To be frustrated that Grammar schools are full of private tutored kids?

[Sammyp235]

So my DC sat the 11+ and passed it and was placed on a waiting list (number 10) to get in to local Grammar school.

490 kids sat test and there were 150 places provisionally set aside for the kids who scored the highest.

Now of it was an even playing field then that absolutely fair enough, but I know that it’s not. Many parents ‘prep’ their kids with a private tutor for years in some cases.

I know this as I have a couple of friends who are private tutors and we’re surprised when I said DC was going to sit the entrance test without any previous tutoring. They both advised they’ve tutored kids for up to 2 years prior 😳

There’s a child in DD’s class who’s had years of private tutoring and secured a place (it’s common knowledge and said child happily discusses it with other classmates and it was with the purpose of getting in to this grammar school)

I’m frustrated that the schools website says you don’t need any extra tutoring. The reality is that should be the case, but that leaves those that can’t afford it at a disadvantage as there are definitely plenty of kids that get the extra help then get the places.

There’s 3 kids in DC class that all have private tutors and all secured a place.

I’m of the opinion that if you need a private tutor for you DC for several months/years to pass the 11+ then perhaps it isn’t the school for your DC.

I find it annoying that so many kids have the advantage over others and take up the places. Of course if you have the money then fair enough, why wouldn’t you get private tutors in. I don’t blame the parents, but I feel that school should not have stated you don’t need extra tuition. You absolutely do as your up against it if not!!

I just feel frustrated for those kids that have a natural aptitude and academic ability, but are up against those who have been tutored to the max. It’s not an even playing field at all.....

Oh and I had to laugh to myself when one of the said mums asked me what ‘rank’ my child was placed in (none of her business) and said ‘oh so out of 500+ places your DC is 160th most intelligent 😳..... I was dying to say ‘erm actually it wasn’t an even playing fiend though was it?’

Round here (access to a few super-selectives) frenzied tutoring bears no correlation to the ability of the child but is linked to the competitiveness of parents, ability to pay and the level of antipathy the parents feel about our (excellent) comprehensives (which have a mixed demography). Super bright kids are as likely to be tutored as the hopeful maybes.

However, having watched my Dc’s class mates go through it at primary school, amongst those who got places, once they got to GCSE some were high flyers, some were pretty average, in both relevant years my Dc did better at GCSE and A level than many of their friends who go off on buses and trains to the superselectives.

Segregating kids at 10 is an imprecise process. Even before you start on fairness.

The problem is your all discussing the 11+/ entrance exams as if they're the same all over the country and they're not.

Yes this is very true having just been through it and looking at the 11+ forum it is very different in each area and even within our area the boys and girls are very different

I dont really know (even though DD did really well and has gotten into a super selective one) where I sit with this and struggled with it in the run up to it.

DD herself is was anti the idea of too much tutoring as she felt she didnt want to get in that way. In the end we saw it like marathon training - she was capable but need to train for it so she (a) knew the material she would be tested on (this one was on the entire KS2 curriculum) and (b) knew exam techniques. This really came into play as she was checking throughout that she had marked the answer in the right question and it turned out for 5 she hadnt.

The second stage as well was interesting as it used a speech which wasnt something those tutored had covered - deliberately I think to help those not over tutored as it relied on more natural ability

That said some of the parents at the open morning were scary and the distances and lengths some are prepared to go to in order to get their child is is ridiculous.

The tutoring doesn't stop once they've passed and got a place though. Lots of parents continue to have their child tutored, even hiring more expensive tutors to cover specific subjects/languages. I think grammar school teachers must have it pretty easy if they're teaching DC who will sooner approach their tutors with problems than admit to the school they're falling behind.

You definitely need extra tuition. The sort of thing needed for the 11 plus just isn’t taught in school. When I did mine i passed first time and got offered a place straightaway but that was after 8 months of hard tuition. There’s no way I would have got in without it. I didn’t feel out of place at the school because, as you say, a lot of the kids have done the tutoring. I hope your son gets in.

SuperMeerkat: The sort of thing needed for the 11 plus just isn’t taught in school.
.......
It is in some schools, depends on the school.

Anecdata from local highly superselective and almost-comp (not a full grammar area so some of the leafy comprehensives are almost comprehensive in intake):

5 years after being selected as the 'absolutely best and brightest' (c. top 3-5% of those who apply) in the 11+, 10% of pupils don't get the entry requirements to the grammar's own 6th form.

Meanwhile at least 30%, of the comprehensive (the difference in intakes means it would represent c. 50% of the grammar's Year 11 cohort), get grades that meet these entry requirements.

So at least 10% of the grammar school's intake are so badly mis-selected at 11+ that they achieve results below the top third of the comprehensive.

That doesn't surprise me cantkeepaway. I know when I was a child, there were plenty of us who showed promise and were quite bright but ended up not doing very much. That's just how it works out. There's so much more to growing up than education and a child is much more than being a clever one. Other things intervene too which cause a change of direction.

Some schools are not very good at catering to the individual, they have their agenda and if a pupil doesn't fit, they don't know what to do with them. Not surprisingly a lot of youngsters become very depressed.

The education years are not easy for anyone.

10% is not a lot. Shit happens. Parents divorce, people die, mental health can go awry, people get ill, kids become carers.....

Not a surprise that some kids don’t get what they should.

Also not getting the angst. Kids clearly do well in comps, kids do well in grammars. Some get in and some don’t. They have good alternatives. C’est la vie.

I don't believe in Tutoring to gain a place at a Grammar School. Waste of money and time. I did it myself and my son gained a place at a Grammar School and scored the highest. So no Tutoring for me I don't believe it works.

DS has just passed the Kent 11+ without formal tutoring (Bond books & a mock test at home). He is VERY unusual in our area.

In his class of 30, 24 took the test and 21 had paid tutoring . Some have been doing group sessions (kumon etc) all through primary then by year 4 quite a few had weekly tutors and by year 5 pretty much everyone did some twice weekly! DS asked a few times if he'd pass without a tutor if everyone else has got one

The irony is, whilst some of the grammars are great, the snob factor often takes over for parents and they ignore the fact that at least one has worse GCSE results than the nearby non selective school!

Oh one interesting thing I should mention was that before the tutor I used agreed to tutor my daughter he chatted to her and gave her a test. He then gave me a full report on whether he felt she should do the 11plus and all her strengths and weaknesses. He was firmly of the opinion she would do well, and would thrive at Grammar but he said he was a bit shocked because she had not been taught much in one particular area of maths at school! Obviously he helped her with this and the school must have taught it eventually as their SATS results were good, but had I not asked him to tutor her there's a good chance she would have failed or not passed highly enough to get in.

Tutoring doesn't always guarantee a pass tho

Ds' friend had tutoring for 2 years before the 11+ and practiced all summer holidays
Ds did about 3 months of tutoring to get used to the question format and did next to nothing during the summer holidays
Ds was only 5 points behind his friend

My DS now age 15 didn’t get past the second stage despite being very intelligent. He’s now predicted 8’s and 9’s in GCSE (A star and above in old language). He didn’t get in as I didn’t get him tutored for 2yrs to pass the test. I know 3 kids at the grammars we applied to and all hate it. DS is very happy in his school, we certainly won’t be applying to their 6th form (pretty sure they’d accept him now). It’s the system, I guess it won’t change

The unfairness doesn’t begin and end with tuition, of course. Plenty of research shows that more affluent families read more with their children, buy books, do extra-curricular activities, use a wider range of vocabulary...the list goes on. Even removing tuition, there won’t be an entirely even playing field for all pupils.

The 11+ was originally meant to be a test that needs no revision or prior knowledge, more like an IQ test which measured ways of thinking.

To me, it only makes sense to have extensive tuition if you are applying to a school with an 11+ involving comprehension, creative writing etc. Totally different ball game. That way, it could be argued parents are getting their children to catch up with the standards expected by the school, rather than cheating a more naturally able child out of a place. The fact that they can afford to pay to do so is, to my mind, no more unfair than a parent buying their children lots of books or taking them to a library.

The ONLY fair system I can think of is a comprehensive with no entry test at all, no catchment area, just a ballot.

For what it’s worth, I had free school meals and certainly no tuition. I went to a grammar and have also taught at one, so know what it’s like to be both on the underprivileged and privileged side of this debate.

Tuition by a parent is still tuition.

I saw a programme on TV, might have been last year, not sure, which talked about a grammar school in Bexley and children who were in primary school, hoping to get a place.

Parents spent a fortune on private tutoring! Not many parents, even relatively well off people, could afford that. The children were, in my opinion, over worked and felt an obligation to their parents who were spending so much.

What is more, the vast majority of the children failed 11+!

I was not impressed with the primary schools, quite honestly, including the head teacher of one who was very nice and charming but not much more. That's another story.

So no Tutoring for me I don't believe it works.

Bach89, you tutored - it's just that you tutored your child yourself rather than paying someone.

'No tutoring' would be a child who is relying on their in-school education and their 'natural ability' when taking the test, with no specific preparation at all.

'Familiarisation' would be a child whose parents arrange for them to see the format of the questions, maybe spend a couple of hours going through question types in a book or the sample questions put up by many schools online.

'Tutoring' is specific, regular preparation over a period of time at home by a parent who is able to, or by a paid tutor.

The 11+ was originally meant to be a test that needs no revision or prior knowledge, more like an IQ test which measured ways of thinking.

In my area, the 11+ used to be just a test of Verbal Reasoning ... so in theory more as you describe.

Tutoring - teaching of specific skills to answer specific question types, learning new vocabulary by rote etc was a) rife and b) made such a big difference to the outcome that there was a shift to a totally different test type. (Oh, and the fact that it didn't test Maths was an issue, with 'managing out' those who wouldn't pass Maths GCSE apparently not uncommon)

That too is now a 'known and tutorable entity', so perhaps another change is due... perhaps a random selection from a range of possible test types each year might do the trick...

Yes certainly ours is not longer a test that needs no revision the NVR and VR parts (which are very IQ test based) and are something you either know how to do or dont have been taken out.

So now it is just a Maths and English test. A test which is based on the entire KS2 curriculum sat in September when schools are still consolidating the Year 5 curriculum.

So how do you sit a test based on the Year 6 curriculum if you have not been taught it?

he was a bit shocked because she had not been taught much in one particular area of maths at school

11+ in September tests children on Maths up to the end of Y6 - ie a curriculum that is not designed to be finished until the following May.

Children in state schools that follow the NC will have a whole year's curriculum yet to learn at the point that the 11+ is taken - of course there will be areas that haven't been taught yet....

11+ tests based on 'up to the end of the Y5 National curriculum' would at least be fairer.

The 11+ was originally meant to be a test that needs no revision or prior knowledge, more like an IQ test which measured ways of thinking.

Except it wasn’t. The 11+ in most areas from the 1940s into the 1960s consisted of 3 papers; English, Arithmetic and General Intelligence (verbal reasoning). The first 2 were obviously taught in school, the last was not, though I’m not sure what the rules were on that.

How do you know Can’t nobody knows what is in the exam?

Also year 5/6 cover the same curriculum with year 6 going deeper ie to 3 decimal places in stead of 2. An exceedingly child would surely be able to tackle this independently and be challenged to by school

J1ckback, have a look at

NC document

and map Y5 against Y6 (the example you give is Y5 compared with Y4). Just as a few examples, order of operations (BIDMAS), algebra, multiplication of a fraction by a fraction, facts about circles, long division - all are 'not necessarily obvious' Maths which is specifically in the Y6 but not the Y5 curriculum.

Certainly in my area, the content of the 11+ is defined specifically as 'the full primary national curriculum'. I don't need to know what is in the exam to know that if is specifies the whole primary curriculum, 1/4 of it has not yet been taught to most state school pupils.

Also DD literally has just sat the paper so v defintley know for our one that is the case

Mean mode and median were not touched upon at all and they were on it. Also in the time you have it would be really hard for someone to figure out the in depth parts and answer correctly in the time allowed and using the required standards
In the end we did an hour a week and practiced papers and Bond books in the summer (not every day) and she did really well and is v happy