I think the 11 plus is unfair

[LargeGlassofRed]

Dd1 failed her 11 plus today, she did'nt have tutoring just a practice paper from wh smiths.

It seams all of her close friends have passed, she' ok she does like the local comp, but she's dreading Monday at school

I seamed to be in the very small minority who hasn't paid for private tuition,

Just ranting really and feeling sad for her, I'm sure it will all blow over by next week.

Thank goodness we don't have selective schools here (Surrey).

I still don't understand why a non-grammar education is regarded as "inferior". Of course the reults will be less good, but by definition the intake were less bright to start with. Why is it assumed from that that comp children are not getting a good eduction? What about "value added?"

I know that my friend's child was getting a more rounded education at a comprehensive, with a broad, interesting curriculum.

My ds' ex-grammar holds technology status without offering either food tech or textile tech, and language status without offering anything but French and German. In no way did I witness him receiving a 'superior' education compared to my friend's dd. However, he was receiving a superior education compared to our catchment sec modern with 25% A-C gcse pass rate.

If you are in a selective area, there are, by definition , no comprehensive schools - you can't have a comprehensive school without its top 23%. It can be an EXCELLENT high school - bit nto a comprehensive.

And the system is unfair - for example, from my dd's class in a socially diverse primary school on the endge of a big houseing estate recognized as an area of significant social deprivation, 15 children passed the 11+ = all of them middle class with professional, university educated parents. How is that fair? They weren't brighter than the others who took the test, they just came from families with books, and witht he ability, inclination and money to help them prepare.

I still remember one mother asking me where to get past papers for her son to practice. Sometime later, I asked her if she had for them and she said no - she had gone to Waterstones, hadn't been able to find them and had been too shy to ask - she'd never been in a bookshop before. It was too late for me to get them for her. Her son failed - and he was significantly brighter,and much more in need of a step out of disadvangtage than most, if not all, of the ones who passed. It stinks. Divisive, unfair and outrageous.

Okay I take the point about comprehensives in pure grammar school areas being effectively secondary moderns. But outside Kent, Berks and Bucks and Lancashire, are there any other areas in the country where this happens? Because I think for the rest of the country there are very few grammar schools and therefore the comprehensives are truly comprehensive.

I can't but agree.

I've been defending grammar schools for years on the basis that they identify & support students, from any background, who would benefit from a more rigorously academic curriculum - which was broadly the case when I attended one 30 years ago.

But with extensive preparation becoming a) the norm & b) carried out by tutors & parents, not primaries, the bias towards the children of motivated, confident & moneyed parents - who need it least - is clearly overwhelming.

Depressing.

In our area the grammars have no catchment area si definitely no room for the top 23% locally. Probably only about 1% of local children actually attend them. The need to pay for lots of tutoring to stand a chance of getting in makes them more private schools that you don't have to pay for given the predominance of ex prep school pupils and middle class kids whose parents can pay £35 an hour per week for 2 years.

This means that several of the non selective schools have a lot of really bright Dcs attending them and therefore are to all intents snd purposes comprehensive schools.

This is because the grammars are not really available to most of the local population in the way they were in the old grammar/ secondary modern system.

raven - I agree, very depressing and a bit annoying that, given the crisis in school places locally, that two of the local secondaries are catering mainly for people who live miles away from the borough.

Quattrocentro - Berkshire is not a pure selective area -for one thing, it's not actually a single local authority area at all, there are 6 LAs in the old Berkshire area, only two of which have any grammar schools.

Slough is closest to being a 'selective area' as it has four grammars, with a total of around 500 places. That's about 30% of the number of children applying, but apparently about 60% of the places go to children living outside Slough as only one of the four has a catchment area.

Reading has two grammars, but as one is a girls' school and one a boys' it's effectively one school with an intake of 200. The boys' school has a catchment area, though it's a big one, about 10 miles radius, the girls' school doesn't so it has more non-Reading pupils.
The year DS went there, around 12 pupils from our town (about 8 miles away) got in and there were about another 7 or 8 at the girls' school; our town has nearly 2000 places, so 1% is a much closer estimate than 23% - not really enough to affect the 'comprehensiveness' ( if that's a word) of our town's schools.

We are in Kent, and I admit that DS is having a tutor for Yr 5
We all do what we think is best for our kids.
FWIW he did brilliantly in his CAT tests at the end of Yr 4, and sored high in his Math SATS, but the tutor is helping him with timing and teaching him some stuff that has yet to be covered at school.
I can sleep at night with my choices

LOL @ people discussing the 11+ whilst watching the X-factor. At least in the X-factor you know that the best people get through because they are repeatedly scrutinised. The 11+ shouldn't be a one-day-only affair, ir should be a series of tests over, say, eighteen months so you can judge true talent and erase blips up or down. I suppose there will be some who will say that you shouldn't put the kids under such stress but, if they can't stand the stress, then they are not GS material.
Unfortunately, because GS are so oversubscribed, they don't need to do fair assessment: they can do a one-off test, which can be marked by a computer, and decide people's fate on that.

I totally agree that the villains in this are the Primary schools who do not do 11+ preparation.

11+ is unfair even without tutoring because the exam itself is not capable of accurately discriminating between children within a certain error margin of the cut-off. That error margin in the exam itself means that some children below the cut-off will pass and some above will fail. If that error is say around 5 IQ points it affects a very large proportion of those taking the exam due to the shape of the ability curve at the high end. (You can get an idea of how big this error is by getting children to sit a range of IQ tests and comparing the results - they are not as consistent as they should be - even after allowing for the order they are taken in - basically, children have good days and bad days and questions on some papers suit them better than those on others).

When you add tutoring into the equation that just widens the error margin quite considerably.

An additional problem is whether or not what the exam tests (we'll call it IQ) is actually what determines if a child will benefit most from a grammar education. It certainly correlates quite well with academic achievement, but not as well as you might think it should - I suspect some personal characteristics such as willingness to work hard are at least as important and these aren't tested for.

To the OP, take heart from those posters like rustybear and milliways whose dc have gone on to perform brilliantly after failing 11+. If your dd works hard at her new school then I'm sure she can do well there too. In fact I'm fairly sure being near the top of a school with a broader mix of abilities suits a lot of children better than being a very middling child in a high performing grammar.

Comprehensive schools do NOT teach children in mixed ability classes. My DCs are set for every subject at their school.

I too am very glad that there are no grammar schools in this area (apart from the ones that cost 10 grand a year to go to).

"Comprehensive schools do NOT teach children in mixed ability classes. My DCs are set for every subject at their school."

So your experience in one school entitles you to comment on all comprehensives? On that basis, I could equally insist that Comprehensive schools do not set in English until Y10.

OK then "Comprehensive schools do NOT ALL teach children in mixed ability classes".

But I've seen statements on here that imply they do.

Here's a thing, though ...

Those über-supportive parents don't just disappear. They go on supporting their dc all through school. I know, I have some as friends. And there is a huge, hidden disparity between those who come from that sort of background and those that don't within comprehensives. So comprehensives aren't some kind of joyful nirvana. The whole "coaching to get through the 11+" thing just makes that difference quite visible. But it exists in non-11+ areas.

I seriously, really believe that the whole anger about grammars is employed by people as a smoke-screen to avoid dealing with the deep iniquities embedded in schooling generally. There's been (Sutton Trust, I think) research on the hidden divisions in comprehensives. Why don't people get more ranty about that? Is it because lots of mn-ers' children are in the "winning" group in comprehensive systems?

And while I do want to give support to you, OP, I also want to say, for anyone reading this with a view to going through 11+ in up-coming years, Quattro has it. If your child is sitting NVR and VR papers, buy some test papers and familiarise (no more, really, should be necessary,). One won't do it, but a few will. If your child is sitting papers with added English and Maths, there is more of an issue, because it may well be the school won't have covered the subject-matter.

Erm my SIL's comprehensive school does not set at all. Not at all. Mixed ability all the way through. Incomprehensible to me how they can function. The GCSE A-C rate is pretty low though.

At least these days everyone gets entered for GCSEs.

Iirc my mother's secondary modern didn't bother with o-levels, they were only allowed to take CSEs. Oh, and RSA typing.

Still glad we don't have grammars here though.

All the comps near us stream, quattro.

At least one does vertical streaming, with many pupils sitting GCSEs in Y9.

"At least these days everyone gets entered for GCSEs"

It seems to me that higher/lower tier GCSE divide correlates quite well to the old O levels/CSEs. I know some quite bright children who have ended up in a group that is all entered for lower tier exams which seems no different really to being in a group in the old days who were entered for CSEs.

The entire school admissions system in England is flawed. Parents who did well at school themselves have a huge advantage in getting the best of out of the system, which is ridiculously complicated. If the parent is not too hot on reading and writing (and even simple arithmetic) just understanding the admissions policy is likely to be a challenge.

It would all be so much simpler and fairer if government efforts were focussed on making sure all schools were well run and properly funded. Light touch on curriculum prescription. No more KS2 SATs - accept the teacher assessment instead. No choice given to parents whatsoever over which school their children would go to - all children in the area to go to the nearest school. Absolutely no private tuition required!

There's a case for taking the super-bright or specially talented children out of mainstream education at some suitable point (9? 11? 13?) and putting them together for special teaching, either on subjects that other children would find too hard at that stage or just going at a much faster pace. Doing that for part of the week or for occasional days/weeks might be enough. Other than that, I think all-ability schools (which is what comprehensives are supposed to be) are best. That way, children who are really good at English but not Maths, say, can be in the top set for one and set 2 or 3 for the other - and so on.

Just daydreaming - there is no sign that any major political party will take away parental preference - which is what parents have, the word 'choice' is not used in education law, is it? - quite the contrary. Odd that most other developed nations do things as I outlined above and get better results for the most part!

There seems to be so much negativity towards Tutoring!!!!

I believe tutoring a kid to achieve a particular goal is good. Now tutoring can be done by parents (if they are capable) or by a professional ( if parents cannot do it for want of knowledge/ time).
tutoring only brings out the best in a kid. it offers a structured form of learning to the kids suited to the individual pace of the kid. normally a school may not be able to focus individually on a kid.
if parents decide to take on the tutoring , its the best option the kid can have. i can go on & on .. on how a parent has to so well planned.
its best handled individually

Tutoring children to get into selective schools is fine so long as you don't care what happens to any other child in the area - it represents another manifestation of the "me me me me" psychology that is so damaging to society.

It is also in some cases a vary lucrative business that makes money by playing on the insecurities of parents.

Value added value added value added value added value added!!!!!

I'm a teacher and in my subject have gained results at GCSE for my students ranging from 50% getting A-C, to 96%.

I'm most proud of the 50%, that was an amazing result for that
cohort of students.

Don't judge the teachers or even the school - just be honest that you don't want your DC mixing with the plebs

Sorry meant to say the 50% was whilst teaching in a secondary modern, the 96% in a RC school selective by stealth

"The local school is wonderful, really, it's just theat Jocasta is sooooooo sensitive/bright/original/independent minded/talented/artistic/prone to arson...it's the right school for the right child, isn't it? And I'm pretty sure I saw someone in a tracksuit waiting outside yesterday....."