Secret Teacher: parental pressure is crushing my year 6 class
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Version 0 of 1. We all dread those conversations with angry parents. They tend to start in the same way. “My child is not fulfilling their potential,” the parent will say assuming that I, the professional, have not understood their child’s needs and am letting them and their family down. Parents at my school will stop at nothing to make sure their child has every opportunity to succeed so that they “fulfil their potential”. This might sound extreme, but the evidence backs it up. The state school in which I teach is in an affluent area, surrounded by private preparatory primaries and high-achieving grammar schools. These secondary schools set their own individual entrance exams which children at the beginning of year 6 must pass. Lots of children from my school, driven by their parents, are put forward for these exams. They are free to enter but horribly difficult, involving three hours of tests which cover everything from maths and reading to verbal and non-verbal reasoning. These are subjects that our school doesn’t even teach. To pass the easiest maths entrance exam, children need to be level 5 mathematicians at the start of year 6, which puts crushing pressure on them. And in some instances they’re competing with 1,400 children for less than 200 available places. If you pass, you’re inched nearer to the promised land of “potential” that parents strive towards. But for those who fail, the consequences are devastating. Most of my year 6 class will take these entrance exams soon. They have been intensively training for months, some even years. Determined parents pay private tutors thousands for weekly sessions, complete with customised homework. Getting your child into a top grammar school really costs you. The work these young children do is on top of school assignments and extra curricular activities of every kind from gymnastics to horse riding. Most of the summer break between year 5 and 6 for the children I teach is spent doing mock exams and revision. Many face five consecutive Saturday mornings of three-hour exams from 9am. There’s such intense pressure that most parents get children to do every school entrance exam so they have the maximum chance of getting into at least one. Gossip in the playground should not be serious but children from year 3 onwards are talking about future secondary schools. At parents’ evening the question of how children can get into the best schools dominates. So, what about the children whose families cannot afford a private tutor or don’t have the academic nous to ace these incredibly difficult exams? They end up swatted aside by former best friends and forced to replace them with friends of “equal standing”. I remember last year when Kirsty, a fragile 10-year-old, found one entrance exam overwhelming. In the aftermath, she went into meltdown. Her classwork plummeted, her school test scores sank and she regularly burst into tears in the classroom. When she found out she hadn’t got in, she was traumatised. It took another nine months of encouragement and hand-holding to build her up again. Another child in my class, Dennis, was told by his father that he had to get through the entrance exams because they had moved into the area specifically for him. If he didn’t he would owe his parents the price of their house, or so he thought. Dad came to me for reassurance that his son would get in, reassurance I couldn’t possibly give. He went away fuming. Fortunately, Dennis made it through – his dad would have been out for my blood if he hadn’t. As a school, we take a level-headed approach to exams. We know they’re there but we don’t prepare for them; we want to make sure year 6s don’t become segregated according to who got in and who did not. In fact, research shows that the academic pressure to fulfil potential put on children from such a young age can lead to huge self-esteem problems in their teenage years, when striving for perfectionism does not deliver the goods. As a teacher, it’s not my job to judge the decisions that parents make. Indeed, much of the pressure they put on their children comes from a genuine desire to get the best for them. However, it is my job to help the children achieve without feeling unrealistic pressure. Follow us on Twitter via @GuardianTeach. Join the Guardian Teacher Network for lesson resources, comment and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. |