11 plus support thread for exams 2024

It's all because of, "There are currently 163 grammar schools in England with a total of around 176,000 pupils.The number of state grammar schools peaked at almost 1,300 in the mid-1960s when around one-quarter of all pupils in state secondaries attended grammars. Their number started falling soon after. The fastest period of decline was the 1970s; between 1971 and 1978 650 grammar schools closed". Source-https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01398/ We all want the best for our children and we can't really afford private schools, the grammar school, seems, is the only solution. As a result,we have a huge competition between the parents ( not children really). I hate to see articles about "gifted children" , who know dictionaries by heart by 11 years , as I understand the reason of their knowledge and how they were forced to memorise that bloody dictionary. It's not healthy for children, for parents, obviously it doesn't work for talented children, who don't have additional coaching. The only solution is to have a number of grammar schools in every region( see Kent with 32 grammar schools) for the 20% of the brightest.

Yes, I realise that now. It seems so unfair on the ones who don’t have parents who can spend time helping them. I get that it’s a fact of life, to a certain extent, but ten seems such a ridiculously young age to be subjected to all of this!

Unfortunately, this is the way it is. Some exams are so difficult, the questions seem impossible....even for adults! Children have to prep for it, as some things are not even taught yet when the exam happens. No matter how smart you are, you will not be able to figure out math formula's you have not been taught yet. But that being said if you have a few days and your dd is bright and determined she might be able to cram a few days (keep her home to recover from the cold and she can study while resting).

I also hate the idea of tutoring but you have to as they aren't taught the skills to pass the test plus it tests on them on work from year 6 even though they haven't yet learnt it!

Wish I’d found this thread weeks ago…. Made the naive mistake of thinking that as DD is always one of the top in her class and consistently achieves highly, she’d be fine with the test. I didn’t really know what it involves, couldn’t get my head round it when I looked, and have now discovered at the last minute that it is seemingly impossible to pass without having done at least a load of practice papers beforehand, if not tutoring for the past year. We were utterly determined not to push her lots and make her spend ages revising for it, but now I feel like we’ve just let her down by not preparing her properly and I feel awful about it. It only all came out after she did the exam for one of the schools and she didn’t understand how the questions all worked as she wasn’t familiar with the style. I thought it was designed to work out the top 30% of kids just based on what they’ve done in school, and I thought that tutoring was just parents panicking, but it turns out that’s not the case.

As it happens she has been up half the night with an awful cold and I wouldn’t be sending her into school anyway, let alone an exam, so we’re going to have to ask for the alternative date, which buys us a bit more time. But I’m just so angry that the system works this way! We should have looked into it more, I know, but I have three jobs, DH works full time while also studying for an MSc, we have a much younger child too, and because all the teachers have told us how well she does we just thought it would be fine. It’s so wrong that ten year olds are put under this sort of pressure!

@ElvenDreamer @MincemeatMaestro thanks both so much. Yes you are right, all we can hope for is it is not an awful experience, regardless of the result, and you never quite know how they will react on the day...fortunately it was omay for us. @MincemeatMaestro congratulations you are all done too! Hope you've got lots planned to keep everyone distracted this next few weeks.

Thank you! Hope he came out happy 😀

Do you know if it's a mixture of all maths/english/NVR/VR on each paper or a different split?

Congratulations, @121212YNWA! We're done too and DS thinks it went OK. Now it's the waiting game (and trying not to think about it too much for the next five weeks).

@SpinningOutWaitingForYa, DS says it was two papers, both of which were about an hour. Good luck this weekend!

Can anyone sitting GL (Warwickshire) tell me roughly the timings for each exam? I believe it's two papers, but unsure how long on each part.

There is such little information available online!

@121212YNWA glad your DS came out smiling! I literally can't wait for this to be over, I'm very envious that you're all done! Enjoy the relaxation. DD has the familiarisation paper tomorrow morning.

All done here! Just completed our tests on 10th and today. DS has come out smiling. We are off for a meal with family. He is happily playing a game we have saved for today. I'm exhausted! Might leave it a day or so before clearing away the papers and resources. Will sleep well tonight until the anxious wait for the results begins! Good luck to all of you who are still on that final grind!

@MincemeatMaestro thank you so much that’s such a handy document! Yeah so there is a larger radius priority area around the school and a smaller eastern Warwickshire/ Rugby area that is priority 1. So I think more places available in that group and a capped number of spots in the outer circle.
we are Saturday too I will be glad to get it over with and be able to see my dining table again under all the past papers 😂
good luck to your DC for Saturday!

I'm in the southern priority area rather than eastern so haven't paid too much attention to the scores for the Rugby schools. However, https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/directory/57/school-admissions-document-library/category/489 has the offer day documents from 2021 onwards, which is a really useful resource. From a quick glance, 220 has always been enough, 215 has usually been enough and 210 has never been enough for Priority Area 2 for Rugby High. Is Priority Area 2 for places within the priority circle but not in Warwickshire itself?

Good luck to your DD! We've got a Saturday slot so it'll all be done in 3 days, which is scarily close but I'll be so glad when it's over!

Thanks for this info. We’re doing Warwickshire this weekend and hoping for Rugby schools. What are thoughts on scores needed for the wider priority 2 area?
Quite worried and trying not to let it show to DD!
thanks

We’re in Essex, but get a lot of grammar pupils from London. Registration closed late May. Rumours has it the number registering has gone up from 5,000 last year to 7,000. We’re state too and were well aware of the likely VAT changes - I assumed people were just registering as a back up in case

Where are you? In Bucks registration closed mid June and the surprise election was early July, so people would have had to know the risk, register and start preparing before 4 July. Most people I know were blindsided by the VAT matter (which really surprised me as I’d known about it for years while being in the state system)

Just under two weeks to go here. Eek! Good luck all. I’m curious about the VAT impact too, as apparently entries have gone through the roof!

We are in Trafford. So exam on 16th, but it’s one exam for the 4 schools , so good in some ways but all eggs in one basket if they have a blip on the day. Wishing everyone with exams coming up good luck

Oh no @Danlsb I hope your DD is ok for tomorrow. Let us know.
Good luck to everyone! I really can't wait for it to be over now. DD's is 21st and DS's is 28th. Also really worried about the extra competition due to VAT on fees.

Thank you for your support - I have told my husband that she will be going. Although we are now having another disaster with DD running a fever of 41 ( her preferred grammar is tomorrow and one of the everything in one go formats ) so am sitting at the walk GP walk in centre to hopefully get a certificate incase she is not well enough tomorrow- Sod’s Law if that happens the new date will be during the PGL trip.
I know what you mean about the comps vs granmar in the kids heads - most of my daughters friends will be going to the local comp and they have had a taster day there where they did trampolining so she thinks it’s a great place to go 😊 sadly it’s academically failing 😬. Although no matter what happens all the work they have put in for the 11plus will help wherever they end up.
good luck to everyone 🤞🏼🤞🏼

@OutOfNameIdeas We're in the same position of balancing encouraging the grammar school but not running down the local comprehensive option. We're in the fortunate position that our local comp is a good school and there will be plenty of other bright kids there because not everyone applies for the grammars and there are so few places available. But DS is such a geek that I think the grammar is where he's more likely to find his tribe and be challenged academically; it'd be such a good fit for him.

8 days to go and we're doing a last push on punctuation and NVR. Good luck to you both, @ElvenDreamer and @OutOfNameIdeas, we're almost there!

@MincemeatMaestro @ElvenDreamer same boat here - dreading the extra competition for state grammar places here!

Just two weeks until first exam and three weeks until second exam for my DD now, I think she’s as ready as she’ll ever be, but at the moment she says she doesn’t even want to go grammar school 🙄 one of the local comps has been doing loads of promoting themselves to her primary school and she just believes what she’s been told that it will be non-stop fun there. I’ve heard a different perspective from parents of older children at the same school, but I don’t want to say too much in case she doesn’t get a grammar place - don’t want her to feel lots of pressure and don’t want to bad mouth a school she might end up at! It’s a very difficult balance at the moment between keeping up her motivation to try for grammar and not making her feel that it’s the be all and end all!

@Danlsb I’m another vote for let her go! Have you decided yet?

In Warwickshire, you take the exam in mid-September and get the results in mid-October. The majority of places are allocated to the highest scorers within each school's priority area so there's no firm indication what score is needed because it depends on how many children apply and whether they're in a school's priority area. In previous years, the council have released an anonymised spreadsheet of all 3000ish scores in October so you can get a feel for the distribution before applying, but the scores do vary from year to year and from school to school. For our first choice, I'd be reasonably confident with over 240, accept it's unlikely with below 225, and have months of uncertainty in the 225-240 range, though high 230s would usually be OK and below 230 is much less likely to be high enough.