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Friday, February 20, 2009

Eleven Plus Time

Just how old do you need to be to work on Eleven Plus courses? The answer probably is in the Seven Ages of Man. (Actually poetic licence has offered a few more ages.)

Pre birth.
Mum reads to child. Parents take it in turns to play suitable music.

Toddler
Parents start explaining to their child how cubes rotate. The toddler is learning to build and knock down blocks as well as flatten the blocks into nets.

Nursery School
The child starts learning nursery rhymes – which are completed into eleven plus questions. “If Bo Peep was herding her sheep, and she had four and twenty, did any back birds come to the party?

Reception
Eleven Plus work hots up. The child is `put down for a tutor’. This does not mean that the child is worked over by the tutor, not does it mean that the tutor employs derogatory words, it simply means that the tutor places the child on the waiting list.

Primary
The entire Bond series is available on the child’s book case. (Mum was offered a
premium to take the whole series. Mum thought. Why not? The child starts on Question 1 on Book 1. Only three thousand questions to go!

Secondary
Child is at grammar. (Thank the Lord!) Eleven Plus books again are used for younger brother.)

University
Young adult picks up extra pocket money tutoring for the Eleven Plus.

Married Life
Start with own family. Cycle begins again.

Retirement
No legal requirements for grand children’s education. (Other than the fact that someone still remembers how to do percentages.)

The Other Side
Epitaph One on Stone
Masie lived and died the eleven plus dream.

Epitaph Two
Uncle Burt was a true eleven plus product. He knew that 34 times 10 was 340!

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