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Saturday, November 19, 2011

Bright Eleven Plus Children

Children writing the eleven plus examinations are among a pool of bright and talented children across the country. Some parents think that a grammar school education will provide most of the solutions and answer the great majority of the questions. A strictly astigmatic view can be that the grammar school will be the panacea to all educational, emotional and developmental problems. If only! Just wait until he or she is fourteen!

Eleven plus teachers cannot hope that all their children in all their lessons are going to be quiet, modest, hardworking and appreciative. We must operate from the thesis that that at times we will not be able supply a benign acceptance of behaviour and motivation when that is removed from what we call the `normal’. Normal behaviour of a bright nine year old candidate can be similar to that of other children – but the responsibility to pass an examination may seem to be more urgent.

As teachers and parents we have a responsibility to help our bright children to do as well as possible academically.

We need to be able to help the eleven plus child to recognise that while they are working on a paper the whole world does not revolve round them.

We need to try to adopt a problem solving approach rather than delivering lectures and monologues

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