To NOT arrange for my child to be tutored for 11+?

[Spongblobsparepants]

I know I’m a bit late to this one, but it’s occurred to me that every single family I’ve spoken to, who’s child is attempting to get into grammar school, is having their child expensively tutored to within an inch of its life.

I always thought that the point of the gs system was to act as a leveller and allow clever children from all backgrounds to have an excellent education. I remember saying as such to the mums of the two others in their class who are doing the 11+….before realising that they too are forking out vast sums for tutoring.😳

Now in feeling like the idiot, as all I’ve done is shove a few past papers and a workbook in front of my child, to give an idea of what to expect.

It helps that mine is ambivalent about where they’re going, the gs itself is out of county and the local state comp and its sixth form is good. My main worry is my child getting bored and mucking about there to be honest. They’re very bright (not bragging, but it’s true, has been doing yr 6 work for a while) but I’ve not particularly been pushing. I ‘never my fulfilled my potential’ as my mother would say 🙄and am now wondering if I should have approached this as a ‘project’ like the other ambitious parents appear to have done.

AIBU?

It’s about finding a good tutor too.

My dd had group tutoring (4 children), once a week in year 5 at a tuition centre. They had to do an assessment be be offered a place - there were a few pissed off parents who’s children didn’t pass the assessment, but they were very clear that 11+ tutoring isn’t suited to the abilities of all children. That seemed far fairer on the children to me.

There’s a local state primary school nr me that sails close to wind by offering a lunchtime ‘club’ to prepare kids. It’s known as the one that gets the most kids in grammar locally. Other primary schools adhere more strictly and don’t do any verbal reasoning or yr6 maths early.

No judgment here. I’m just concerned that have missed the boat for my child on this and should have paid more attention to what everyone else was doing. 😳

Thankfully they’ve now said they’re not bothered and would actually rather go to the local comp with the majority of their friends. We went to the open day and was briefly enthused about the idea, but getting them to actually knuckle down to do the work is proving tricky. I work long hours in a low paid job, while DH works from home, so is present but has not been putting in the cajoling.

One older sibling refused point blank to sit the 11+ and has quietly come to regret it and the other wouldn’t have been able to. This one is an entirely different personality and will probably do well regardless, even if it is in a more ‘fly by the seat of pants’ kind of way - which is a shame because the academic environment would probably be good for them.

Thank you for your thoughts on this - it has been really interesting. DH and I both went to comps, where gs was not available so this is not something that has been on our radar before.

You still have time Op if they are interested. There’s books of past papers. The one my dc used was Bond think there were 3 Bond books (maths, English and VR) with 4 tests per book so 12 tests total.
She did them over summer hols so only 2 a week. Liked seeing how her scores went up as she got faster.
If you are having to repeatedly cajole then grammar probably not a good fit for them.

There are NVR and Spatial Awareness, plus VR exams to do.
The booklet I’m looking at says ‘Ensure your child is familiar with the type of questions in the 11+ tests and that they can complete the answer sheet. We do not encourage tutoring.’ It also suggests using GL and Atom Learning, so might sign up for that.

I know that a lot of private school pupils apply and will have been tutored in school. Looking at the ridiculous uniforms of many of the children at the open day, they are heavily represented.

Judging from this thread, being bright isn’t enough without also understanding how to answer the questions and having covered the relevant parts of the syllabus.

I had a few months tutoring before 11+ but the focus was very much on exam technique and problem solving. My parents would not have been able to help me at home with these skills. I’m not sure I’d encountered non-verbal reasoning in class before and it’s not something that you want to face for the first time in an exam. This was 30+ years ago and interested to hear that some exams are still VR and NVR as I’d been told locally that it was maths and creative writing now. Even a bright child couldn’t be expected to know parts of the year 6 syllabus that they hadn’t covered yet. Sitting the exam without some preparation seems unfair.

But failing at anything whether it be an exam, job interview or whatever is part of bloody life.

Not doing something in case you fail is just ridiculous. If you do then you pick yourself up, dust yourself down and carry on

The trouble is in some areas (eg Bucks)

• the test includes content not taught in state schools till later in year 6
• private school pupils and out of county ones especially are prepared much earlier, over time this has pushed up the level you have to reach to get in.

If you don't tutor/prepare intensively, even if exceptionally bright, your chance of getting in is low.

I wish Bucks would block out of county and consider capping the proportion of places available to pupils taking the test from private schools. Eg if 10% of pupils in Bucks are at private schools, no more than 10% of grammar places should go to pupils from private schools.

It’s also life to prepare for things. Going into an 11+ exam, having never seen the exam format, never practiced the questions, never had a mock exam or sat any sort of exam before, is like going into a job interview for a random job you don’t know about, held in a language you don’t speak, dressed in a binbag.

If you don’t prepare for things in life, you will feel shit about doing them.

I whole-heartedly agree with you OP, in principle. However, both my kids are at super selective grammars. I didn’t want to tutor, but EVERYBODY was tutoring so I had to jump on the band wagon or my kids would miss out. I’ve now bought into this system that I disagree with but when it comes to it, I want the best for my children,

Ultimately, get your child tutored OP so it is a level playing field. Unfortunately, NOT tutoring your child doesn’f give the bright kid from a poverty-stricken background a place. All the other MC kids are being tutored, therefore, sadly, it just means that not tutoring your child puts YOIR child at a disadvantage.

If you tutor to get in, be prepared to pay to tutor the whole time they are there!

But that's not what I replied to. I was referrto the comnent " to be put in for an exam and not pass"

That can happen no matter how well you prepare

My understanding is that tutoring for the 11+ from yr2 isn't uncommon in Trafford.

I don’t think you’re ’feeling like an idiot’. I think you are worried now that you haven’t done as much as other parents to help Your child pass a test that you decide to enter them for. But you still want to come across as someone who thinks getting a child a tutor is pushy and embarrassing.

Hi OP, my daughter sits hers next month- I wasn't going to tutor until I realised at the start of year 5 that ALL her friends had one!!! When I went through the papers I realised there was stuff on there that she wouldn't be taught at school, algebra, non verbal and spatial reasoning....I passed it 30 years ago put I don't remember it being anything like this. She has had an hour a week with a tutor for the past year and an hour a week with me topping up the maths. I can't see the benefit of putting something on a test the child can't possibly have seen before unless tutored. Ridiculous.

I would say you don't have to pay for tutors, but it will take more than a couple of past papers practice.

Perfectly possible for you to mug up on the techniques and get a bunch of them and mark them.
I did this with my DS (for private school secondary entrance not grammar as I dont live in that area).

I’m in Trafford. DS went to a grammar and DD to a comp (she refused a tutor and I wasn’t going to force her!)
Very bright kids who are not tutored stand virtually no chance of passing the entrance exam, whilst average kids with good tutors usually sail through. It’s a stupid system and very unfair.
I will say though, mine are 20 and 21 now, and if you look at their friends and where they’ve ended up (uni/jobs wise), you’d be hard pushed to distinguish which went to grammar and which didn’t.

I never understand this comment. Both of my children go to super selective grammars, they are thriving and definitely haven’t needed tutors before or since the 11+. The tutoring just allowed them to get familiar with the speed of the test, exam techniques, types of questions they would never have come across before. Sections of the reasoning paper where you have 3 or 4 minutes would be very difficult to get your head round in the time if you hadn’t seen it previously.

It was more of a leveller in the past when state primary schools were allowed to teach children how to take the tests. DH grew up in Kent and along with most of the other parents who grew up round here and went to grammar schools, they weren’t tutored but do remember doing 11+ type practice papers at primary school before the test.

Ah, there’s 2 types of tutoring available and you are talking about different kinds.

We did the type you are talking about, exam technique, understanding what NVR questions are asking you etc.

The other type is supporting dcs who’s English and Maths isn’t good enough to pass those papers. Needing extra lessons weekly to improve their maths and English to the 11+ level is a sign that their primary school hasn’t been very good or they couldn’t get it from the lessons.

The children who need extra 1-2-1 help to get through the maths and English papers are likely to still need extra support later on to keep up. Those who just needed exam technique help will be alright with the curriculum.

That’s a fair point!

For the school DD1 liked she not only needed to pass but to get a certain mark, basically to come in the top 5% of her cohort. Hence tutoring. She got in, just scraping not a pass, but the mark they set that year for entry to the school, and it was absolutely the right school for her. She didn't remotely "struggle" there, tutoring was a means to an end to get in.

To me it will depend at least partly on what the tests consist of. Ages ago now, but on our return to the U.K. when dd1 was 10 (she’d attended a very good English-speaking school) she went to a school where they had daily practice in what they called ‘verbal reasoning’ tests, which was then what the 11 plus consisted of.

At the start of the first term - she had never even seen this type of test before - her scores were around 45%. A friend of MiL, who ran a prep school, then told me that practice would make no difference - the tests were designed to ‘test potential’.

Of course I was pissed off (so was Mil!) to hear her imply that dd lacked potential!

However she was quite wrong, since after a term of daily practice her scores rose to 90%+, and she did pass the 11 plus.

I have since heard that one of the local grammar schools have replaced VR tests with trad. English and maths papers, since they were getting new entrants who excelled in VR, but could barely write a coherent sentence, and so they had to provide remedial English lessons.

This is what I don’t understand about the whole “they will struggle if they need tutoring” argument.

It’s the same with most grammars. DDs school had 160 places for 2,225 girls who took the exam last year, and 20 places for those on FSM with a lower pass mark set (they come from all over, she’s met girls in her new form who live 90 mins away).

You do not get a place if you just scrape by. The girls who got a place are extremely bright and motivated, they will not struggle.

I had a comment from someone about “hot housing dd” and to be careful, she might not keep up. I wouldn’t call an hour a week for one school year, in term time, in a group session with 3 other children, and a few nights a week sat at the dining table with dh for an hour “hot housing”. She’s weird and she enjoyed it.

We’ve always supplemented school work with CGP books at home anyway, as her school advised us to when she was very young as they just couldn’t support her with any extension work (they have a lot of behaviour issues in class, so a lot of the bright kids get pushed aside, they didn’t want her to not stretch herself).

I'd send him to the comp any way. You honestly don't have to be that bright to get grade 7s and above if you put in the work. And if he is naturally bright he will get them just by attending class.