The 11+ was a eugenics test to weed out genetically "inferior" children, created by a classicist who falsified his research

So OP the main gist of what I get you are saying is that we shouldn’t have selective secondary schools because a man associated with a test, which has been subject to assessment and change since his time, was racist?

Citing schools such as HBS as socially selective shows you do not really understand what is going on. The superselective grammar schools in London are all full of majority South Asian kids now, with parents who value hard work and education and most of the kids are actually really bright as well aka gifted.

“Socially selective” for most us us usually equates more with posh British upper and upper middle class white people, or at least, majority white, in what is still a majority white country. London is still around 54% white according to Census Data from 2021.

Another fun fact for you. Go google the amount of Indian CEOS worldwide now and look up their educational histories. A lot of them have worked their way up from more middle class and lower middle class backgrounds.
There is social mobility right there in front of us, in some ethnic groups via grammar schools. It is happening. I think it is a bit racist to not acknowledge it.

@InMyShowgirlEra - you quoted my post. Are you saying I am telling porkies? If so, why?

I think it's not very intelligent to fail to appreciate the 11+ gave many children from disadvantaged backgrounds opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have had.

My mum was the first in her family not to work in a factory, all because of grammar school.

It may have changed over time and not be as useful as it once was, but don't ignore what it achieved in the past.

As a eugenicist, selecting for grammar schools doesn’t seem a particularly effective way for him to suggest to alter the population genetics. Especially as poorer people tended to have larger families.

I was happy to pay school fees for selective fee paying schools so in a sense paying to ensure the peer group was reasonably bright as teenagers tend to copy their friends, the weaker teenagers anyway so if you buy a peer group as it were who will all go to good universities and have high aspirations you probably do improve the chances of your child particularly if that child similarly has the academic ability to pass the exams needed for particular careers. Both my parents went to state grammar schools and became a teacher and a doctor (NHS consultant) respectively but they paid for us to go to private school (day school) as I have for my children.

On how we can test people that is always a can of worms. They used to have to reduce the scores of girls at 11+ as they did better than boys but they wanted equal numbers of grammar school (girls mature at a younger age than boys). For my profession (law) there are entirely multiple choice questions for SQE1 (the first post grad exam) now with loads of analysis of the results and who passes and who does not and it is quite an interesting exam. My own view is MCQ is not the best way to test potential lawyers on its own for that first post grade academic exam. page 6 -= 9 of this report on it gives some data about women v men etc sqe.sra.org.uk/docs/default-source/pdfs/reports/sqe1_jul2025_statsreport_final.pdf?sfvrsn=9538121d_3

I strongly suspect that PP is telling porkies. I do not have in depth knowledge of the Grammar School system circa 1960 but I don't believe that Heads have ever been able to randomly pluck children with low scores out because they live in a big house, or that they've been able to refuse entry to high scorers from poor backgrounds.

But at the moment primary schools don’t, and I believe that’s because they’re not allowed to conduct any 11+ prep?

And quite possibly even if they did, how on earth would they fit it in? … and what about those children who are struggling and have no intention of heading to a GS for secondary? It would be a complete waste of their time to focus on VR and NVR when they’re behind in say maths and English already, and it could be argued they should have extra time to focus on bringing them up to speed there.

There isn’t an easy answer or fix. But the genie is out of the bag, and most invested parents will go to great lengths to try and ensure their child gets in to a ‘good’ school. I don’t see how we can go back to the 11+ of old, where it was a fairer test for all.

Are poor kids more likely to be thick as minche?

That statement is clearly designed to be offensive. But of course poor kids are more likely to have a lower IQ. Both for inherited and environmental reasons.

I am guessing you are not from Slough op if you think non white children don’t do well at 11+

I also went to a Grammar school in the early 60’s, as did my sister before me. We did have our own (mortgaged) standard 3 bed semi, but certainly weren’t rich! No tutoring was done - actually I don’t think anyone did, in those days. I did the 45 minute walk to school with 2 other girls; one from a similar home to mine, and one from a council estate. I saw no evidence of ‘favouritism’ towards any particular pupils’ home circumstances. The 11+ selected children more likely to benefit from an academic education.

'So, if you are non-white and/or non-British and/or working class, remember that these tests were conceived with the explicit aim of weeding out undesirable and obviously genetically inferior people like you (if any artificial stupidity censor reads this, that was sarcasm ).'

I have one at grammar school. Given the diversity of the area non-whites are vastly over represented as are those families where at least one parent speaks very little English. There is no bias against these populations, quite the opposite.

There are dcs in my dc class where the families have moved from overseas immediately before the 11+ exam and taken up rental accommodation within catchment purely to get a grammar place.

To add, in allocating places looked after children and those on free school meals are ranked at the top and are guaranteed places over local children from more comfortable backgrounds. I have no problem with this, it feels fair.

I find your statement interesting because it is not the reality in the school I have experience of.

I grew up in an area without Grammar schools but I am a total convert. My son’s grammar school has been amazing for him. He has ASD and the support has been incredible. He always struggled to fit in at primary but at his grammar he is appreciated for who he is and it doesn’t matter if he is rubbish at sport. All popularity at primary seemed to hinge on if you could kick a football. It was seen as embarrassing to be clever and work hard. Now he is with other kids who value the same things he does. Sometimes it is good to separate children based on their interests/motivations.

@ParentOfOne

Why do you think that is?

• Are poor kids more likely to be thick as minche?
• Does the test favour the wealthier kids whose parents are more likely to be able to tutor them themselves or to pay for tutoring?

This is a false dichotomy. It’s both, surely.

You’ve phrased the first option in an intentionally inflammatory manner, but whether it’s true or false depends on whether it’s true or false, not whether it’s written politely or rudely.

Your question, reworded, is: “are we likely to find an under-representation of affluent families at the far left tail of the childhood intelligence distribution?”

Why would your intuition be that that is false?

Tested IQ has been shown to correlate well with income, again and again. It’s one of the most robust effects in social science research. So unless you think income does not correlate with wealth, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that IQ will correlate with wealth. Tested IQ is also hereditary (through both nature and environmental factors).

On balance I tend to agree with @frizzynfrazzled that the selection process worked pretty well to sort out the children who would benefit from an academic education, but less well for people who matured intellectually a bit later. And it was limiting to restrict the later developers to CSEs instead of O levels. I passed the 11+ with (apparently) one of the highest scores in the county, despite being an August birth. The year before I had passed the 10+ at an equally high % mark. It was the 1960s and in an agricultural village, there was no tutoring.

As another poster mentioned I don’t think it disadvantages ethnic groups in the way it was maybe intended by the person mentioned in the OP. My kids school is 63% white, there are a lot of different ethnicities and nationalities. The two local towns are 82% and 79% white according to a quick google search.

White working class boys are currently the lowest achieving group in society.

This means you need parents who are invested and interested in your education, who value it. Who take the time to find out the info re how/when to enter you, the sort of questions that will come up, and either the money to buy in help or ability to help you themselves. It therefore disadvantages the bright kid with disinterested parents, and favours those with parents that can and want to help.

Or for primary schools to do this.

My my mum went to grammar school from her v WC background in the 60s. She lived in a northern town, in a traditional 2 up, 2 down with an outside loo and no bathroom , just a metal tub for your weekly bath. Her mum had left school at 11/12 and her dad at 14. She was able to do A levels and was the first in her family to go to university. It fulfilled its original ambition- to give bright kids from poor backgrounds a decent chance based on ability.

My older kids go/went to the grammar school. It was what was best for them and suited their learning style, so I played the game (I tutored DC1 myself, DC2 had external help as I was back at work).

It’s fairly obvious that it’s not as egalitarian as it used to be. When my mum did it, like PP said above, it was not seen as a big deal, no fuss, certainly no tutoring, and parents not involved. Now you are putting your child at a huge disadvantage if you don’t do some familiarisation at least with them, in the form of practice papers etc. You need to know how to tackle the question, and then be able to do it very quickly. You can’t do that realistically if you’ve never seen that type of question before, you’d need a minute to work out exactly what it wants from you and work out how to go about it. But the test needs extreme speed as well as accuracy to score well.

This means you need parents who are invested and interested in your education, who value it. Who take the time to find out the info re how/when to enter you, the sort of questions that will come up, and either the money to buy in help or ability to help you themselves. It therefore disadvantages the bright kid with disinterested parents, and favours those with parents that can and want to help.

As another poster mentioned I don’t think it disadvantages ethnic groups in the way it was maybe intended by the person mentioned in the OP. My kids school is 63% white, there are a lot of different ethnicities and nationalities. The two local towns are 82% and 79% white according to a quick google search.

I failed the maths section of the 11plus. I have an IQ of 142. Make of that what you will x

He deals only with peripheral issues though, never the really serious ones. He is patronising, aggressive and not up for discussion or debate.

Nobody is going to be paying for a lottery system any time soon in this country. It is not financially feasible, nor even logistically possible.

The public exams in this country right now are challenging. They are too hard for some kids at both KS2 and at GCSEs (especially if they are having to do loads of GCSEs and schools are on tight timetables so cannot tailor more hours in some subjects easily for some kids). It is demotivating for them and we have a mental health crisis and SEND crisis. Those are the urgent things in education. Having a bee in your bonnet about insert grammar or private schools or whatever is a pointless waste of time.