Mumsnet Talk

Yellow - aren't you being a bit selective in your sample?

I mean, you are holding up two schools as examples that a highly selective intake doesn't result in a similarly high ranking. Your conclusion is that the 11+ selects kids that are not rvery academic but are merely good at passing the 11+ because they had been highly tutored.

I responded that other highly selective schools attract high number of highly tutored kids and are highly ranked.

Your response is that you was only talking about two schools. You are basing your opinion on just two schools and refusing to consider other schools that debunk your theory???

Yes I am being selective in my sample BS, with reason:legallady singled out Kingston and Sutton which she labelled as 'horrendously competitive'. So I queried why their ranking seems not to reflect that particularly. A perfectly valid query I should have thought. Indeed if one wants a discourse on the correlation between levels of competition at entry level for grammars and their success in terms of results one would have to look at the less competitive ones who keep right up there with the Tiffins' as well as the Tiffins' themselves.

It was a valid query Yellowtip but my point was that it was invalid to conclude that their relatively low ranking was due to an intake of highly tutored kids.

The quality of teaching varies from selective to selective. You can select the brightest kids in the catchment but if the quality of teaching isn't correspondingly high then of course your rankings won't reflect the competive selection process.

You are making a valid comment but it belongs in a thread about how quality teaching can make a great difference even with bright kids.

Off to look at where Kingston is in the league tables...

What am I missing? KGS got 100% 5 good GCSE's, Surbiton got 96%...what's not to like?

I'm not sure why calling the entrance tests for Kingston and Sutton "horrendously competitive" is at all contentious. Of course they are competitive. What else would you call it when you have 1800 children sitting for each of the Tiffin schools and nigh on 1600 for each of the Sutton schools (well boys anyway.) I singled those areas out as they are the ones I have experience of.

At no point was I insinuating that just because they are competitive tests that the schools must be better than others. They are situated in densely populated areas of London and, with the exception of the girls grammars in Sutton, have no catchment of any sort and so are open to all and sundry to apply. Thats what makes them horrendously competitive.

And Yellowtip, what would you call a decent ranking in the tables? Both Tiffin Schools, Wilsons and Nonsuch are all in the top 50 schools in the entire country (including independents) based on AS/A level.

Like the others said, that's really impossible to answer. It depends entirely on the child and the competitiveness of the school. FWIW I've not heard of anyone having more than a weekly tutor, but my samples not that big as most children I know have gone to non-selective state schools.

I think some degree of familiarisation with the type of tests is essential and it would be unfair to send a child in with at least a practice run, but it doesn't necessarily need to be much more than that.

My daughter has (almost certainly) got a place at Kendrick grammar school, which is not quite Tiffin, but not far off. It was a last minute decision to apply, so she only started to practice about 3 weeks before. They don't do these tests at school (quite rightly, there are better things to spend time on) so she hadn't seem anything like them before. She probably managed the equivalent of 4-5 practice tests of each type in that time, but often broke down into smaller parts. In retrospect i wouldn't have done much more practice, but I would have started a little earlier so it could be more spread out. 2 months rather than 3 weeks. We didn't have any outside help, but I'm quite good at that kind of thing.

Why not just get hold of some practice tests and give them a go, then you'll see how much you need to do? Or ask an experienced tutor to do an assessment if you're not confident.

I merely suggested one explanation BS. Just as valid as making a leap the other way to your suggested explanation that the teaching may not be all that.

legallady of course top 50 is a great ranking but if you look at my post I wasn't directing the comment at either of the Tiffins, or Wilsons or Nonsuch, so your post is a little irrelevant.