Sorry can't contain myself........Any parent of older children will know that yesterday was national secondary school admission notification day.... The day that each parent either really dreads or become estatic about as we learn wether our children got into their first choice Secondary schools...or even we will get a choice of decent school..

Well my letter dropped through the door this morning and my youngest got into her Second choice School, the magnitude of this is two fold...She did not unlike most other children/parents that I met..practice for the strictentrance exam she took for this school, she sat two prolonged exams for different school on the same day, in fact we spent the WHOLE DAY on this...and worse and to my eternal shame I got it badly wrong on the day and we arrived late at the 1st exam..

My daughter is not exactly a model child (yea i know, but its true), and she has for various reasons had a very difficult start to her life....so considering this,she still managed to perform well enough under these circumstances and pull out this unexpected result, well you can imagine how i feel can't you?....

The alternatives weren't great and whilst i felt she would have been ok, with hardwork and lots of input from us...I don't mind saying that i was genuinely worried for her....The two neighbouring schools are very poor.... so poor in fact that one is only half full and the other is barely two thirds full....both schools have very low rates of application...50 & 84 applied for these schools respectively this year, you compare that to the first choice school that I applied for..where upwards of 1000 people turned up you can see the big difference..

Anyway I'm saying well done my daughter..you made your daddy really proud today....these are the days you know you're getting it right as a parent..wow!!

Well done and congratulations to you and your daughter.clp)Having gone through this horrible processlast year, I'm all too familiar with the angst of waiting for that envelope to drop though the letter box. I hope she continues to do well in her school career and make mummy and daddy proud.

Well done to Baby Kunjufu!

I know exactly how you feel, K. I felt so proud when my daughter got into The Brit School, I can tell you!

It's so soul destroying when they put so much effort into these tests to find it's not been worthwhile.

I have hopes for my son, but I'm afraid that at this rate he'll be expelled from primary school soonconfused2.

Anyway, congrats again.

@Kunjufu
Congrats to you and your daughter, but especially to you for ycur efforts, if I could only see more black fathers at these open days with the year 6's I would be very happy. I spend too much time interviewing these brilliant single black mothers that are trying hard for their children, but I always feel sad at the lack of black fathers present.

At least you daughter will be surrounded by all the right influences, I wish her all the best.

clp)clp)clp)

Congratulations to the both of you!

flowerblushfor Mini Miss Kunjufu...These days getting into schools are no joke.

My sister is already dreading the process for my neice and she isn't even one yet:?

Congratulations to you and your daughter. I wish her all the success &joythat is sure to come with this achievement.clp)banana.gif

congrats clp)to you...& a special congrats to her for overcoming and elevating...

Gongrats to you and your family Kunjufu. That makes the hard work worth it. Now you can stop waiting for the mail to drop awaiting the news. I know exactly what you are talking about in regards to the behaviour issues. We went through the same thing withourfirst born son. Ispent many days at his school when he was younger.

Forgive my ignorance but is seconday school in the U.K. the same thing that we call middle school here in the states which would begrades 6 - 8 (ages 12 - 14)? Also, in order for your children to go to a ranked (exemplary) school you have to take an entrance exam?

The reason I ask is because here in the states it's usually a matter of what neighborhood you live in that determines what school your children will attend.For examplemy wife and I wanted our childen to be in a particular school districtin which the schools are ranked as some of the best in the state. So we bought our house in the neighborhood that would enable our children to attend the schools that we wanted. We pay quite a bit more in school taxes but it is worth it.

AC9311: the system in the Uk is varied still, but the majority of the education dept still run a two teir system of Primary and Secondary education...Children generally transfer at the age of 11 to secondary education...

It also used to be the case that schools took their pupils from a catchment area...however some bright spark thought that it was best to give parents the right to choose what school to send their child... consequently what we have now is a system whereby all 'good' schools cerrypick the brightest children or better still omit those children trhat will present significant problems.... for example i got the letter from my first choice school...it recieved 1600 applications for 192 places...we missed out because we lived 3 miles away and they restricted themselves to only accepting pupils within 0.777 miles (whatever that means)...effectively I think it means, ifyou can't see the school you aint getting in..

so what is becoming increasingly common is that sink schools are developing where all the unwanted children are effectively forced to go... this has a knock on effect of driving good teachers to certain schools and the spiral continues...in my view it would be kinder to just take some children to the local prisons and leave them there because its the same diffirence..

I think this stupid system is in part responsible for some of the violent problems we're seeing across the uk today..

Fizzy B wrote: [line]

Fizzy B..I'm really sorry to hear that.....From what i hear for what its worth there is a good chance you can overturn the original decision...it looks like who shouts the loudest and longest gets the look in...

Thanks...BP, bluehoney and everyone else for their best wishes...

Black Power: i definately think you have a valid point, that being in a so called 'good' school is not a guarantee of anything....However the problem with being in a poor performing school isn't the issue of the childs ability..but the ability of the school to attract and keep good teachers, to be able to forfil a wide cirriculum and MOSt importantly for me to maintain discipline...

In each of the schools i visited that wasn't the case, there were high turn over of teachers, certain classes weren't being taught because there were no teacher to teach them..and in one example when i was visiting a school..i witness two teacher assitants teaching a class..(btw that is not supposed to happen) and saw one walk out of the class in tears after losing it with a child...

For my money BP, its an absolute waste of time me instilling discipline and the work ethic in my child..if its not reinforced in the school, if other children are not disciplined and if you've got sub standard teachers who can't keep hold of the class.. I might just as well not send her to school..