DS failed 11+ very upset, angry and sad

AI and tech is going to change education completely. And the anti grammar/streaming brigade cannot stop it.

Atom Learning offers free access for FSM pupils now, all the 11 plus learning can be done for free there. It explains everything to a bright child. State primaries need to start pointing it out to FSM bright pupils.

We know kids who got 100 per cent top scores with just Atom.

Tutor, whether provided by parents or paid tutors, involves efforts outside of school to help a child excel beyond the national curriculum, focusing specifically on exam subjects. This, not limits to, but certainly includes familiarizing the child with various exam formats and practices. The advantage is certainly more significant than just a few extra points, regardless "wrong or right" way. Every state primary school teacher will NOT help the kid to do any extra of above.

Tutoring will only improve a few points from inherent potential. Now if a child is not at their potential, then you have to bring them up first. If the child is on top of the national curriculum, reads regularly and widely it is just Maths Year 6 you need to get on top of before they tests and practise the reasoning. You have to familiarise with the exact tests that will be set and think on the spot on the day. People who tutor for years to get children in - most grammar school teachers will tell you it is a terrible idea. A few may slip through but it won’t be in their best interests.
Every teacher in the country will tell you to read loads and practise your time tables and fast basic maths. Those are the fundamentals to passing the 11 plus. Not tons of cash thrown at tutors.

@Ozanj - your children are really young? I am sorry to tell you this now, but reading a lot and widely is far more important than 11 plus prep by any school. If my 4 DC got through with not tutoring and we have observed years and years of people tutoring in vain or wrongly, I do think I know what I am talking about now. I am not telling you to do no prep. It should be targeted and familiarisation and obviously a child needs to be on top of the curriculum and ideally at greater depth. But if you think you can tutor an average child into a top grammar school, that is not going to work.

"we don't know if they weren't tutored if they would pass anyway."

Of course you don't know, you can try.

How do you know the vast majority are tutored ? And we don't know if they weren't tutored if they would pass anyway.

The upthread claim that tutoring won't improve a child's chance of passing the grammar test is extremely disingenuous. The vast majority of kids who pass the 11+ nowadays have been tutored, either by their parents or by external tutors. This undermines the notion and makes parents and kids bypass the test altogether.

People who are great at school fail in the workplace all the time and vice versa.
Be supportive and give him time to explore.
Other than luck, success in life requires hard work, which he’s shown he’s good at, and finding the thing you enjoy. Give him time and space to work out what that might be.
Its one exam. He’s far too young to be labelled “not academic” And even if he’s not the type that excels in school. There are other routes to success and happiness.

Grammar tests are about comprehension at speed and it takes a lot of practice. Private schools that feed into state grammars / selective independants often start practicing the tests from year 4 and would have learned the right content too instead of NC + tutoring which is stressful. I think if parents want to aim for 11+ from state primaries that’s great but they should begin prep far earlier.

Loads of children struggle with worded maths problems, especially multistep ones. And a ton of kids struggle with inference skills. That is what the greater depth KS2 Sats is all about. He will practise this at school this year.
I know people who have asked for extra time for their DCs in grammar tests and then gotten through, but a couple of those kids struggle now because the grammar teaches at speed. They do have a great SEND department but as most of the kids just get stuff instantly it is can be quite difficult for those who don’t, even if it is due to a SEND and the school works hard with them.
Being academic in the long run means working hard and enjoying academics! I know loads of people who succeeded despite not having super fast processing speed. They are grafters and passionate, your DS sounds like he has all of that and some.

We don't have it here in Scotland and I'm not well up on what's included in it. It sounds like there is more going on here from OP's posts than her DS not succeeding at the 11+ though. But I will rephrase - IF OP's DS turns out not to be academic, it is not the end of the world and he will still have plenty of options. The plumber who redid our bathroom, for example, is paid more than I was as an NHS psychologist! I sometimes wonder if I'm in the wrong job 😂

Academic ability is not necessarily reflected well by a single written test. Many successful entrepreneurs and academics would not have performed well had they had to demonstrate it purely on paper. This is where private school entrance tests can be better for some than 11+ as they often include interviews and group activities.

People are saying might not be academic ( whatever that is). He might not be academic yet. People change, people develop.

Most of your point re the difficulty conversation etc is very helpful

But don't ever call kids who don't succeed at 11+ 'non academic'
It's entirely untrue
Succeeding at 11+ means you are good at succeeding at 11+ ...the end

I strongly believe our taxes should not be funding such a flawed education system

If you hadn't let him continue though, he might have resented you long term. He might have thought "I could have passed that but my parents wouldn't let me".

You should definitely tell him a white lie and tell him his mark his higher though, so he thinks he did well just not well enough to get in. That's what I would do.

You didn't want to have the difficult conversation before, so you're having to have it now. Either way you'd have had one, the can has just been kicked down the road because you didn't want to say no to him entering. You let him go into a process you knew he wouldn't meet the standard for, poor kid.

As others have said, try not to see it as catastrophic or the money as wasted - he will have benefited in some way from the tutoring and that will help him along the way later.

There are lots of career pathways for non academic kids, and English comprehension isn't the only measure of academic success either. He is not doomed for life because of a poor 11+ score.

Thanks for verifying. Some things sound normal-ish but others are definitely worth investigating. I’m really surprised that the tutor waited so long and the school haven’t said anything if these issues are quite prominent. I’d be side eyeing the tutor quite hard if I were you.

@Ouchh1 You still haven’t noted whether you’ve noticed any behaviours at home? Is it just not understanding certain passages of text? Have any of his teachers pointed this out for any subjects as all?

Of course you should take her suggestions seriously, but if there have been no other indication then it’s a massive leap from her.

What other behaviours have you seen that would suggest he needs assessment?

Why did you put him through it if you knew he wouldn't get in? Makes no sense.

Also OP please do understand that just missing quite a few questions in some of the tests results in a low score. For example, for the Kent Test you get two Maths questions out of 25 wrong and have an autumn birthday, that is it and you cannot get an out of county place anymore. It literally requires almost 100 per cent speed and accuracy. If you want further information you can ask some places for the raw score - as in how many questions were incorrect. The score could look very low as it is the “average” achieved by many kids.

”I am concerned that despite so much tuition he achieved such a low score.”

Please do not be concerned about this. I have prepared 4 of my own DC for superselective grammars and they all got places. Despite the massive tutoring craze going on everywhere, I personally don’t believe you can gain many marks by tutoring, even for years. The child has to be quick thinking on the spot and problem solving at speed, You can’t tutor that. Nor do you need that for most jobs nor GCSEs.

The best scorers we know just did basic prep. It’s really just a craze to believe that huge amounts of tutoring is required or makes a massive difference for 11 plus.

I do suggest you keep working on inference and comprehension skills as these will stand him in good steed for GCSEs. There are lots of great Ks2 SATs books out there. He sounds like he is on track to do well. If he does well he will also go into good sets in secondary school.