sutton schools selective test today

School should be informed. Although I think that it's standard good practice to give a different exam paper-even more so now.

Oh dear! That's a few DS's bumped off the end of the top 150! Course of their lives changed forever due to one careless social networking post.

Viva la validation-seekers!

Hi,

It really is unfair. Many must have read it by now.Just thinking if we call the school and inform them.

Have reported the message to get it deleted, but MNHQ are all either down the pub or cooking their kids tea.

By all accounts, still quite a few children due to sit. I don't think it's very fair to give away the content of an exam which has been kept under wraps for months. Please delete kravings message.

Pressed done too early... Meant to say interested and stimulated. There is far better pastoral care than the excellent comp my other DC attend and they seem very good at helping each boy find his own strengths. The curriculum is also very well balanced so there seems more diversity in the sixth form - not all maths and sciences but a healthy number of humanities and the arts which wasn't the case at all GSs when we looked round. But that was a few years ago!

Just to suggest that you shouldn't be too influenced by the military uniforms yesterday at wilsons. Our experience was a parent of a son who is far from top of the pack at all subjects is that their brilliant organisation helps them identify early and offer support to those that need support in some subjects while keeping the syllabus moving at a fast pace in a way that keeps them interested and at

From what I have seen so far, I think that moving to a 2 step process has made the English writing element of far greater importance than even in previous years, and I suspect that it will be the key differentiator between the boys this year. I'm watching a smallish cohort of boys who sat both Kent (VR but no English) and Sutton (English and no VR) with interest!

Ds has obviously thought a bit more about secondary schools in the last few weeks. He wants a co-ed school with a tuckshop and no compulsory French. At least I now know that he will be happy with the local comprehensive school.

I think DS got into his super-selective on the strength of his maths and the NVR/VR components - he is not known for his literacy/English skills, although when push comes to shove, he can pull something remarkable (for him) out of the bag.....

DS has a boy in his class who came second in the UK in one of those national maths challenge contests! There are some amazingly bright children out there!

I agree Gazza that the boys aren't all like that! DS was probably in a group of about 10 or so boys and girls who were in the level 6 groups for SATs but was never right at the top of that group. There are some exceptionally bright kids at these grammars but the majority of them are just normal bright(!)

I'm not sure it helps anyone but I'm pretty certain that DS got into Wally boys on the strength of his English. His maths is average at best but he can write well when he sets his mind to it and he came out of the exam fairly satisfied with his composition. Just trying to give hope to those of you whose DSs may not be natural mathematicians! There is hope for them too.

Thanks for the tip-off on the Malcolm Gladwell book - he is on my radar but I'm ashamed to say I've never read any of his works !

Yes, convenient - illness on the day .....

Oh dear - it's just beyond crazy the lengths people will go to....I cannot ever imagine going to all that trouble if one doesn't live 'on the doorstep' of these schools. It really is beyond madness...

Yes, I remember the military cadets doing their stuff two years ago..... it's all a bit over-efficient...

How many years has this grammar school hysteria been going on?????

Would second all Ladymuck said. Had to wonder about the ccf guys! Maybe they have had unscrupulous parents is the past trying to sabotage other people's kids' chances!

I don't know whether you've come across Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Outliers amongst others). He's just written a new book (David and Goliath) which has a chapter on whether it is better to be a Big Fish in a Small Pond or a Small Fish in a Big Pond. Interesting reading.

I find Sutton's logic interesting. I suspect that what it will give them though are those boys who actually want to go to that school, rather than the boys whose parents want them at a grammar at whatever cost. The change in the admissions policy to round scores to the nearest 4 marks will also give them a much more local contingent than some of the other schools. There were prep school uniforms at Wilsons yesterday that I didn't recognise and I have a fairly wide breadth of knowledge of the local preps (both IAPS and ISA). And I also recognised uniforms which indicated that there were plenty of candidates from outside the M25!

Without giving away too much of the paper as there were a significant number of ill candidates who will sit in a few days, ds finished the first paper with 25 minutes to spare, which isn't a terribly good sign, and didn't manage to complete the 2nd. He didn't feel that the maths was any more difficult than at Wallington, but he was more pushed for time. Whilst the organisation of the day was "efficient", I far preferred the feel of Sutton (where ds sat selection) and Wallington. The military uniforms weren't really designed to put the boys at ease, and the sight of the boys being marched off in lines gave me uncomfortable images.

They're not all like that, though!

But yes the standard is phenomenally high - as I might have said upthread, both DW and I went to grammar schools (and are educated to degree level and beyond) but we've been amazed at the level they are supposed to be working at from the word go...

DS is not exactly upping his game yet and I think he can feel a bit demoralised at times. His Year 7 form tutor did however tell him that he is still in the top 5% of children in England and is still likely to be on course for mainly As/A*s in his GCSEs...

I didn't realise just how high the standard required was until I read that 3 boys who've just started at Wilson's did their gcse maths before leaving primary school and got 2xA* and an A!

Our experiences are now two years old but when DS did his, I think he did less well in the Wilson's exam than the Wally and SGS ones - I base that on him not having been offered a place at the first, but getting an initial offer from Wally Boys and then SGS from the waiting list very soon after Offers Day. When he did the exams. Wilson's was the only one which was purely Maths and English (no VR/NVR at all), whereas the others had some combination of the four components....

I sometimes feel though that children do better in the harder exams so don't lose hope!

It is indeed a pity that SGS hasn't brought forward 'round 2' of its testing to align itself with the other schools. I am not at all sure what their rationale is for doing so.

As some of you have so rightly pointed out, the DSs have been on a bit of a 'roll' albeit a rollercoaster one but it would be nice for them to just sit back and relax - and they can't quite, can they, if they still have the SGS one ahead of them ;-(

Good luck and fingers crossed everyone!

mine did too though didnt feel it was harder than wallington, he ran out of time at q 19 of maths though what about anyone else?

DS did Wilson's exam today and felt it was much harder than Wallington. Is this the general feeling?

Well I would admit that I had no idea, having been educated at an 'ordinary' grammar school many years ago, just how high the bar would be set from the off really.

I think DS is still trying to get a handle on what is expected of him. I think he did lose some confidence in Year 7 but seems more settled this year.....I'm not sure that he is ever going to be riding high though in most subjects - he has some super-brains in his class!

It is something to consider though in all seriousness.

Good luck to the DCs doing exams tomorrow....I thought it would cut down on the number of exams to be done, having this pass/fail first round...but in a way it's made the stakes higher and still there's as many exams for the children potentially.

DS's exams straddled early September to the end of November (he did the Wandsworth Test too for Graveney) and he'd rather lost the will to live by the time the last one came along.....

And as for "riding high", that of course is the dilemma with the selectives: they're put against the super-bright and can end up thinking of themselves as being less bright, when at the comp they would be top set for most subjects. Very difficult to keep them with a balanced view of it all! And at such an important age for defining self and building self-esteem.

OK, that would be in line with the norm (they allowed 35% to pass). I think that the parents at ds' school were more realistic, so those who were unlikely to get through didn't sit it.

I know that it has "only" been 2.5 weeks since the first round, but it is hard to gear up for another 2nd round test.

Hi Ladymuck, three boys passed out of about 10 who took the test. I don't know any of the parents of the boys who passed, to know whether they were 'dead certs' or not. Although one has a sister at one of the Sutton girls' super-selectives, both were tutored, so I guess he wasn't a surprise pass.

What I would say as an observation of my DC's primary school is that a lot of parents get swept along in the 11+ frenzy, although their DCs might not be of the required level - does that make sense? It's a fairly middle-range school so the children regarded as 'clever' might not necessarily match other schools' clever children...

Certainly DS was always a 'clever' one from his primary school and whilst he did pass all three 11+ exams he took (which must demonstrate a natural ability of some sort!), he is by no means currently riding high in his year at his super-selective!

gazzlw, any surprises on the first round of testing at your school? Everyone who sat it at ds's school passed, so that doesn't really help me!

Ds isn't going to like the format of any English paper unfortunately. Is that a hunch based on the length of the paper, or something more concrete ?