School life, between the linesBy Eleven Plus Diary
School stories, admissions adventures, and the things parents talk about on the way home.
Parent life · Edinburgh
Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh invites first-year parents to spend a day as pupils. The parents are keen. The pupils have views on that.
School life · Dronfield
In 1992 a Dronfield sixth-former who hated chemistry wrote his teachers a guide to the black box nobody could work. Our eldest has just written me one for the thermostat.
Family life · Britain
A mother who never got a Blue Peter badge watches her daughter write a song for one. The reply arrives while the girl is at school.
School life · Kent
In Kent, a shy primary pupil volunteered for bell ringing and ended up talking to adults. I wanted that for our daughter, and I wanted it by Easter.
School life · British school memories
The note from school asked each family for a single item. I read it the way I read a speed limit.
Parent life · Stockport and elsewhere
The Stockport Grammar interview invitations arrived on a Friday afternoon in January 2024. The parents could relax, briefly, until the real question arrived.
School memories · Edinburgh & the Lake District
One boy was picked last for Scottish dancing in an Edinburgh gym. Another was told by his school report to loosen up. I have a parents’ ceilidh on Friday.
Family life · London & West Sussex
A mother’s two-line review of a night under the whale at the Natural History Museum should have put me off. I booked it the same evening.
School life · Scotland
A Young Enterprise team in Scotland lost its event a week before the big day and went to the final with nothing to sell. I read about it on the morning of our daughter’s enterprise afternoon.
School life · Exeter
In a 2017 heatwave, an Exeter school told boys who wanted shorts to wear skirts. The BBC turned it into an English lesson, and I turned it into ammunition.
School life · British school sports days
The mums’ race is in eleven days and our daughter has made her expectations clear. I went looking for parents who had been here before.
School life · Goole, Lincoln and Harrow
Our youngest asked whether his first cross-country race would have shortcuts. I said no, and then made the mistake of checking.
