Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

LydiaJ

Doozergirl wrote: »

Aw, thanks, Ivyleaf!

Uniform all purchased, no sign of big nerves yet. She had a taster day in July so hopefully that's taken the edge off it

Hope the first day goes well and she settles in quickly.

silvercar

You realise you are getting old when term dates come and go and you don't notice!

Less than a week to go until I have no student offspring. :j

SingleSue

Only a year for me to go until I no longer have one in school/college, still another 4 years (possibly 5 depending on if youngest does an integrated masters/year in industry etc) until I no longer have student offspring.

Still makes me feel old though!

ivyleaf

Doozergirl wrote: »

Aw, thanks, Ivyleaf!

Uniform all purchased, no sign of big nerves yet. She had a taster day in July so hopefully that's taken the edge off it

DGS is about to go into year 6, and we too are in an 11+ area so that's looming. He and his friends are thinking a lot about which school they might go to next. So there we were in the car the other day with him in the back, and he asked "Which secondary school did you go to, Nanny?"
And then he added ever so politely "If you can remember, that is."
I was tempted to say I used to ride to school on a dinosaur....

GDB How bizarre!

Pyxis

ivyleaf wrote: »

DGS is about to go into year 6, and we too are in an 11+ area so that's looming. He and his friends are thinking a lot about which school they might go to next. So there we were in the car the other day with him in the back, and he asked "Which secondary school did you go to, Nanny?"
And then he added ever so politely "If you can remember, that is."
I was tempted to say I used to ride to school on a dinosaur....

GDB How bizarre!

You should have told him that you had to leave school at 11 years old to go up chimneys to earn money for the family! :rotfl:

Then give him a copy of "The Waterbabies"!

ivyleaf

Pyxis wrote: »

You should have told him that you had to leave school at 11 years old to go up chimneys to earn money for the family! :rotfl:

Then give him a copy of "The Waterbabies"!

I wish I'd thought of that :rotfl:

bugslet

vivatifosi wrote: »

It's quite lovely here today. My favourite weather: blue skies and windy. I'm not keep on hot, still days. As long as there's blue skies and a bit of a breeze, I'm not too fussed what the temperature is providing it's not extreme.

That's my favourite as well, even it's under10 degree, I'm fine, wrap up warm and enjoy the day.


How odd GDB, maybe they are going to come back and retrieve their stash later and you've messed the plan up by tidying it away:D

LydiaJ

ivyleaf wrote: »

DGS is about to go into year 6, and we too are in an 11+ area so that's looming. He and his friends are thinking a lot about which school they might go to next.

Good luck to your DGS. When's the 11+ exam? What kind of 11+ county are you - the "everybody sits it and then some go to grammar schools and the rest to whatever secondary moderns are calling themselves in this century" kind, like Kent, or the "most people go to comprehensives but there are a few"super-selective" grammar schools and you can opt in to the grammar test if you like" kind like Gloucestershire?

Offers day was always very fraught at my kids' primary school. There would only be a few each year who'd applied to grammar school, and it was generally not talked about much - I think people were either diffident about wanting their child to be better than others, or else reluctant to raise the issue in case it encouraged more people to apply, thus increasing the competition for their own child. However, the primary school was midway between two comprehensives, one very oversubscribed and the other undersubscribed, so depending on where their house was, there would be some kids at that primary school who could be sure of getting into the most popular comprehensive, some with no chance at all, and some who would have a chance but not a certainty. Those who couldn't be sure of getting the popular comprehensive responded in various ways - move house in Y5 to be inside the catchment, try for a grammar school, cough up for an independent school, apply for the church school across town, apply for some other undersubscribed school out of town that was felt to be less awful than the nearby undersubscribed school, go to the undersubscribed school and make the best of it, sit on the waiting list for the oversubscribed school and hope to get place at the last minute, think of some grounds for appeal for place at the preferred school....

In DS's year, there were 23 kids, and they went to 10 different secondary schools. (It was a generally oversubscribed primary with most year groups full with 30 or 31 kids each, but 2000-2001 was the very bottom of the birthrate dip, and almost all the local primary schools weren't full in his year.)

Pyxis

I would say that it has either grown into a huge amount, or like Bleak House, had been eaten up by the fees for keeping it in trust.


Might be worth looking into, because, even if the tree is huge, depending on the category of descendants, you may be entitled to something, even if small!

ivyleaf

LydiaJ wrote: »

Good luck to your DGS. When's the 11+ exam? What kind of 11+ county are you - the "everybody sits it and then some go to grammar schools and the rest to whatever secondary moderns are calling themselves in this century" kind, like Kent, or the "most people go to comprehensives but there are a few grammar schools and you can opt in to the grammar test if you like" kind like Gloucestershire?

It's complicated! Bexley is a London borough and is next door to Kent. The 11+ isn't compulsory here now (it used to be, I don't know when the policy changed) - you have to opt in to your child taking it, but I assume everyone takes it whose parents think they have half a chance of getting a high enough score to be "deemed selective", unless the parents are anti-Grammar.

We have four grammar schools: one boys', one girls' and two co-ed. Then there are two single-sex RC schools which are true comprehensives (obviously they give priority to children from practising RC families), and the others, including a C of E school, are described as "all-ability schools". Two of those, including the one nearest DGS's home, operate a "fair banding" system. The one that isn't near his home is a Harris Academy, and uses an odd combination of "fair banding" and a lottery system to allocate places.

Many of our children, including DGS this year, take the Kent 11+ as well, because some, including him, live close enough to at least one of the Kent grammars to have a chance of a place, and also it's held earlier than the Bexley one so it gives them experience of an exam situation, though the format is slightly different. Some of them will take the tests for the nearest super-selectives outside the borough too, as those don't have a catchment area.

Children from outside Bexley can take the test too, but if they pass they are only guaranteed a grammar place if their score was in the top 180, otherwise it goes by distance from the school, so many of them will live too far away.

Sorry, I did say it was complicated

We're not sure how DGS will get on - he's extremely good at maths, but in a test situation he sometimes panics and just guesses! And on the other hand, he seems to have a real problem remembering vocab and spelling, so we'll have to wait and see. He has only just had his tenth birthday and is the youngest in his year.