Has anyone else heard the rumour that the 11+ is going to be replaced with a test that cant be tutored for?

[NotEnoughTime]

The title says it all really.

This would be great for us (and hundreds of others Im sure) who dont want to havent got a spare couple of hundred pounds tutor in the hope that their child can have a chance at getting a place at grammar school.

Not to be rude Portofino, but I think your poor Nan might be suffering the first stirrings of Alzheimers. Kent never did grammar school entry that way. AFAIK noone ever has.

What she might have meant was that the school puts forward the names of kids it considers suitable to sit the test. ie who might have a reasonable chance of passing. This is still true now - not everyone sits the test. Generally about half the kids in Kent sit it and of those, about half pass it.

Maybe they just did it without much fuss so it didn't register with you or your Nan?
In Essex early 70s the whole lot of us spent time doing VR type tests before the exam, and all did it, but there was no fuss and no parental input required. I can't actually remember anything about doing the test, just that VR instead of normal lessons was fun

I don't KNOW this to be the case. I don't remember specifically doing the 11+ either. And i have a good memory. My nan, bless her, has health prroblems, she is 84, but she hasn't lost her marbles just yet.

My point was (whether I did the 11+ surrepticiously or no) that it might be fairer to base Grammar school entry on overall performance to date rather than one test. So tutoring per se wouldn't be worth it. No one is good at everything. Well maybe some are....

confidence - you probably have a point that the school decides who should sit the test. I most likely took it. But there was no hoo-ha and no tutoriing. It does not even figure in my memory so there was no pressure from my family or anything. (there bloody was later on).

Yes, the whole thing has certainly gotten a lot more pressured and high profile than it was.

It's worth noting that in Kent at least, there IS an element of "assessment of work to date" behind it. Kent aims to select the top 25% of kids for grammar school, and this is done by giving straight out passes to the top 21% (I believe). It is then up to the headteachers of the primary schools to out forward appeals for any children that they expected to pass but who narrowly failed. From these appeals, they fill the remaining 4%.

OK, it's not much, but it does mean it's not quite true what people make out that it's ALL down to performance on one day, and if you slip then you have no way back. And even after headteacher appeals, parents can still then launch their own appeals for kids who just missed out. At least one grammar school in my area has traditionally drawn up to 20% of its intake from such appeals, to avoid having to reduce it's intake.

In principle I'd favour the idea of continuous assessment being a bigger factor. Hard to imagine how it would work without scope for a lot of subjectivity and even corruption though. With primary schools under pressure to sell themselves on the basis of 11+ passes (which in a selective area, people care about much more than SATs or league table position), it sounds like it could open up a few cans of worms. The 11+ may not be perfect, but at least it's relatively credible, objective and untainted. Everyone knows what it is and the conditions under which they have to compete.

One independent school near me has stopped the usual type of entry exams at 11+. Instead they get the applicants to come in and be in a "class" where they teach them about something they are extremely unlikely to have come across before. They then assess them on how well they have done in taking in the "lesson" and understanding it. It may be something like this that the OP is referring to. AFAIK, there would be nothing to stop a state Grammar School revising their 11+ along these lines as most now set their tests independently anyway.

NVR and VR are both tutored here extensively, our boys grammar takes only the top 145 scores, so meerly passing the test is not enough. We now find ourselves in the position where our DS who is in the top 25% of his class, is now going to have loads of extra practise in order to not get squeezed out by people who can afford to send their DC's to tutors!!

They are effectively paying their way to a place at grammar. What about all the bright kids who live on council estates who don't get any help at all with their 11 plus preparation. If you look at the stats of how many children that go to grammars are eligable for free school meals ie are poor, you will see their are very few which speaks volumes about how unfair a system it is.

Why the hell can't they do it based on their SATS? and reading/spelling age assesments?

Why the hell can't they do it based on their SATS? and reading/spelling age assesments?

Because SATs are measures of attainment, not potential. This would discriminate even more against children who'd had poor teaching etc - at least with 11+ there's a bit of a chance for a poorly-educated bright kid to pass.

I disagree. While some primary schools are better than others, and some appear to be better than others because of the nature of their catchment, they all do, in fact, teach reading writing and maths. Even low achieving primaries have some children achieving level 5s across the board.

OTOH, VR and NVR will improve with practice and this practice is not provided in school, but by parents. So, whether they just buy books of practice papers, or tutor themselves, or pay for a tutor, it is likely to only be children of a certain sort of parent who have a good chance of passing.

The only problem with using KS2 test as a basis for selection, is that they are taken too late for this to be practical. The whole country would have to change to the end of Y5 or the beginning of Y6 for the benefit of a few selective areas.

Wormshuffler if the government accepted the fact that a lot of parents DO want the option of a grammar school education and allowed more schools to be established then those who couldn't afford the tuition would stand more of a chance as there would be more places available.

My two are at a prep which is just outside the grammar school catchment area. MOST parents at the school admit that their children are there in order to pass the 11+. They have a 100% pass rate and the current Yr 6 students ALL got the school of their choice (some independent senior but most grammar).

"Why the hell can't they do it based on their SATS? and reading/spelling age assesments?"

What makes you think that would be any better?

I don't know how the proportions compare to various 11+s, but I'm pretty sure SATs results are stratified according to parental income and class too. And if SATs become the basis for entry to grammar school, then everyone will just switch from tutoring for 11+ to tutoring for SATs.

And reading age assessments will always favour kids who have been brought up in literate homes, been read to and led to read themselves from a young age. You become good at something by doing it, and you start doing it by seeing those around you doing it.

I don't think there's any solution to the fact that children from homes that are (a) wealthier and/or (b) more supportive of an educational ethos, will make more progress academically. We can dance around in circles all we like changing the way we measure it, but it won't change the basic fact.

I can't help feeling a lot of people have got this issue the wrong way around. We focus on condemning parents who support their kids' education for getting some kind of "unfair" advantage, rather than addressing the reasons why some parents don't. Of which money is only one.

No, Cecily - sure, scores on NVR etc tests improve with a bit of practice, but SATs are way more 'crammable'. Pushy parents already get their kids doing lots of SATs practice to boost their scores (for no logical reason whatever). If school places depended on SATs this would only increase.

DDs cohort nearly all got level 5 SATs. They did not all pass 11+ , and even less did well enough to get out-of-area residual places. The 11+ results really did discriminate much better between average but well-taught kids and brighter well-taught kids.

Isn't the obvious solution that schools ought to familiarise all kids (or at least, all kids who wanted a chance at GS) with 11+? That's what used to happen - we all got 11+ practice together.

Porto, you are 2 years younger than me and when I went to grammar school in Kent, it was based entirely on test - I remember the brightest boy in primary school not doing very well and there was a very big hoo-ha, but he never got into the grammar in the end...

LeQueen - yes this scenario would fit I think. I remember that there were a few others in my class who passed, if I think about it. One went to the Boys' Grammar and the others elected for the local Sec Modern. So my nan is probably correct that the school decided who went forward. I have no memory at all of taking the test though.