to have spent thousands of £s on 11+ tuition and still dd has no place!

[annoydmum]

so depressed!spent alot of money on tuition to no avail :(.....

Great article here [yawn]

I am so glad that I live in an area with no grammar schools - I cannot imagine what the pressure on these children must be like. It creates a pushy and competitive streak in parents from what I have read on here.

It also put you in the position of having some siblings who pass and some who fail. Not a position I would want to be in.

Not everyone is academic.

There is no shame in that.

If she couldn't pass without intensive tutoring and she couldn't pass even with it, then that is clearly telling you that she is not capable.

And it would have been the wrong thing to do to have her in that situation. You would have put her in a situation where she would be struggling throughout school.

Just accept that she has many strengths, but she is not academic. It doesn't matter.

Just send her to a private school.

I only got 117 on my 11+, just4 marks away from what I needed and with no tutoring and the day before one exam we were in a car crash. I felt gutted at the time but a girl I knew passed and then failed at Grammar School. I ended up with more GCSEs than she did and she became very ill from the stress of not being able to keep up academically.

Grammar schools are not for everyone. And just because your DD failed the 11+ doesn't mean she can't do well at another school.

'Just send her to a private school'

I expect she used her spare thousands on tutoring.

We didn't even HAVE grammar schools where I lived. There was one two towns over, but my parents didn't know it existed (neither did I until I was about 16 and met people from there) so i didn't go.

Me too, glad we live in an area without grammar schools.

I would avoid an area with grammar schools like the plague! (strange that no one says 'save our secondary moderns!')

EF, the Government is bringing back technical schools though. They have already announced it.

I never understand why an OP posts then never comes back to a thread, how rude? What is the point of asking an opinion then fucking off?

I am a tutor and I suppose if the OP'S DC had an hours tuition at my rate- £25 per hour (don't start - I am a qualified teacher :))- for say a year and a half then yes perhaps she could have spent over a thousand pounds. Not sure about thousands though! However I personally refuse to tutor children for this long as IMHO if they cannot pass after say 6 months of tution they just won't pass. Also, the schools in my area have on average over a thousand applicants for just over 100 places- so you can pass and still not get in.

All of my little ones have gained places- you can tell very quickly if they will be one of the top 100 children as they tend to be rather gifted. For a tutor to pretend otherwise is out of order to be honest.

Where I live we have one girl's and one boy's grammar. Children are tutored twice a week from Yr 5. Average tutor I am told is £30 per hour. Many of these children are in private primary schools. It is craziness. Dd (10 yo) stands no chance You have to achieve 95% to be in with a chance. It's fucking nuts.

sorry, should say 'no chance without a tutor apparently'.

Oh well, she's obviously just not terribly bright.