To think that grammar school places should not be allocated just on the basis of an exam

[ReallyTired]

A super selective school should be a specialist school for the ultra bright. At the moment wealthy parents are able to give their children an unfair advantage over working class children by paying for tutoring. Grammar schools are no longer a leg up for bright working class kids. Many children who attend grammar schools are not super gifted.

If we are going to have super selective schools then we need to make sure that places go to the right children. I do think that an eleven plus exam is useful to weed out those who do not stand a chance with coping with a faster pace of learning. However such a major decision should not be solely based on an exam

Maybe the work that a child produces in class, previous test results or school recommendation should be considered. Maybe as a final stage a child should be assessed by an educational psychologist to be sure that the child is ultra bright rather than hot housed. Some universities take into account the secondary school a student has attended. I feel that grammar schools should look at the background of the applicant and their school.

A superselective school should have a curriculum which is tougher than the national curriculum. Children who cannot keep pace should be transferred to a mainstream school.

Headteacher recommendation is ridiculous. What if you have a school full of bright children - are all of them candidates? What if you have a school full of not very able children? Would a mediocre candidate get a recommendation simply by virtue of being less mediocre than all the others?

What are the odds of having such an uneven distribution in a comprehensive?

Even so (as I said) this is kind of how it works in the private sector. The head's reputation is on the line, so s/he weighs the selection carefully. Some years have more candidates, others, fewer.

I said it on the other thread I'll say it here. We are a working poor household with dc who started life with a single parent.

We have dc at grammar school a super selective one at that.

If teacher assessment were used what happens to the kids who's teachers inexplicably dislike them? (and it does happen)

The exam is fine as it is

chicago good for you. What about people who don't have the intellectual capacity to recognise or provide challenges for very able children? It's not as black and white as that. Plenty of people have money and still don't provide their children with tutoring- it's the fact that money is a barrier for lower income families having children that pass the 11+.

Those asking for "tutor proof IQ tests" - have you actually looked at the tests? The 11+ for our grammar schools in Reading/Slough claimed to be tutor proof when they were introduced two years ago. They have three papers: verbal, non-verbal and maths. I would say that the verbal and non-verbal and are basically IQ tests and are probably as tutor proof as a standardized written test is likely to be.

The maths tests on the other hand is not an IQ type test, is definitely not tutor proof, and I think it is unfair. The questions are not fundamentally that difficult IF you know all the concepts, which many year 6s won't.

My two (state primary) children got places at Kendrick and Reading having done a couple of practice tests a couple of weeks before the exam. No extra tutoring. However it was noticeable that maths was relatively a week spot as they hadn't done the algebra etc.

Entrance certainly should NOT be based on SATs as they don't test raw intelligence and potential and are far easier to drill children for than tbe verbal/non-verbal papers, either in schools or with private tutors.

Interviews would be impractical. Who is going to carry about the 1000+ interviews that would be needed? Private schools have the resources. State schools don't. In any case, interviews are notoriously subjective, and favour the well polished. Many able children would just freeze.

Recommendations from teachers would be an absolute minefield - how would you compare one teacher's recommendation against another. In a given year most local schools don't have any children going to Reading/Kendrick so it's not as if you could just ask each school to just their best student, even if you thought that was likely to be a fair system.

Not sure about these successful appeals other people are referring to. They don't seem to happen round here.

To be honest, I think that if you are going to have a grammar school system then something similar to what we have now is probably as fair as it gets with limited resources. But probably with a rethinking of the maths test.

The exam is fine as it is

Sure, its sounds as though it's just fine for you.

No one teacher should decide who stays or goes; it should be a process of consensus. That said, a teacher disliking a student doesn't seem inherently more unfair than a child being locked out of selective education because of (for example) apathetic parenting.

like I'm thinking along the lines of eg maths questions on topics they can't possibly have tackled or been tutored in, questions hard enough there would be no presumption they would even get it right. The dc who have natural ability would invariably try and solve it using what they know, and what they can reason on from that. The dc who have simply had lots of repetitive practice of level 5/6 wouldn't. Or by giving them the introductory chapter and worked examples of something introduced at ks4 or a-level and observing how they then tackle a question.

Similar for language. Give them a page of information on something they won't have come across, and ask them what other info they would need to argue x, can they see why z happened, what do they need to write an essay explaining y. Again with it being the approach the child applies, rather than getting it right.

Of course parents could tutor the correct answer, facts and approach to every possible topic up to graduate level, however if a child can remember all that they are clearly more than naturally able.

Yes it is fine for me and my children because tbh the only children's education I care about in all honesty is my own.

Support for bright kids is woefully inadequate in this country and it really is appalling we teach to the average/lowest common denominator

They will find the cure for cancer, become our next generation of politicians, diplomats, business leaders etc. As a country we are shooting ourselves in the foot not preparing the most able as well as we can.

How do we know the person who could have found the cure for cancer didn't do so because he/she had an off day on the day of the 11+ or maybe they were brilliant at Maths and Science but not English. And maybe going to a secondary modern destroyed their confidence or just couldn't give them the education they needed?
And on this endlessly repeated thing about Prime Ministers, it was only in 2010 that we had a Prime Ministerial candidate (Cameron) who was young enough to have been at a comp ( and obviously his parents would have chosen the local grammar instead of Eton which is why Eton closed down in the 60s). Then in 2015 we could have had a comprehensive educated PM if we'd voted for Ed. So because the ONE time we could have had a comp graduate as PM he failed to get elected that proves that comps have failed. Of course, if he'd attended a grammar that wouldn't have meant that grammars had failed, obviously not!!

In answer to the original OP, there is no fair way of dividing children up at 10/11. That's why countries with the most successful education systems don't do it.

My kids all went to grammar schools, never paid a penny for tutoring just got some books and went through them with them.

The problem with assessments from schools is some teachers/Heads aren't in favour of selection and wouldn't be supportive and others would. My first two went to a primary where the Head was anti selection, in our area if it came to last few places and a group of children with the same mark they would ask Heads for their opinion. It was well known that our Head would never support kids from our school. You could also get teacher's pet getting a strong recommendation they didn't deserve.

Wasn't the CEM test supposed to stop the tutoring advantage.

Recommendations from teachers would be an absolute minefield - how would you compare one teacher's recommendation against another. In a given year most local schools don't have any children going to Reading/Kendrick so it's not as if you could just ask each school to just their best student, even if you thought that was likely to be a fair system.

Why is it that a head from a private school can be relied upon to know which of the students are well-suited to a selective (or super-selective), but a state school cannot?

I assume someone will be along to say resources, but is it so much more difficult to identify a clever child in a field of 30 than 18?

If a class on average does not produce even one candidate for a super-selective, fine - surely the school just waits until they do find their super-selective candidates?

Yes it is fine for me and my children because tbh the only children's education I care about in all honesty is my own.

In that case, you should have said The exam is fine as it is for me.

Vr/nvr might be the fairest of the tests, but they aren't tutor proof. If you give two dc the guide to read and a practice test where they both get 80%, then spend 6 months teaching and practicing with one, chances are they'll get a higher % than the second child in a test. Especially if you practice from y3 onwards.

I don't for a second buy that tutored top 30% dc are getting places over top 1% dc. But untutored/ unsupported dc just above the cut off will be getting pushed down by dc who are naturally just below the cut off who have been prepared lots.

AppleSetsSail, I suppose most Heads in private sector favour selective education and it is more mixed in state sector. Head of school my first two went to would not have recommended any child for grammar school. He openly said that.

AppleSetsSail, I suppose most Heads in private sector favour selective education and it is more mixed in state sector. Head of school my first two went to would not have recommended any child for grammar school. He openly said that.

Fair enough, but that hardly means that school are inherently incapable of selecting the best grammar school candidates. That's just one head who has a philosophical axe to grind.

If there is a stand-out child then that's easy. Far more usual is the case where you have two or three able children and how could you choose between them? One might be good at Maths, another good at English, and the third may be good at both but born on September 1st or conversely a pain in the arse.

Teachers do have favourites. Ds has twice in his school career been the extreme favourite such that other parents have commented. One teacher named her ds after him! Dd, otoh, unfortunately has a RBF and not once has been a favoured pupil. I doubt whether she would win the grammar school recommendation race.

Perhaps in grammar school areas all children should be prepared to take 11+ , then take exam at school, and the papers marked externally. Leaving the class teacher to invigilate the exam.

Even 'non tutorable' will be helped by practice to speed up and basic exam technique though. The tricky thing to me seems to be the amount they have to do against the clock, the 1 minute a question scenario.

So maybe a 1/3 of the class could pass with unlimited time but only a few do as it is a timed test. The same VR type of questions come up and DD and me have definitely speeded up with practice. We don't have NVR here so don't know about that.

Do state primary schools teach exam technique? One thing with the SATS reading on here and TES was complaints about children not finishing and amount to do in the time. Are they taught to allocate x time to each section, keep an eye on the clock, always put an answer if multiple choice etc. If exam technique was taught early enough then that would help all children sitting even if they haven't got a parent who can do it.

f a class on average does not produce even one candidate for a super-selective, fine - surely the school just waits until they do find their super-selective candidates?

But it will be harder for them to tell the difference between a child in the top 3% rather than the top 5%, and they are probably more focused on making sure that Jonny doesn't cut Suzie's hair again than working out where on a scale James falls. Besides who is to say that James who is in the top 10% nationally wouldn't be in the top 3% if children weren't being carried out of the classroom if he is given the opportunity. In the same way William is doing very well in a prep school with 15 children per class and an 11+ tutor since yr2, he might struggle in a class of 30 in a selective school with no 121 attention.

Like it was in the old days! I took three 11+ papers, each a surprise. First we knew of it was coming into school in the morning and seeing the desks arranged in exam formation. Everyone took the exam, it was marked externally and that was that.

But you can't shut the stable door, blah de blah, and with the Internet comes knowledge and thus power. That is, if you have a pushy enough parent.

This thread is making me so glad I live in a properly comprehensive county.

In which my son gets to have friends of all abilities.

Why is it that a head from a private school can be relied upon to know which of the students are well-suited to a selective (or super-selective), but a state school cannot?

Who said or implied that? I certainly didn't intend to. My statement applied to all schools and heads.

If a class on average does not produce even one candidate for a super-selective, fine - surely the school just waits until they do find their super-selective candidates?

Some schools will be highly motivated, TOO motivated, to "find" and recommend a super-selective candidate, for obvious reasons. Other schools will have little or no interest in finding and recommending candidates. Not fair on either count.

For the same reason, as an Oxbridge admissions tutor I take very little notice of any subjective information in a reference, or the "strength" of the reference generally. Some schools write superlatives, others are distinctly low key. It doesn't tell us anything about the applicant, just the writer. I'm really only interested in verifiable information in references: ranking in class, exam results, awards - and in some cases background explaining personal issues that led to under performance in exams. Possibly some information like that from schools could be used, but there would still be a huge role for the 11+ in providing a relatively level playing field, in exactly the same way as Oxford uses tests like the TSA.

Mrs BertBibby You and me both, but that could be under threat. Please write or send an E-Mail to your nearest Conservative MP - if all of us who don't want secondary moderns do this it will really help.

irregular surely there's a distinction to be made between primaries feeding grammars and secondaries feeding Oxbridge? Grammar schools were established to cultivate raw talent. There's no expectation that the primary has nearly as much to do with their success as a secondary does when a student goes off to Oxbridge.

"Grammar schools were established to cultivate raw talent."

Were they?

Well,mid they were, they certainly aren't doing that now!

Can I ask the grammar school supporters if they genuinely think that selective education is the best possible option for anyone except the children who are selected to go to grammar school?