Would some parents pray that their child turns into a
stereotypical eleven plus candidate? Would it be fair to presume that this wonder
child works hard, is always obedient, friendly and is kind to small animals and
parents?
Can parents rely on the evidence supplied by trained eleven plus
observers to see if their child would fit into a category called: “Deemed
successful at the eleven plus, worthy of a place in a grammar school.”? We
would hope that a trained judge would be superior in interpersonal accuracy and
understanding the influence of standardised scores, but would a trained judge
want to include children who did not fit the stereotype?
We know that stereotypes would often follow similar behaviour.
We know too that it sometimes becomes rather difficult to make a
judgement on a person who is remarkably different from ourselves.
I used a picture of a group of Teddy Boys, taken from a website,
to try to find an example of young men dressed to portray an image. Would it be
impossible to take a picture of a group of eleven plus hopefuls and imagine
that they could represent a moment in time? Years ago some people used to fear
the Teddy Boys.
Today there could, possibly, still some who abhor the whole
concept of the eleven plus. Parents just have to stick together and hope that
their children behave correctly on the day.
