Beating the Eleven Plus System

We went to Legoland over the weekend.

One of the rides is a water chute – where you step into a little boat and skim extremely quickly. This was a popular ride as it offered an exhilarating feeling. Naturally the queue was long.

One family worked out how to beat the queue. Two grandparents were standing just ahead of us, very close to the `30 Minutes to Go’ sign. Two girls, one aged around eight and the other about ten suddenly slipped past all of us waiting in the queue and joined their grandparents. Naturally they beat the queuing system. Their parents, you see had joined the end of queue at the same time the girls joined their grandparents.

The girls were on a winner. I know the grandparents and the girls were very happy that they had beaten the system.

Now I am sure that this family wanted their children to become professionals. Perhaps one of the girls will one day become an accountant. What happens when one of her clients approaches her with a system to beat the tax system? Does she smile and giggle and help the client to jump the queue? What about the other girl? Will she one day become a doctor? Will she encourage queue jumping in her practice?

At times we must all wish that there was an opportunity to take a short cut towards success in the eleven plus.

Some families will always want the easy way out.

The rest of us just have to do the work.