Please can someone answer this simple question about state selective schools?

What about talking whilst eating together and reading to your dc.

The reason my dc rock reading comp and VR are the lang and reading opportunities we've given them.Going through a few VR papers for speed has made little impact tbf.It's often all decided on vocab. Even CPG can't give kids an exceptional vocabulary.

That said I do think some way to get kids in without the home advantages many have would be good.Focusing on tutoring is the wrong thing to focus on imvho.

So no one is allowed to prepare, just turn up and hope for the best, if a tutor isn't fair, what about doing past papers, what about allowing an accountant parent to help them with maths. Or is none of that allowed?

To be honest what tutors give(whether it be a parent,aunt or paid tutor) is neither here nor there.

You could plonk a pile of books in front of any child however only a few will do the work,mark it and go over mistakes to learn from them. Imvho those are the kids more likely to get in which is why I doubt we'll bother with my dd.She'll refuse to do the work,will never mark it and making her go over mistakes would end in carnage.She is bright(very bright) but she'd hate grammar school.Her brothers are a whole diff kettle of fish.

Interestingly we have friends with kids in top private schools who have forked out shed loads on tutoring.Their children just can't get over 50% in VR.Paying for tutoring guarantees you sweet fa.There is a lot of ignorance re the 11+ mostly from people who have never been though it.

But didn't you put your dds through a 'SPAG boot camp'

Um....no. I didn't. Did you? Really??

Around here it would be unfair to allow a child to turn up to the 11+ without some preparation. It's just no one talks about it yet the well known tutors are booked up months and months in advance
Well that doesn't sound very fair!

Different people have different reasons for thinking it's bad. My reason for thinking it's bad is that it makes the cut at 25% and I think that's far too big a chunk to take out of the cohort. It won't help the really bright kids at all, and it will disadvantage the ones bumping around the middle of the range. The non grammar schools really are sec mods not comps, so there is less scope for the kids who just had a bad day at the test to put that behind them and still follow the same path educationally they would have been able to follow had they had a good day. It's just an incredibly blunt instrument.

But didn't you put your dds through a 'SPAG boot camp'. That must? Have required? Some patience and ability at tutoring. Not to mention understanding of how question marks work?

Around here it would be unfair to allow a child to turn up to the 11+ without some preparation. It's just no one talks about it yet the well known tutors are booked up months and months in advance

I don't think you can make a sensible comparison between selective and comprehensive area based on GCSE results. Grammars tend to offer I-GCSE, offer a different range of subjects and you cannot show you are adding much value when 90% or more of your year 11 scores A or A* in most subjects and the students' KS2 results were at the top end. There is no more value available to add! It's comparing apples and oranges.

Do 11+ packs and free internet stuff require a lot of parental patience and ability at tutoring? That's a pisser for a lot of kids then!

I don't pretend to speak for anyone else , but I suspect that wherever Haklyut was able to live, her thoughts about selection at 11 would remain unchanged!

I know Rabbit.

My dad,uncles,aunts and mother went to Kent grammar schools.

My dc are miles away.The choice and system re 11+ are a world away.

The parents in Bucks like the grammar system.

Why would you allow your children to take the 11 plus and appeal when the second one doesn't get in and then claim you cannot move house. Isn't that rather convenient, it allows you to pontificate about selective education and then state you cannot move!

I too think that the system in Kent is crap. I don't think every single system in every single county/LEA is crap though. But whenever we have these threads we are all forced to debate through a Kent prism. And I suspect nobody thinks the system in Kent is good. Except possibly the county council.

If you don't like it,move, seems a very inadequate solution to me! Of course, one could move and still somehow remain concerned by an unfair system in a place you didn't live, couldn't you? No grammars here, thank Christ, but I still think it's a crap system and have feelings about it!

Hak - if you really feel strongly about selective schools why on earth did you allow your children to take the 11+?

If you really feel that strongly move to another area that has the schools you are looking for

Right, so there's stuff they couldn't do if not tutored? And then they'd fail? But perhaps there could be some nice children whose parents couldn't afford that, do you not think? Better safe than sorry though, I guess, when it comes to mixing with them.

I'm not so sure LaQueen.I have twins.1 G&T,the other picked for nowt as he is shadow child.Want to guess which got 92% in the first VR mock he ever sat with zero tutoring then to speak of? It wasn't G&T boy,it was shadow boy.He has trumped his twin(a lot more confident and vocal,picked off everything) several times.

Going on Sats would disadvantage those in the more mediocre primary schools.