Have your children got into Grammar school without tutoring?

Someone mentioned that private school pupils are at an advantage with 11+ - not always so. I sent my two sons to prep school because the primaries were not very good at basic education, I always planned they would move over to state schools at 11. The prep school prepared them for common entrance, which is very different, and I had to get a tutor in on top of paying school fees, for the 11+.You need loads of practice as well as inate intelligence as you need to be able to answer at speed to get a good score. DS1 got ( from what I've heard) a very good mark at 11+ ( and got his GS place) but he couldn't work quick enough to answer all the questions and simply guessed the last few in the hope of picking up a few crucial extra points.

In our area, which sounds simelar, if not the same to Custard's, whoever gets the highest 100 scores, gets the place. Where a child lives has no affect at all on whether they are offered a place. Lots of children score well above the pass mark and still not get offered a place because other children have scored higher.

Also, our grammar school is the only one in the area. We do not have any secondary moderns here, all the other schools are comprehensives.

The grammar school has accepted children from 64 different primary schools this year. Those primary (and prep) schools cover a huge area, so it is not correct to say that the grammar school has deprived any comprehensive school of bright students. The highest number of students that came from any one feeder school is four, and only two schools out of the 64 had that many. Most had one or two.

Both of my sons passed without any paid tutoring - we practised at home using the Bond papers from WH Smith and they did some online practice at chuckra.co.uk (has free online tests).

Practising at home is important, because it's not just about being able to answer the questions. It's also an exercise in speed, and in pacing - being able to keep one eye on the clock to make sure you can finish on time, and learning not to spend too long on a question if it's very difficult and so on.

Our school is also a super-selective with no catchment area and boys travel from up to an hour away to come here. But our local comps are also excellent.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Interesting distinction. I live in south london so the selectives in the outlying boroughs (and graveney - part selective - in Wandsworth) I think are within the term "super selective" as they allow anyone to apply. (I hadn't hear that expression before).

Does it not work that way in your area. How do catchments work there? Is it they set a pass mark and then within those that pass the nearest to school get in? Or what?

The local "secondary moderns" you mean (not comprehensive if there are local grammar schools at the school is not then all ability) ..... hmmm... so if the comps/SMs (whatever they are called) are so good, why the competition to get into the grammars.

Seems all a lot of stress and money over nothing then.

Not round my way they don't - the parents send em private if they don't get in. The comps get the rest.

But no matter how many you have you then have the problem of deciding (testing) who is "suited" and who is not and so the randomness at the boundary will still exist, and there will always be limited space and so unless there is a particularly "dense" year then competition (and spiral of tutoring) will come in again.

Better to have schools (some parts of the Uk are fully comp after all) which find the right path for all children with flexiblity to move around, so its not just a question of do you hit the mark on one test at age 11.

But lets not hijack the thread. (my fault, I admit).

Sadly they are great for the children that do go to them, and shit for all the rest.

Wouldn't it be better if they provided more Grammars, so that every child who would be better suited to that type of education would be able to access it?

custardcake makes a great case for abolishing the grammars. It all seems so random and therefore unfair for all the reason she says ....

snogs Hully

Yes. But do practice papers at home so they know the types of questions and techniques - it really really matters. And there's loads of free tests on the 11+ plus forum.

I've just arranged a tutor for ds1, he is very bright, gets A's always and when he took an assessment for the tutor he got 78%

I think he would pass without the tutoring, however the verbal reasoning skills aren't covered at school, so he won't learn these in a structured way. He really wants to go to grammar school so I think it's worth tutoring him in these skills. The competition for our grammar is very tough so if he knows how to go about answering the questions he's not at a disadvantage

I think it's a shame that primary schools aren't supporting those children who want to take the exam

Completely agree CustardCake.

Seasider, I totally see where you are coming from and why this is important to you. Our local comp is actually a very good one, so although I wouldn't have been devestated if ds had to go there, I know that it wouldn't serve him as well as the grammar.

I know people on here say the 11+forum is quite scary, and I know I found it intimidating when I first looked, but it is very good for getting information about the particular scool you are aiming for. 11+ tests vary greatly throughout the country, so it's good to find out as much as you can about the tests your ds will be taking so you can prepare him as best you can.

We didn't have a tutor, we used the tutoring school of mum and dad. But even if we didn't want our DC to go to GS we would have done the same, because sadly the primary school was not very good.

Yes they can. It also does not need to be a stressful situation either. I have 2 children at grammar schools and it was definitely the best thing for them. One morning of exams was less stressful for my son than another 7 years of being bullied for being a nerd!

We had no choice but to tutor our DC. The state primary schools in our area are completely out performed by the private schools. A large share of the kids taking up GS places in Bexley comes from Indies. I once saw a breakdown from the council and the results were . If the standard of teaching in our Primary schools would be of the same level as the Indies we would not have to result to tutoring.

I think in the type of school I'm talking about, an extra three marks through tutoring would still mean that that child was capable of keeping up with the standard at a grammar school. The point is that while the cleverest may get a place, there are still very clever children that won't. I find that quite sad.

Some parents (like me! ) have reasons other than the academic standard for wanting their children to go to a grammar school rather than a comp, and while I agree that all the competition is too much stress, if you know that the temporary stress is going to make a huge difference to your child's education and theri happiness over the next seven years, then it doesn't seem that big a price to pay.

Ok, the cleverest children will always get in without tutoring (by definition!).

The others are all stressing themselves and their parents out by this relentless competition..... yes, tutoring may have got the extra 2 marks but then what if those below in the rankings had just that much extra tutoring so they got an additional 3 marks ....

All too stressful really.