The day of the 11+ exam
I was far too young to appreciate the full importance of the exam. A ten year old boy does not have the brain development to look far into the future. Yet I could tell that it was crucial because of the tension. I’d picked up on the conversations. I’d heard the stories of the local Secondary Modern. Apparently there were pitched battles, blood and warfare on a daily basis. It was a place to dread. To go there was terminal.
My parents’ fear was palpable. I knew they had high hopes and big expectations. My mum had taken me to Oxford University to see where I would be going. So I was in no doubt. They thought of me as a genius. There was a heap of expectations sitting on my shoulders. That did me no favours. They had nothing to compare to. They did not come from an academic background. All I felt was the pressure.
This 11+ exam was the first test. I could not let them down.
It was a day of fog.
There were only four of us taking the exam in my school. It was a tiny school. It was deemed too small to conduct the exam so we were shipped out to the local Primary School.
It started badly. The fog was so dense that I became lost going to the toilet in the outside loos. The school seemed enormous compared to my little place. I felt as if I was lost in some fearful mist and on my own.
With beating heart I finally found my way to the right room. I remember the lecture we were given. We had to fill in the answers in pencil. We were not allowed biro because the answers might disappear. I remember being bemused and frightened by this. I had never known any of my writing to fade away like invisible ink. It sounded like magic. What if my answers all disappeared?
We were given our sheets and a pencil and told how long it was to last. I was frightened but determined to give it my best. I started carefully working my way through the paper. I double checked my answers. I hadn’t seen anything quite like this exam before. In a flash I was told to stop writing. I had not reached the end.
My whole future had been decided. I was ten years old and lost in the fog.
It all paid off
I wouldn’t change it. But the future could have been easier. It would have been a different life.
You did better than others, you had Parents who encouraged you gave you Freedom
My parents certainly encouraged me. They were just unrealistic.
Your parents sure did put enormous pressure on you!!!
Yeah. I don’t think they meant to. It always backfires though, doesn’t it?
It will sure do, it will cause kids to rebel.
Did with me.
Have you fabricated your mother taking you to Oxford University prior to the 11+ by poetic licence? I find that difficult to believe. You never struck me as someone under pressure to be an academic highflyer or a swot more the opposite = an “anti”-person like Marlon Brando’s character prepared to rebel against whatever the establishment could offer. My parents had never heard of Oxford University let alone discussed with me that I may attend there one day. My head mistress had told my mother the previous year that I would go to university (she didn’t say Oxford) when I was 18 so there was no pressure on me in taking the 11+ since it was not seen as an obstacle. I don’t recall any pupil in my class being concerned about the outcome of the 11+. I attended a small village school like you where no pupil was expected to go on to further education. You were expected to leave school at 15 & get a job or an apprenticeship preferably. After the last primary school year you accepted that you would be attending a different school. It didn’t really matter which school it would be. Whether some of your mates would be going to the same school also was more important.
No – all perfectly true. We actually got locked in the museum in one of the colleges. My parents, Mum in particular, thought that I was inevitably going to Oxford. They did not think I had to do any work or put any effort in. They had no background in academia – just expectations.
The psychology is interesting.
When I was a Head we had a guy in to talk to the three Beverley Schools on a training day. He talked about the pressure we put on children by our expectations and the psychological response – many children do not try because if they do not try they cannot fail . I recognised my attitude perfectly. What you saw at eighteen/nineteen as the rebellious youth was probably the direct result of the pressure. I neither worked or revised more than a perfunctory token. Everything I achieved was a scrape pass.
The 11+ was a huge ogre of a thing. It ate me up.
I was fortunate that I had no pressure placed on me. There were no expectations. I believe I would have benefitted from having some pressure placed on me by the school I attended. It was very laid=back and some of us did our homework in the minutes before morning register was taken, usually by copying a swot’s homework he had completed the previous evening. That is a fundamentally flawed method of learning. I am not sure I accept fully the psychological theory. I think too much pressure and expectation can cultivate rebelliousness and an attitude not so much of not trying but of bucking the system. The most pressure I endured was doing the Law Society course at Guildford. The lectures were intensive for 5/6 hours a day. You didn’t have time to absorb any information. only to scribble everything down. You were expected to devote the remainder of your time to learning the notes and reading round the subject. Most students did. Every student had a first degree and many were Oxbridge=educated. Expectations on them were high from their families. Some had nervous breakdowns. There were no expectations on me other that what I created. I was more relaxed. I got a part-time job as a butcher’s delivery man in Godalming and went to lectures in between delivering meat around Surrey in my little white van. I think that helped me in the end because I was not stressed out like everyone else plus I got free sausages. I did no preparation for the first mock exam and came bottom. I knew I would so signed the paper “Ivor Biggun” which got a laugh from the class when the marks were read out. The lecturer never twigged and thought Ivor was a genuine student!! My tutor had me in and showed me a comparison chart of marks in mock exams to the real exams which correlated. He predicted I was going to fail my finals. He was wrong. I was one of the few who passed all first time. The course was changed from 6 to 12 months after my time because too much pressure was placed on students and the failure rate was too high I assume. When we were students in London at the same time, there were so many distractions we wanted to experience. It was the late 60s and massive changes in youth culture were taking place. You missed all that life experience if your head was constantly stuck in a book and your arse was glued to a library chair. If you had been reading biology textbooks all evening every evening, you would never have been to a Roy Harper gig.
Too true.
There is a way of applying pressure on students without creating undue pressure. The psychology of education has become much better. Focussing on effort and not outcome is the key. Huge praise for effort and kicks for laziness. It kids put in the effort they achieve their potential.
However, all kids are different and the psychology is different so there has to be flexibility.
I’m glad I did it the way it worked out. I had great fun and have done a huge amount with my life. It’s been great. I wouldn’t swap.
Life is experience.
I have sent you a message on your Fb page about a teaching course. Can you read it please.
Not sure how to access my facebook. I’ll see if I can get on. My computer is haywire at the moment.
I don’t use facebook unless it comes up in my email. Apart from that my blogs are put out on it.
I’ll see what I can do.
Send me your email address to nalsonbd@msn.com & I’ll email the list.
I’ll copy it to your email
OK – I did put a reply up on my facebook (I got on).
The school system over there sounds so different to me from here. It might have been better for you had it gone better, but then you might not have been the Opher we know and love. 😉
why thank you Cheryl. Things work out as they work out.