Eleven Plus Choice

I am sorry to say that at one time or another, during the course of their lives, our Eleven Plus children will need to be introduced to that very odd man called `Caesar Tiberius’. Some children may even be lucky enough to escape finding out about the horrors instigated by this strange man.

He did, however, do one good thing for our Eleven Plus children. Caesar Tiberius was told by his Doctor that he needed to eat a cucumber a day to cure an illness. He told his Head Gardner to produce a cucumber a day or else!

The gardener dug pits and then filled the pits with fermenting dung. He then covered the pits with frames or sheets of mica. Tiberius was able to survive on his `cucumber a day’

As our Eleven Plus children approach their examinations we know that they need to eat their `Five a Day’.

To help our children towards deciding that they want to `buy in to’ the concept of `Five a Day’ we need to educate them. We are lucky, however, because many of our Eleven Plus children are profoundly conscious about the need to preserve the world. Many of our children worry about the way the world works – and they like to think that one day they will be able to `Save the World’. (It is possible that some children will be a little less ambitious and simply want to be able to be a good influence.)

To give our children the ability to make reasoned choices we need to be able to give them the tools of the job. If we only offer five different types of greens and vegetables then we are restricting their choice. Some children will only want to eat locally produced `eco friendly’ food. Other children may want to be able to grow their own.

There must be some parents, however, who would want to draw the line at supplying their children with the raw material of fermenting dung. It may be easier to follow the many other Eleven Plus mothers who simply pop into a supermarket, on a daily basis, to buy a fresh daily cucumber.