Do selective schools take account of a state school background?

[StanHouseMuir]

Is it likely that selective schools factor in a state school education when comparing against prep-school entrants?

A local selective head has said they prefer non-coached children but I get the impression that the local preps do a lot of work for the entrance tests

[Caoimhe]

Well I only had one school admit to factoring in state education but around here most children from state primaries are tutored so it should be a reasonably level playing field (academically speaking at least).

[StanHouseMuir]

Is that for the independent sector or grammer schools?

We're not tutoring our DD, but are now having second thoughts, despite what the target school says.

[Caoimhe]

Oh independent - the grammar schools I know just go by the marks on the exam.

[basildonbond]

the school ds1 attends said they marked the papers from prep school and state school kids differently - he was certainly not disadvantaged (got scholarship) by going to state school and had no tutoring either

so ime yes, they do

[Barbeasty]

I don't know about now, but the Bristol private schools used to take it into account and require different marks from state vs prep. I think they even used to differentiate between prep schools, especially when talking about scholarships, as some did far more cramming than others.

[stillfeel18inside]

I think they definitely make allowances, especially in maths where yr 6 kids won't necessarily have covered the same as prep school kids.

[thirtysomething]

The head at DS' (highly selective) school told us after he had taken the entrance exam at 11 that he was discounting most of his maths paper as he clearly hadn't covered most of the syllabus at his state primary school. So he got in on the strength of his English, reasoning tests and general gift of the gab! The Head said they just look for potential and can spot the over-tutored prep children.

DS is now in Y8 and certainly keeping up with everyone else in the year, especially in Maths, so i guess the Head was right in his assessment.

[coodles]

When my younger DS moved from his state school, he had to sit an entrance test for Maths, English and verbal and non verbal reasoning to enter private school.

After the test, he told me he hadn't been able to read the English paper properly and so had barely answered any questions. I assumed he had failed, but he was offered a place as the Head said he had potential - and clearly had not been coached.

I think"potential" is what they look for. My DS will chat about anything as he is interested in a lot of things -I think they liked that.