New test for Tiffin Girls

You don't need to be 'taught' VR and NVR.

It's slightly beside the point to make the observation that life isn't equal. The point is that grammar schools cannot possibly set tests which are knowingly going to disadvantage state school children.

There are plenty of single mothers on benefits whose background is strikingly middle class and whose separated status entitles them to Child Tax Credit, which is a benefit. I expect that those paying for tutoring tend mostly to fall into that category rather than being those who've battled with disadvantage and poverty for most of their lives.

Yellowtip, state schools don't teach VR and NVR so they are disadvantaged . But we don't live in an equal world and there will always be disadvantaged children, whether it's money, health or crap parents. I know several single mothers on benefits who paid for tuition for their children and succeeded in getting them into top grammar schools. IMO any bright child can have a shot at gs if their parent/s want it for them.

No grammar school can disadvantage state school students by setting questions which can only be answered if parents have the funds to buy tutoring. The point about setting questions based on the whole of the Y6 curriculum is that schools don't all teach the subjects in the same order, so it's intended to counter that.

It's interesting that you say that London superselectives in effect require level 6 whilst several achieve the same results or worse than superselectives in other parts of the country where level 5 is enough. How does that work?

IME level 6 Maths, English comprehension, grammar, punctuation, spellings, essay writing took a lot more time to teach and practise than VR and NVR so IMO the former is a better reflection of a child's ability .

Having just gone through this process I would say if you wanted your dc in a super selective gs or a top indie in the london area then they need to be a grade 5 across the board ( English, maths, writing) by end of year 5 and working towards level 6 in all areas by the time they take 11+ in january of year 6. At gs which takes top 25% of pupils or less academic indie then level 4a across the board by end of year 5 and working towards level 5 in year 6. Dc from state schools do require tutoring for ss gs as they wouldn't have covered some of the work asked in the 11+ and enterance exams.

@Yellowtip The arms race isn't something I encountered when DD1 did the test for the superselective GS in our area. Fewer people apply though. I guess the London arms race (and it does sound bonkers) is a function of the huge numbers applying. I also don't quite understand why the super bright DDs didn't do the exam without tutoring.

I can't quite see why the super bright DDs didn't just opt of of tutoring then, whilst opting into the exam .

Is it a London phenomenon, this arms race, or does MN distort the reality?

carrots well, lucky old you, living in an area with excellent single sex comps (such as the school I went to when I was a kid). You do realise that not all kids live in areas where there are excellent comps though? And further, you do realise that many kids who go to superselective Grammar Schools (at least as good as Tiffins if not better) get there without entering into what I agree sounds like a frightening arms race of tutoring.

If every area had excellent comps with a viable top stream where the very brightest kids were not held back or bullied for being 'swots' then that would be perfect, really, wouldn't it. But not every area is lucky like that.

thetasigmamum - you ask where the DCs who are bubbling "just under" the Tiffin Girls level go. Well, in the local area they go to the local excellent girls comp and do just as well in the top streams, along with the super bright DDs who were securely in the Tiffin range but chose to opt out of the frightening arms race of tutoring.

Tiffin and others like it are for the soundly intelligent, not the 'super' intelligent Yummy. Otherwise Tiffin's results would look different.

The cream metaphor is a little unpleasant. I'd be very annoyed with my children if they took the attitude that they were 'the cream'.

This new test will help the cream rise to the top. Of course the girls have to be level 5s and above to get in . . . . that is the whole point of Tiffin Girls - it's for the super- intelligent. It's not supposed to be for your run-of-the-mill children. What's wrong with that? (goes to bed).

Tiffin will have tweaked what it originally said - sloppily - to stop speculation that it had raised the bar and is now looking towards Level 6 as standard. Which would be a nonsense.

Highish Level 5s at the end of Y6 is the expectation for the best of the superselectives. So Level 4a and above at the end of Y5 should suffice.

Changing the format randomly would be a good idea to combat the advantages of tutoring but the schools have to take great care not to disadvantage more vulnerable kids. If Tiffin's bar for the first tests is set relatively low then on the face of it it appears very slick: it conforms to the new Admissions Code yet gives the school time to spend on weeding out the best while probably minimising the advantage of tutoring. Quite time intensive for the school, but they must feel it's worth it.

LOL - Ive just found out that's exactly what DS2 did in one of his exams - 81% in maths, 40% in english. :o

I do think that maths and, to a lesser extent, english rely on ability rather than being the kind of thing you can cram into a child. With maths you do have to have a talent for it in order to be able to understand what is needed, especially under exam conditions.

I think you could tutor a chid how to do well at English, barring things like dyslexia, but anything thrown at them that was out of the ordinary would mess that up and you could probably spot a "tutored" essay for example.

Even if they don't know what is coming up in the exam they will still be tutored in everything.

It is a shame they can't interview - the private schools use it to spot the children who have been extensively tutored and which appear to be naturally bright. Tutoring will get you through the exam but it may not see you through the interview.

Having said that, I would have been shocking at interview because I was/am painfully shy.

I don't think there is a way to remove the bias towards tutoring really.

custard the problem then would be an intake who excel at literacy, one with a stranding aptitude for science and a year which are brilliant at maths.

They are not allowed to interview! I think church schools still did up to relatively recently ostensibly to gauge religious commitment but that has also been stopped.

The (private) schools DSs sat for interview all the children who pass the exam. They base their offers on that rather than just the marks. I imagine this isn't practical for state schools though.

Unfortunately I don't think it was the power of Mumsnet! I know of quite a few parents who have telephoned in the last few days. I would prefer a test that was impossible to tutor for. I think the new system is an improvement but will lead to even more tutoring. It seems fairly similar to the test at Henrietta Barnett School - a colleague has a five year old who is already being tutored for that one!

The power of Mumsnet ! At least that sounds more reassuring.

@custardcake DD1 was level 5 across the board at the end of Y4. They didn't do (as far as I am aware) the SATs papers when she was in Y3 (at the end of Y4 the advanced kids sat the same SATs as the Y6 kids were doing). She is now at a super selective grammar (which gets pretty much identical exam stats as Tiffins year on year). DD1 was not in any way unusual in terms of maths when she arrived at her current school. I think her English is probably heading towards G&T though. And she wasn't the only one with those sorts of levels at the primary school either. DD2 was level 5 in literacy at the end of Y3 and a level 4a in Maths (she has been taught with older year groups for both of those subjects). DD2 does appear to be way ahead in literacy but there are 3 other kids in her year who are as good or better than her at Maths. DS on the other hand didn't hit level 5 in Maths till Y6 and never hit it in literacy (well, hopefully he is now but we don't get very much feedback from his school, he didn't want to even try for the grammar and is at the comp for which his primary school is a feeder, where he is very happy and settled).

Many primary schools don't push the pupils as much as they could and at that age children develop at different rates anyway, which is obviously one of the arguments against selection at 11+ but it seems clear that there are a core of kids who do hit those levels early on given the opportunity. It doesn't mean the others won't catch up, but schools like Tiffins give those kids the scope to carry on powering forward if that is the way they are going, which is surley a good thing? It seems like Tiffins has more people wanting to go there than they can shake a stick at and I would guess that based on their experiences to date they feel they will fill the places easily even setting the bar high, so why not? If they feel their remit is to provide a tailored education to the sort of kids who are hitting those levels at that age then, given they believe in testing, they need to make the test appropriate. The sad thing isn't that Tiffins sets the bar so high, it's that there are so few state schools that do that or maybe set the bar just a bit lower to capture the kids who are bubbling under (and might overtake the 'hares' in a year or so). So you see the flight to posh schools for those who can afford it - but what happens to those who can't?

One important thing to remember is the kids who end up in super selective schools have often been bullied in their primary schools for being 'swots' or geeky. DD1 was, DD2 isn't, nobody would dare . She's feisty.

Super selective schools are supposed to cater for these sorts of pupils. It's not unreasonable for them to set the test bar accordingly.