Ethnic minorities in selective schools in London

The move to CEM - supposedly tutor proof - have made it worse as now the kids are having to do countless papers to see all the patterns/words.

Henrietta Barnett has got to the point that a lot of local parents with smart kids don't even apply. I know several pupils at the school - all of Asian ethnicity, all who had 1-2 tutors and parents who saw this as the ultimate goal above sports, relaxation, even holidays.

Most local non-Asian parents choose Latymer or DAO ahead of HB and QEB because they don't want to have their children "compete" at that level.

11+ tests are not in the slightest tutor-proof and successful candidates often tutor for years.

EssentialHummus are they tutor-proof? And if not how can they be made tutor proof?

I'm now not at all involved in this field, so can't comment. Most of the practice books relied on the tests having a limited number of patterns/question styles that can be taught. But the nature of reasoning is that questions can be far wider than that, to test reasoning rather than recall and application of taught patterns.

Do you think Asian would also get tutored for reasoning?

I certainly tutored for reasoning, though to be quite honest I think reasoning tests can be made tutor-proof.

In Sourh London all academic privates and super selective grammars are made up of a big proportion of Asian kids.
I'm Asian myself and I can tell you it's because education is really highly valued. Parents will be willing to make personal and financial sacrifices to get their kids into the right school.
It's nothing to do with being brighter just working 10 times harder.
What I have noticed is that some of the sought after privates in a bid to keep the ethnic mix more balanced are now turning down Asian kids for that very reason.

But at the same time these kids often have no chores at home and will be bought anything they want, so academic achievement is the only thing they'll be expected to focus on.

Not the same thing, but reminded me - when I was tutoring for this I'd routinely arrive to the equivalent of a three course Indian meal at a few of the houses, for me to have while tutoring. Which was lovely.

In Buckinghamshire, Indian immigrant families think nothing of making their kids commute an hour each way to school on the bus. It's considered healthy and a good way to build a work ethic. But at the same time these kids often have no chores at home and will be bought anything they want, so academic achievement is the only thing they'll be expected to focus on. Very similar to India really.

The Indians who are born in the UK often prefer private schools when they can afford it. Which is why in many Indian areas outside of London you generally won't find the kids of rich professionals in comp schools (even outstanding catchment areas).

Another thing is that a house is rented near the catchment and the students don't necessarily live in the catchment area.

You need to define ethnic minorities carefully.

Some ethnic minorities will be heavily represented - others will be vanishingly rare, depending on value placed on education especially for girls/family view on travel and mixing outside local community/familiarity with how the system works.

I went girls selective private in the 90s - Indian pupils were prob more common than in the local population. On the other hand, don't remember a single black pupil

When I moved to London as an adult, I had a lot of colleagues who went to Henrietta Barnett as children. It didn't seem to bear any resemblance to a normal state grammar (I thought it was a private school for about a year ) - there's a whole industry based on getting your girl in there and it's highly competitive - 2000 applicants for 93 places. The only girls going there are ones who've parents have totally committed to it, probably with tutoring or private primary, from day 1.

kids of minorities are travelling from further away than the rest of their friends
many parents of minorities kids can't move to live close to desirable comp school (inside and outside of L) and as a result they choose to apply to to super-selective schools

I think this is the main reason you see many of them in those schools.

I live in a grammar school area and Asians (especially Indians) tend to tutor their kids from a young age and send them to Kumon.
i remember when ds1 was in year 1 and one of the mum's I was chatting to tutored her child for 2 hrs every day.

Plus these schools are single sex

Where I live the private schools are mostly made up of ethnic minorities and the grammar schools.

I love south London. The boys grammar near me has a very very high proportion of boys from an Indian background far more than is representative of the overall area. The girls I think is a bit more mixed.

It also needs to be noted that in India/China a good education is nearly always selective and private. Professionals are used to paying thousands of pounds a year and so a grammar might be seen as a bargain.

"Ethnic minorities" is a very unhelpful category for this subject. Children whose family backgrounds are Romanian/Hungarian/Indian/Bangladeshi/Ghanaian/Jamaican/Chinese/Somali will have hugely different represention in selective schools.

Yes, I was about to comment on Essex too, it is noticeable that the mix at most of the grammars does not reflect the local area. Non white kids travel from a very wide area to the schools.

The 2 super selective grammars are 96% non white in this part of Essex. White population is far higher. White children are not even being entered for the tests, preferring to go into independents (if they have money) or comps.

Do you think they're more likely to get tutored for 11 plus?

No idea, and also hard to draw neat comparisons. My students were all Indian, but that could just be down to referrals between friends etc.

Depends on the area. In most areas where there are Indians/Chinese immigrants the grammar schools will have a high proportion of Indian/Chinese origin kids as selective education is seen as important to them.