My lack of articles over the last couple of days has been the result of some fairly hefty structural and logistical reorganisation going on in the Wartime Household.
You may remember, back in May, I wrote a ranting article called ‘Ejukashun’ in which I expressed my concerns about Boy the Elder’s less than positive experiences at his school and what I was trying to do about it. At the time of writing, he was just about to take the entrance exam for a local grammar school with only one week’s preparation.
He failed the exam. The English and Verbal Reasoning were ok, but his Maths was way below standard and the Headmaster, rightly, felt that he would not be able to improve sufficiently in time to start in September. BTE was very upset, but it confirmed everything that I suspected about his progress and at least I had a clear idea of what needed to be done.
Once the excitement had died down, I contacted another school, which although a state school, has a selection process for children outside catchment. It has a super reputation and consequently a huge amount of children want to go there. It was full, we appealed, we were rejected. By the time the process was over, it was so near to the end of term that there was nothing more we could do.
After the grammar school exam, I said to BTE, that from now on, in the event of any homework being given out, it would be done to MY standard of acceptability and not that of the school. Remarkably he had some Textiles and some RE homework some weeks later (June). The Textiles homework has not yet been marked and he won a prize for RE. His end of term report was ok but should have been much better and he has been put down a set in Science, one of his favourite subjects. This is not good.
However, this left us in the position that he had no choice but to go back this term. I swung into action and contacted every independent school in the area asking for a prospectus and details of their bursaries and I’ve narrowed it down to two schools, including the one for which he took the exam in May. I have secured a maths tutor but I can manage the rest by myself. Back in May, Sister the First incredibly generously bought BTE a large stack of practice papers and we can work our way through those as well.
And let’s not forget Boy the Younger. BTY is a south-paw, a left hander and he finds the fine motor movements involved in writing extremely difficult. He is also not a natural mathematician and I promised the school that I would do a little bit of work with him every day to get him up to scratch in both these areas. This afternoon, it took me two hours and the beginning of a major tantrum to get him to complete four lines of practice letters.
The psychology involved in getting there was tortuous because I had to get him to a point where he felt that he had done it of his own volition. He eventually came back into the room and said “Can I do my letters now, please?” “Of course”, I said and I gave him the pencil and paper. “This is where you say ‘Who are you and what have you done with my son?’” he said innocently. Little bastard.
All this tutoring is going to take time. For Boy the Elder, it is also going to cost money. I will have to pay the tutor £21 a week, and the registration fee for him to take the entrance exams is £50 for one and £75 for the other. And in order to free up the time for the tutoring, I have to make some changes to my daily activities which will inevitably result in having less money. Scylla and Charybdis. I think I’ve cracked it though and if all else fails, I can sell body parts. By the pound in my case.
I’m looking forward to a television programme next week called ‘Gareth Malone’s Extraordinary School for Boys’. I’m a huge fan of the youthful and quietly passionate Mr Malone, having seen the inspiring work he has done with his much publicized choir projects. He seems to have a knack for bringing out the best in people through tailoring motivation and discipline to each individual and this is something I would be keen to learn in the context of my own children.
His motivation for the programme is that he perceives a cultural difficulty with the education of boys, and he’s interested in how it could be tackled. He points to the paucity of male primary teachers, the risk-averse culture, and the slightly toxic environment created by the pressure of constant educational assessment, as well as the lack of time that teachers have for activities outside the curriculum. He also cites too much Xbox, not enough risk-taking and mucking about outdoors and too few challenges.
This will be interesting. The programme will be shown on Thursday at 9pm on BBC2.
I can assure you, WH, that private schooling is EXPENSIVE (I pay £22,000 a year for each of my two. And it’s even more expensive at senior school level. Gulp!). However, it is well worth the money, in my opinion, as long as you can find the right school.
I’d recommend the school my two go to (www.windlesham.com), except I don’t know whereabouts you live. It is termly boarding. I love love love the fact that you can simply sign a tree-climbing consent form to allow them pretty major access to the grounds. You can tell it is a good school by the fact that the school roll from this year is almost completely full.
As you know, I did home educate my two for a year, in a very free and relaxed way, and it did them no harm whatsoever, academically. It gave us the opportunity to travel a bit and also to concentrate on any areas where they were weak. By the end of the year, however, I was desperate to get rid of them, which is why they went to a prep boarding school at that stage!
Hi Morag – blimey that was quick!
I am hoping to take advantage of the fact that the government is putting huge pressure on independent schools to offer bursaries to families on low incomes. I count as being below the poverty line and I intend to play this card to the full.
I’ve thought long and hard abut the home-edding and I really don’t think I have the personal or practical resources to do it and I really admire you for doing that. It must be hard to balance the roles of mother and teacher and I’m so glad that you got your boys into the right school for them.
My worry about some of the more exclusive schools is that even if he was awarded a full bursary, there would be activities that I simply couldn’t afford and I would be very worried about him being seen to be a pauper in a community of much better off children.
WH I feel for you, what a rotten situation. We have been very lucky with our childrens’ state schools. I also received an excellent state education and find the idea that private education should be better than state education difficult to come to terms with, but it was ever thus I suppose.
I am not sure what I would do in your situation – same thing I suspect. Best of British.
The lad has my sympathy, my problems with maths made school quite a chore but with application I made up for my failures in other fields….application!
I feel so much sympathy for your situation – it is so draining and emotionally exhausting because you so badly want the very best for your child. I eventually got myself a job in good old M&S to finance it and sent my son to a wonderful independent school called the Hall in Wimbledon where William was finally allowed to be a boy – they camped, they got dirty, they went to France and tasted wonderful food, he loved golf so they let him play golf, they all sat down everyday to a proper cooked meal – no choices – you ate what you got and he did! It took all every last cent of my wages but I have never ever regretted it but I do feel so angry that in order for my lovely son to be educated to a reasonable standard and in safety that I had to pay so much money to secure that! Good Luck to you all – your son is lucky that he has you behind him.
The education system in this country sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. My son, although in the middle to top sets in most subjects, was struggling in school. He wanted to get on but there was so much disruption in the lessons that he seemed to give up and his grades began to fall, also he was becoming visiably depressed, unable to eat or sleep properly. After many meetings with the school, in sheer desperation last year I removed him from the education system. He has been at home for just over a year and we are now begining his IGCSE’s through “Little Arthur Independent ” school via long distance learning. He is now a happier, more confident and eager to learn teenager of 14……….I’m not saying it was an easy decision, and it’s lucky I am able to be at home with him……..we manage on a modest income but it can be acheived……my daughter has just finihed her exams this year and managed to acheive B’s in all her subjects while being home-educated.
I hope you find a solution for your son, there are quite a few options out there……it’s just a case of finding the right one, good luck,
florrie x
Welcome Florrie and thank you for your constructive comments. I’ve never heard of Little Arthur Independent so I hope that will be of use to anyone reading this. Well done you for taking the steps you did, you should be very proud of your children and yourself. I hope we hear from you again.
Thank you for all your positive comments, I feel most encouraged and I hope that anyone reading this might take some inspiration. I will keep updating on the situation.
There are some children who do very well at my son’s current school, but the children who don’t fit in are left behind and not every school suits every child. My biggest worry is one of expectation – the teachers are so easily satisfied and don’t set a good example themselves (in my opinion). And yet this school has just been given an ‘outstanding’ OFSTED report, which just goes to show that these reports are a waste of time.
You have my symapathy and best wishes that everything turns out OK in the end. It probably will as you are doing all that you can to ensure it does and parental support such as that you are providing is vital.
I feel that all to often the education system fails to get the best from boys. Master Albion has spent the past 4 years at an excellent independent secondary catching up with many basic skills which he didn’t seem to learn at primary school. Interestingly, several of his friends who went to the same primary are also having similar problems. Mr A & I spend a lot of time coaching our son as he wants to achieve top notch GCSE grades next summer.
Should you end up putting your son in the independent sector, it’s worth remembering that whilst there are children there who do indeed have very priviledged backgrounds, there will also be many there who do not. Like us, their parents will be making considerable financial sacrifices to ensure a good education for their child. Our son understands this and doesn’t pester to join every exotic trip going. Very few if any of these are vital to the curriculum anyway and only a small number of any one class will be going on the trip.
We are lucky that we are in a position to send Master A to a school we feel is good for him, but this is only half the story. Parental support, interest and involvement is also needed. It sounds as though you’re doing all the right things – you deserve good luck!
Thank you so much Mrs A, that’s really encouraging and you’re quite right of course, there are many people who spend every penny they have on education and there isn’t much left for too many extra-curriculas. I agree from the experiences of friends whose children attend private schools that some of the trips seem preposterous and one wonders if they are simply vying with each other to see which school is the most exotic. I also worry that if they do so many things when they are young, what are they going to look forward to when they’re older?
I teach my three boys at home, WH, because the schools (supposedly excellent in our district) leave much to be desired. I want my children to be able to read and think and be full human beings not just pass the next standardized test and play video games in their spare time. However, home educating isn’t for everyone. I’m a single mom with a very limited income and we have given up lots and lots of extras to do this. But my boys often say they’d rather have me than all the stuff their friends have which is a sign that we’ve chosen well. When an outing or activity is VERY important to them, I can sometimes scrounge up the money from somewhere or their father pays or we get a scholarship (their online classes in subjects I can’t cover always have a scholarship so we can afford to do them). Please keep us updated as to how it is going. I’ll keep you in my prayers. I know how it is to convince a child that they need to do something they really dislike and don’t want to do but have to do anyway.
Hi Wartime, everyone.
There are good grounds to be depressed about education in the UK and abroad. Here is a link that might interest you – Sir Ken Robinson gives a TED talk on the subject. You may have seen it already.
I’d never heard of Robinson before this. He is a very entertaining speaker and I think he is raising some really interesting questions about education and proposing some intriguing solutions.
I hope you enjoy this and find it useful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
Sorry WH,
I tried to post this as a link but somehow seem to have embedded it in your comments thread.