BOBS

Rox 12 and Neverany Money - I have just realised that you are going to be the new thread - most of us here are on the 2015-2016 AQE thread are almost at the end of the journey you are all starting.
Please keep on this thread too and we will pass on advice but I will start off a new thread for you and others to support each other through the 2016-2017 AQE process.
Maybe some of us on this thread can offer pearls of wisdom