Eleven Plus Steps

Many years ago my father took me to a Mission School. Mission Schools were run by various faiths – and are what we call our Church Schools today. We went to the school because someone had died. We went to a funeral. The venue? Hope Fountain in Zimbabwe.

I can remember a service and songs in the church. The singing, as ever, was loud and vibrant – a real mixture of traditional `Church’ songs as well as songs from Africa. There was a Church choir and their singing was sweet and poignant. They were singing for their departed Head Teacher.

We walked outside and the clouds had rolled up very quickly. As the mourners gathered around the grave we all knew that rain was very close. The coffin was lowered into the grave and one by one stones were picked and dropped into the grave.

The rain came down – very hard. The line moved on – one stone at a time. The sky was very black. The ground around the grave was wet and slippery. A couple of the Europeans attending then picked up more than one stone to hurry the proceedings along.

One of the Africans stopped them with a quiet word, “One stone at a time.”

So with your worries and concerns about the eleven plus and your child:

“One step at a time.”