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Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Eleven Plus Expectations

The perennial question – how easy is it to meet the expectations of eleven plus parents?

Teachers, schools, tutors and publishers are all concerned with satisfying at least part of this weighty anticipation.

Parents want, at each stage of the eleven plus process, information about how much work has been done, what work needs to be done and what are the chances of passing. There are many factors to take into account:

The health of their child;
The emotional maturity of the candidate;
The degree of social adjustment;
And, of course, the innate intelligence and motivation.

Many parents are reassured by marks and percentages – as these give physical evidence of progress. Factors like work ethic and study skills are far more difficult to quantify.

It can be argued that teachers and tutors with access to evaluative instruments and carefully constructed standardised scores should have an advantage. Who can argue, however, against the confidence of the much loved and highly experienced tutor who can tell at a glance if a child can pass?

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