Has anybody successfully tutored for the 11+ completely by themselves(need reassurance)

Agree with breadandbutterfly - the question was can I do this? The answer - yes you can. And contrary to the suggestion on this thread - even when circumstances are less than ideal. You don't have to be living out some middle class life of perfection to manage it. It can be done in leaky, cluttered houses with severely disabled siblings and parents who have to spend too much time on paid work. BTDTGTTS.

Also agree with those who have mentioned that it gives you a good understanding of your child's problem areas. Had ds2 not passed I would have known immediately why that was (too many careless silly mistakes for a multiple choice paper). That in itself meant I could work on this & give him tips on accuracy & how to check answers.

And I was serious when I recommended the Nintendo Brain Training. Stealth practice........l!

I too would second that Bond Online is a good way to start and not too onerous an introduction for DCs. It was quite basic when we took out a year's subscription but had an overhaul a couple of months before DS started taking his 11+ exams - very helpful!

@ seeker:

""Agree - almost any parent who's not half-witted can tutor their own dc better than a tutor"

Provided they have the knowledge,the education, the confidence, the leisure, the language, the time, the space, the inclination......"

I wasn't debating whether or not the system is fair - that is matter for a different thread, not this one, and has been done to death by you and others on other threads previously. The OP, who is a teacher, so presumably not uneducated, and who obviously does have the inclination, asked if she could tutor as well as a 'professional' tutor.

I said yes - to give her that one element I agree she was lacking - confidence.

Please stick to the topic - which is if it is possible for ordinary people with the inclination to tutor their own children successfully, to do so.

Not whether it is possible for any bright child to get in if they have a parent with no inclination and/or brains.

Different topic, should be on a different thread. Go start one, so I can ignore it.

And of course if you have the cash & want to you can buy in a tutor if you want. Personally I was fed up of paying people (had therapists for years with ds1) and preferred spare money to go into our roof fund.

*coming in through the ceiling :violins:

Oh just to add to the disadvantaged families pov. I prepared ds2 (& he got in) despite having 2 siblings - one very severely autistic (so no chance of quiet space for homework) while working late myself each night. And we couldn't study in his bedroom because there's no space around the buckets catching the water com

So even in less than ideal circumstances it can be done if you so wish.

gazzalw FSM children = Pupil Premium money for each child!

Of course schools want to make sure all families that are eligible are claiming.

At DS's school they are forever sending round forms asking if people are eligible for FSM - I actually think they would prefer it if there were more boys on them! Every term we get one....His school has about 2% on FSM.

piggy makes the very good point that there are a lot of people struggling financially who nevertheless don't qualify for FSM.

True, but other things being equal, we can also assume that schools with high FSM also have a large proportion of children at just above the FSM level. The reverse is also the case and and schools with low FSM uptake tend to have relatively few children just slightly above the FSM level.

I'd like to add my name to the list of parents who successfully tutored two DC for places in very selective GS. We started in year 5 with Bond books (having checked past papers from the 11+ exam board to find out the test format) and worked on maths, english and VR at home. We started with the 10 minute tests then worked our way up to the full length ones.

We did pay for 4 sessions at a local 11+ club where they sat two full length tests in exam conditions in a hall with about 30 other children as this 'atmosphere' was the one thing we couldn't provide at home. This was really useful as both had been scoring really highly at home but did really badly in the first 'exam conditions' tests. Their nerves settled after a couple of sessions so that on the 11+ day they were relatively relaxed.

I wondered if I was doing the right thing and sometimes felt worried that I might be letting them down as everyone else seemed to be using tutors. As time went on, I realised that I was doing a better job for our DCs as I knew them better, could work at a time that suited us and could give incentives for their work that I knew would motivate them.

We also didn't make a big deal of it. We said from the start that we'd help them and that they should try their best but if they didn't get in it would be fine. We rewarded each of them with little presents right after the 11+, before the results were published as we were rewarding their effort and not their results. I think this helped as they were nowhere near as stressed as some other kids whose parents had spent a fortune on tutors.

I'd be happy to help more if you'd like to PM me.

Actually, I can see why Tesco gets dragged in - where there's a really big tesco it tends to be a disproportionately big employer, because of all the PT jobs it creates. I know loads of people working very PT shifts at the brobdingnagian tesco over the road from DSs comp and DD2s primary. When DD1 started at the primary, when the tesco was less than half the size it is now, the main PT employer 'at the school gate' was the hospital. Now it seems to be tesco. The main full time employer continues to be the Uni though. :)

I don't think it's unreasonable to make the point that not all parents are in a position to home tutor effectively, even if they are really really clever. Some people have difficult lives, some people have jobs that are very demanding of time resources for whatever reason, some people have large families or DCs who aren't amenable to allowing their sibling to do quiet study....there are a host of reasons why some people might prefer to use tutors rather than do it themselves, it doesn't mean that the parents have persuaded themselves the tutor has magical qualities - it might just be the best practical solution.

We didn't have a tutor for Dd1 and nor did we 'home tutor'. We did however send her to a few practice sessions of mock 11+ exams with about 50 other kids from all over the place, some of them tutored by the people running the practice sessions, some of them not, so that she could acclimatize to what it would be like doing the exam (time issues, personal space issues (a Big Thing for dyspraxic people) etc. you did the test, it got marked. You were given the mark back. If there had been any issues we might I suppose have followed them up but the weren't so we didn't. The sessions were actually aimed at her second choice GS and based on the format of that 11+, which is different from the one at her first choice, but it was still, I think, a valuable experience for her. And it was the best practical thing we could do to prepare her.

Just checked, yellow- and I suppose you're right. In my defence, it was in response to a poster saying that her child wasn't tutored- and then detailing her programme of work with him, starting in year 4.........Which would be pretty terrifying to the average DIYer.

I didn't start the FSM/disadvantage stuff, though.

From memory I think you started to derail it earlyish on seeker when you piped up with how parents helping their DC was just as much 'tutoring' as buying in one of these self-styled 'pros'. The implication of course was that was unfair to all socially disadvantaged kids everywhere.

Talkin I made no comment about FSMers which as others have commented is a very blunt tool. I said that there were many offered places from backgrounds which were not obviously dictionaried, knowledgeable, educated, confident, leisured, languid, spatial and inclined. In fact my own DC can't tick all of those boxes so I can't fathom how they got in. piggy makes the very good point that there are a lot of people struggling financially who nevertheless don't qualify for FSM. That's important and the FSM argument is a weak one always trotted out to gloss over the reality of the social make up of schools.

All the single mother/ Tesco stuff is so patronising it beggars belief. Why is Tesco always slung in?

Not me. Honest. I just joined in once it was derailed.

Dammit. I just realised I helped seeker derail yet another thread. We are back to discussing the inequities of the 11+ system. D'oh! So with myself.

seeker

"And on the FSM point- yes, it can sometimes be less than clear cut. However, if you look at a selective school, and at the schools where children not "deemed selective" from the same area go, there is usually at least a 10% difference in FSM take up."

"People have been giving the OP lots of helpful suggestions all along. There has been some side discussion about tutoring- which the OP has joined in with. How very odd that you see it as an anti grammar school thread.*

Odd? To each, his own and I would always fight for everyone's right to an opninion. But what has FSM and the low take-up in GS got to do with tutoring? Why does the comparison of FSM figures between GS and non-selective in the same area need to be mentioned. My dear seeker, are thou perchance hoisted by thine own petard?

If financial assistance isn't based on high exam marks then what is it based on? I can't see some selective private school offering a 100% fees remission to some average performing student simply because he is disadvantaged. Just in case you haven't noticed, there is no shortage of disadvantaged average performing students out there.

I do understand about FSM entitlement. But I don't see how that would make it OK that very fe children on FSM get into state selective schools.

People have been giving the OP lots of helpful suggestions all along. There has been some side discussion about tutoring- which the OP has joined in with. How very odd that you see it as an anti grammar school thread.

seeker
And on the FSM point- yes, it can sometimes be less than clear cut. However, if you look at a selective school, and at the schools where children not "deemed selective" from the same area go, there is usually at least a 10% difference in FSM take up.

One final point, please do me (and the other parents who are unemployed) the courtesy of going and reading up on criteria for FSM, Income-Based and Contribution's-Based Job Seeker's Allowance. As Russians says, it's a blunt tool and not necessary reliable. Far too many little fishies fall through the net.

seeker

"Presumably the school will be teaching them what they need to pass their GCSEs?"

Don't you feel you'd be better off replacing that "presumably" with a "hopefully"? Afterall, not all comps/secondaries are good and not all GS pupils are MC with supportive and employed parents And you could use the same argument in a GS area, where English and Maths also form part of the 11+

Yet again, this has become a tiresome, anti-GS thread, where the OP originally started by asking if people had managed to home tutor successfully. If people (and not only those in GS areas) stop helping their children with homework, is that going to help the children (in useful ways) who need help because their social situation is disadvantaged? If the OP doesn't help their child, then how does that help to improve the GCSE outcome of the child used as an example? Are there possibly other areas, or facets of life in the UK that could be criticised and put under the microscope, to give that child a leg-up the ladder in so many ways and on so many levels, rather than banging on about tutoring, helping children with school work and GS?

I feel sad that there are still children like me living out there - I'm sad that having worked all his life, my DH can't get a bit of help. I want every child to have a good education and for social deprivation to be a thing of the past. However, it doesn't make me bitter because like a great many things in life, even with the best will in the world, I can't change it. It certainly doesn't make me want to no longer help my child with their work when they don't understand it. In what practical way would that help my child, or more importantly, the example child that TIP used?

OP, it can be done - I did it, I'm not a teacher an DD2 got a place at a fiercely competitive superselective. Have faith in yourself. My DD scored better than the local tutor's candidates (quite a lot of children didn't quite make the score needed). Tutors don't necessarily have magic wands and having spoken to another mum, it seems I was doing everything the tutor was doing and tbh, she said I actually provided more useful help.

Anyway, I shall leave you guys to it, as this thread has rather predictably gone the usual way and I always feel that repeating myself is wasted positive energy

OP, please feel free to PM me if you want advice.

I don't know whether private school entry exams are biased against disadvantaged children or not. I do know that there is flexibility in the system, though- and not all financial assistance in private schools is based on getting super high marks in an exam. Mind you, the number of disadvantaged children in the private sector is pretty low- to put it mildly.

I do know that the state selective system is biased against disadvantaged children- and there is no flexibility.

And on the FSM point- yes, it can sometimes be less than clear cut. However, if you look at a selective school, and at the schools where children not "deemed selective" from the same area go, there is usually at least a 10% difference in FSM take up.

FSM is an incredibly blunt tool for any meaningful analysis. In some of the poorest parts of the country (parts which get Objective 1 funding from the EU' take up of FSM is acknowledged as poor. This recent article describes but doesn't adequately explain the phenomenon www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/30-000-pupils-Devon-Cornwall-missing-free-school/story-18353746-detail/story.html#axzz2Ur0zNWvw

There is still a contradiction seeker. A child still needs to score relatively high to get a bursary. And if you are poor then you will need a 100% fees remission. In order to get a 'free' place that poor kid will need to score very high in order to attract such an offer.

The exams are either biased against poor kids or they aren't. If it is your assertion that they are then you shouldn't be going on about the really bright ones that get 100% fees remission.