To think the 11+ is the work of the devil?

[LynetteScavo]

And if you don't agree with me, you're wrong.

There is also the question of the vocabulary needed. I have talked on here several times about the question which required 10.5 year olds to know that there were 3 meanings of the word 'sage'!

A child who comes from a bookish family has a huge advantage over one that doesn't.

I think there was a time - (possibly - it could be one of those "back in the day" myths) when grammar school was a step out of disadvantage for some children. No more. Now it is just yet another way that privileged people get more privilege for their children.

am very pleased that we do not have this system in my neck of the woods

schools that are classed as 'shithole jeremy kyle reject' will never get any better all the time people avoid sending their chidlren there, it takes a diverse mix of students to make a school what it is, plus your child will do as well as it wants to, you can send them to the 'best' schools and they can still not do brilliantly, its about their own drive and if they have that anyway there is nothing stopping them getting good grades.

I agree, funkybuddha - but if you live in a grammar school area and your child is "grammar school material", it takes an incredibly strong nerve and rock solid principles to send that child to a school - even a very good school - that has had the top 23% creamed off to the grammar school.

Please help me. How many gold stars did Simone have??? How did you get to 20 clary?
I (apparently) have a high IQ, but cannot work it out!

funkybuddah - I used to be a classroom assistant in a 'jeremy kyle reject' school, and I know from experience that the brighter kids need an incredibly large amount of self confidence and iron will to do well at some of these schools, as the teachers quite often have to spend half their time going over the basics to some children. There are also lower expectations by the school/other parents.
There is also the whole 'boffin' sydrome, where children are bullied because they know the answers.
Peer pressure is incredibly powerful at 11, 12, 13.

I'm loving "boffin Syndrome"

I finally have a name for what I suffered though my hellish years at a secondary modern.

11+ is shite and i HATE it.

I live in Essex, the area I live in has awful state comps. Really awful, none of them have a pass rate for 5 GCSE's of more than 35%, the social issues are huge and the facilities are crap.

DD's only real option is to either a; do the 11+ and get a grammar place or b; apply for much better schools out of catchment.

Well, option a is all well and good but our nearest grammar is nearly an hour away, it is massively oversubscribed as loads of people have switched from independent to grammar because of the recession. For dd to get a place she will need to score extremely high on her exams. It's not just a case of passing, so many apply that you have to get super good scores to be in with a chance. The school are predicting that for this years intake only 1 in 10 will get a place.

Option b is next to impossible, we live on the border of Essex/Herts. The only decent state comps near enough to travel to are in Herts, dd has next to no chance of being given a place as all of these schools are already oversubscribed by local people, let alone children out of catchment.

So now I am frantically saving for option c which is to go down the independent route. Not something I want to do at all but we may have no choice.

DD is on the GandT register which I am a little sceptical of simply because it only measures the top 10% by school rather than by county say, however,I think she is sufficiently bright to benefit from a grammar school IF we could get a bloody place.

I was also at school where everyone took the 11+, and as far as I know people didn´t get extra coaching.
It was accepted that you were either "naturally" clever enough or not.

Here, when you leave Primary schoolat ten, the teacher recommend whether you go to Grammar school or not.

I did the 11+ though it wasn't called the 11+ at that point - we all knew it was,but there was no pressure and no coaching as far as I know.I didn't think it was a fair system then,and I don't think it is a fair system now (I passed and went to an extremely selective school where I was very happy,by the way)
DD is not grammar school material and goes to a very well thought of semi comprehensive.DS is year 5,and if I thought he could get into Grammar I would tutor etc ,
because even in DD's good school,there are behaviour problems,and discrimination against the children who want to work,that don't seem to happen in the grammar schools.
Never thought the system would still be here when my DC's were secondary age!

harleyd, yes. If we were in the borough, he would sit one 11+. Because he's not, he has to sit an entrance exam for each school.

"There are, by definition, no comprehensive schools in an 11+ area." Not true - I went to a comprehensive school in an 11+ area and the school is still there, still a comp and still in an 11+ area.

"this is why we need a proper comprehensive system for all " [snort] one of the schools DS has to sit an entrance exam for is the local comprehensive school! He has to sit it because even though it is the closest school, we can't guarantee he will get in on distance and he doesn't attend one of the "feeder" schools (2 of which are further away than his primary school)

pices - To be perfectly honest with your IQ statement above - at my grammar school we were there through intellgence alone, not tutoring. When I meet people as an adult I realise how fortune I was to be surrounded by so many genuinely bright people at school and whilst I'll probably get beaten for saying so - the thickos had an IQ of 120.

Bring on my "average" child who won't stress about the unobtainable.

We are very lucky in that we live in the catchment for a very good high school even though we are an 11+ area. I think that makes all the difference, whether your child is bright or not

12 + 8 + x/2 = x

20 = x - x/2

40 = 2x - x

40 = x

Simone has x/2 or 40/2

Oh yes

My DS has just started grammar school.

He never went to a tutor. Parents on Mumsnet may say that it is impossible to pass the 11+ without a tutor, and parents where I live say it too. It is clearly not true; every year my local primary sends children to the grammar who have not been tutored. Of course some parents say that tutoring is essential. It is their justification for getting their child tutored.

You do not have to be bookish. My DS doesn't really like reading. You can develop a wide vocabulary, and the kind of vocabulary needed for the 11 plus by being interested in life and having conversations. Pointing out species of tree or life in rock pools is just as valuable to spotting odd ones out in the 11 plus as reading is.

You do not have to brilliant at everything to pass or do well at grammar school. My son's grammar told his primary school that they get boys in every year who have a level 4 in the writing SATs test. They give them extra support when they get to the grammar. Many intelligent people have uneven abilities.

Even if we did not live in an 11 plus area I would still have done Maths work with DS at home. He enjoys Maths and so do I. The verbal reasoning just requires a few familiarisation papers. I quite miss the 11 plus time. Now DS is at the grammar, home work is set by the school, and I miss being able to focus on maths, which we both really enjoy. All my family (3 generations) do logic problems for fun anyway, so I enjoyed the VR stuff and so did my DS.

There may be good social reasons for disliking the 11 plus. But the belief that you need to pay a tutor £25 an hour is nonsense. The papers are available online for free, as are explanations of how to do the questions. The internet is free to use in libraries.

MillyR, the difference is really semantics. You "tutored" your child for 11+. Now some parents are able to do that - they have the time and, more importantly, the ability to do so. You are lucky if you are able to get to the library during opening hours if you are a working parent, let alone get a slot on one of the pcs. I suspect that you actually have internet access at home. And if you have a couple of younger children your ability to drag everyone down to the library after work in order to help your 10 year old access suitable materials is even more restrained.

My definition of an untutored child is one who had no preparation for the exam other than that provided by their state school. I suspect that there are relatively few of those at grammar schools.

So the point that is being made in that children of aspirational parents will have a greater chance of success in getting into grammar schools holds regardless as to how those parents choose to help their dcs.

What LadyMuck said.

LadyMuck, if you think the amount of work I did with my child is tutoring, then you are essentially saying that no parent should provide academic support for their child.

No school, be it comprehensive or grammar, is going to provide enough individual support to get all children to a high academic level. If the parents do not have the ability to understand the maths and vocabulary required of a bright eleven year old, then those parents are expecting the school to be totally responsible for educating that child.

We do not have an education system that works without parental support.

As far as libraries go, I do work full time, but I still take my children to the library at the weekend. DS did not do familiarisation at the library - I printed out papers (at work) and he did them at home. KS2 maths books can be bought at WHSmith and are not expensive.

If an untutored child is a child whose parents have never helped their child with Maths, and who never take their child to the library - well, that is a child who is going to struggle to do well in any school, never mind a grammar.

Exactly MillyR, but there are some bright children who do not have any support at home. This is where the system fails.
I don't know what the answer is, but in most areas where there are grammars, the alternative schools seem so bad. Our local comp got 33% A-C grades at GCSE level. The grammars here are some of the top schools in the country.

Dd, who is very bright, has off days due to chronic pain. So whether she went to the grammar school and got educated with the academic children or ended up in the comp for the not-so-bright ones would depend on the day.

Thankfully, our LEA doesn't do grammar schools so she is in top set at
the local secondary, which contains both the children who would have gone to grammar school and the ones which would have gone to comprehensive. So dd has a good chance to find her own level.

No use saying this is a preparation for university: it is not. We are very supportive of students' health/mental problems at my own university and your future would not depend on your performance on one single day.

Twirlymum - I don't know what the answer is either. It isn't really just about bright children. There are many average children who never live up to their potential.

My parents were from disadvantaged backgrounds, and taught (many years ago) in schools where every child was poor. My Mum always says it never occurred to her that parents should be doing Maths etc with primary school children at home, and if she had ever suggested to her Head that a child would do badly because the parents were poor, the Head would have been astonished. They never had a child leave primary who couldn't read, do long division and so on.

Something has changed. It had certainly changed by the time I went to school. I don't know if it the way the Government has changed the curriculum, a massive decline in basic care at home, or something else. There must be changes that can be made. The elven plus is a red herring if children in non grammar areas still end up with GCSE results that are linked to social background.

Of course the eleven plus is linked to parental involvement, but so is every exam a child sits. I went to a comprehensive school. We were set. Overwhelmingly, the sets reflected social background.

Something should be done, but I think we need to look to other countries for solutions.

"LadyMuck, if you think the amount of work I did with my child is tutoring, then you are essentially saying that no parent should provide academic support for their child."

No, I am not saying that you shouldn't help prepare your child for the exam, or help them with their work. I am saying that your child had a similar advantage in being assisted and prepared for the exam as if you had paid for a tutor.

You seem to be saying that your child is untutored because you didn't pay someone else to do what you were willing and able to do - take your child through practice papers, and encourage them with their maths and help them with VR/NVR puzzles. In other words you were willing and able to do what others pay a tutor to do. The point that people have made on this thread about the inherent unfairness of the 11+ is not a matter of whether the parent does the preparation themselves or whether they pay someone else to do it with their child, but the fact that a child whose parents have not helped with preparation has a huge, often insurmountable, disadvantage.

Whether or not parents pay for tuition or do it themselves is really irrelevant - they are still preparing their children as best they know how. There are however many many children with the potential to do well at a grammar school but whose parents are unable or unwilling to provide the support. Your child, and mine for that matter, will have an advantage based on their parents ability and motivation, not just their own. That makes the selection system inherently unfair.

Am surprised that you don't have internet access at home though. Would have thought that that would have been a bonus in helping your dcs?

Cory - where we live, if a child is ill on the day, the grammar will allow you to sit the exam on an alternative day. They also allow extra time and separate rooms for children to complete the exam if they have any ongoing situation that would have an impact on their result.

that sounds rather good, Milly

I'm still happier that dd's future is not decided at 11

and even happier for my ds who at 9 is showing all the signs of being a late developer

all right, he may never develop into anything more academic, but at least he will have more of a chance

"Of course the eleven plus is linked to parental involvement, but so is every exam a child sits."

In which case the grammars wouldn't have been successful first time round in allowing social mobility. Of course one of the main issues facing the grammar school system was that middle class parents couldn't fact that fact that their children weren't academic enough to get into the grammars and the secondary moderns weren't seen as suitable for the middle class. Social mobility is fine provided it is always upwards.

BTW I had no parental involvement in any of my exams. My parents didn't turn up to parents evenings, and wouldn't have recognised any of my secondary school teachers.