To think that in London at least, the 11 plus system is a bit of a joke

[Notcontent]

I live in an inner London borough that has some great primary schools - in fact, most are pretty good - but the secondary schools are not so great. The reasons for this are quite complicated I think... We also don't have any selective schools in our borough.

What this all means is that we have a very large number of children competing for a small number of places at a handful of selective schools outside of our borough, that we are eligible to apply for.

I should say at this point that I am not in favour of selective schools. I went to a good, normal state school, but that was not in the uk. The schools closest to us have poor results, so we decided that dd should try out for one of the selective schools. I knew that there would be some preparation involved, but a few months in, I have come to the conclusion that the whole system is completely crazy.

Basically, having studied past exam papers, it is apparent that a lot of it relates to material that they have not covered at school. So it is nothing to do with how "able" a child is, because they don't stand a chance if they have not had extra maths tuition at home. Of course they have to be reasonably able or clever children - but a clever child cannot do well in the exam if they have not been tought all this stuff. Basically, the only way a child can do well is if they have a reasonably able parent who can spend a few hours a week with the child teaching them all this stuff.

Surely this is a crazy system? I know someone will come along and say that their child passed the 11 plus having just done a few bond papers, etc. And someone else will say that children who are tutored are obviously not able and will not do well Ina selective school, but trust me - these papers cover very advanced material...

My DS will take 11+ in Bucks this september and I've just been doing his tutoring himself, he got a good pass in his last mock...however, a London friend was showing me the superselective London mock stuff which is so much more difficult than anything that we've tried. I have an A level in further maths and I found a couple of the questions really difficult. DS would never pass.

Basically the top 33% make it to Grammar out here, in London its the top 3%. If they are bright and its just a case of teaching them the maths and the vocab (you can't teach VMR), then go for it.

I'd move to Bucks - all very nice and commutable.

11+ papers aren't hard to pass for any dc who would benefit from a grammar education, nor do they require outside teaching to pass. The problem is that it's a race to arms, so dc need a high score, not simply a pass. As a result, the most able will get a place regardless of whether they have had extra help, but for many of similar ability the extra help they've had will dictate whether they score higher than their peers, and thus get a place.

It does seem to have gone a bit crazy in North London. I went to a very well thought of N London grammar, just a NVR test to get in. No tutoring, just 2 practice papers at primary. I'm bright enough but no genius.
Nowadays about half of primary aged children around here are heavily tutored from 7!

I really enjoyed my schooling but doubt I'd have had access to it as it is now. Will my son get a look in? Maybe. I'll encourage curiosity and see where that takes us. He's young yet.

We definitely have some decent non-selective schools around though.

No advice sorry but it has got difficult.

Sorry to sound negative but being on the top table isn't enough to indicate that a child is bright enough to get into a stupidly oversubscribed school like Latimer or Henrietta Barnett.
If I were you I'd ask my child's school if they think she has a chance - they will have seen other families go through the same thing. The application and testing process is so intense that you risk your child feeling they've failed if they don't get in, which is a big burden to put on an 11-year-old.
Also, do you know anyone with children at the schools you're looking at, or any ex-pupils? Probably wise to try and get some feedback - they certainly don't suit everyone though obviously some children thrive under pressure.

The competition has gone insane in North London so I agree 100% with notcontent. I don't think posters realise that 5% of applicants get a place. This is very far from a grammar school county like Kent. Some kids come from the North of England to sit the exams.

I know people who had a top tutor with a great track record - super bright kids who also got a range of top fee-paying schools - who didn't get a single selective state school (e.g. QEB, DAO, Latymer). They've gone private now.

I know kids who didn't get a selective school and have taken one if the wonderful non-selective school options that the masses can't even apply for, e.g. the Jewish schools like JCOSS or JFS.

I know of other kids who didn't get a selective school and whose parents had no choice but to put them in the local secondary school which is worse than any school in the borough and can't fill the places. These are kids who deserve a good education and aren't going to get it.

I know of ONE kid this year who got a super-selective school place.. This is out of dozens living around here and applying to schools on their doorstep.

The system is broken.. Super-selectives should be for local kids only and should not encourage this secondary school tourism.

It's been like this for a good while.

I've been through it recently. I do know.

I also went through it a while ago. Long enough ago to have seen the children of friends go the whole way through the system, attending a wide variety of schools. Strangely enough, in the main, the children have achieved pretty much what you'd have predicted for them at primary school - irrespective of where they went to school. So, for example, bright children, with supportive parents who attended a less popular school have still done well.

What I've learnt from experience is that it all matters so much less than you'd think from the mania pre-11+.

I do think that people in London have a tendency to compare the local, non-selective schools with the super-selectives. That comparison is always going to make the local non-selectives look less good (in terms of results).

It's an unrealistic comparison, though. The super-selectives get results that put them amongst the top results in the country.

I suspect that London parents are amongst the luckiest, school-wise, in the country. There are areas of the country with very challenging schools. I don't think London is one of those areas. My suspicion is that, in London, even the less popular schools are pretty good. They just look bad when compared to the stellar results of the super-selectives.

Anyway, that's just my opinion.

Completely agree, cat. The speed of improvement is amazing too. When my friend's child was in year 6 they jumped through the religious hoops to avoid their local comp, which is now massively sought after. Child transferred there for sixth form (from Catholic school notorious for middle class system-gaming) and has just done A levels. Middle class parents used to do the same to avoid the primary school my DC went to in west London - one neighbour actually went pale when I told her my children went there, she lived yards away and hadn't even looked round, what with all the brown children and everything. DC1's year got the best SATS results in the borough last year.

I am being completely realistic - I know that my dd is not a genius. All I know is that she is quite clever/able (whatever that means) and could do very well at a selective school IF she got a place. I also know that she is very unlikely to get a place!

My DDs go to one of the North London super selective grammars. I've realised that the teaching is actually really poor, and far inferior to the teaching at our local comp which we loved. We just bought into the grammar school hype.

I've realised that the school does well because they pick the brightest girls - if you only offer 100 places out of the 2000 girls who apply, you're not exactly going to get girls who are hard to teach. And also clearly the parents have had to put their DDs in for the exam, so there is a proactive attitude towards education at home. The school can get away with doing very little.

The girls all talk about how poor the education is, and bar a few subjects, there is a large amount of self-teaching going on, to make up for deficiencies in the education.

Given my time again, I would have encouraged my DDs to go to the local comp, but they are now settled with their friends, and reluctant to move.

The super selective grammar system is self perpetuating madness, that fools like me have fallen for. The one thing I can say is that those parents/children who don't know how the grammar system works may ironically be better off, having stayed with the comp option.

Notcontent - if your dd is reasonably bright she will do well even without a superselective!

RaskolnikovsGarret - I can guess at the school your girls are at.. Are you really saying that you'd prefer a non-selective local comp over that school with its wonderful results? What's it like from a social perspective? (This is important to me, I want my kids to travel around on the tube and meet friends at the weekend, once they get to a certain age).

I do agree that facilities in the N. London grammars seem deficient compared to some of the facilities that the comps have, e.g. the Wren.