Eleven Plus Concerns

Where do the bright children who pass the eleven plus come from? We must imagine that bright well educated parents will have bright well educated children. To take this a little further the parents of bright children are likely to be employed in occupations at a professional or highly successful business level.

It could be thought that successful parents will be more likely to have a higher percentage of children passing the eleven plus - but this can not be universally true. There will be more children passing from ordinary families – simply because there must be far more ordinary families.

If children who come from all walks of life then who do some bright children appear to fail the eleven when they have been given every opportunity by their parents? Some very able children may not be all that good at social relationships. Other children may choose not to take advantage of all that has been offered to them. Some children will want to pass the eleven plus – and others won’t.

Some parents will continue to worry that they have given every advantage to their children. There will also be some parents who will continually look for signs of how well their children will do in the examination.

Parents’ concerns will include:

Did the teacher at school actually understand that we want our child to pass the eleven plus?

Have we offered our child enough stimulation and praise?

Should we have done something much earlier about an apparent lack of interest in reading?

Are we pressing too hard?

Do we force an argument or do we allow a continual clash of wills?

Is our child feeling insecure because we are putting too much pressure?

An eleven plus child does not need lots of money or all the latest gadgets – what will help most of all is stable and caring home environment.