Grammar school tests to be made 'tutor-proof'

[breadandbutterfly]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/9653189/Grammar-school-tests-to-be-made-tutor-proof.html

Just remarking on the boy who had the audacity to pass for a super selective from a middle table in Primary after tutoring.

Two things: firstly perhaps he had the requisite ability - attainment in class doesn't always correlate with ability. Secondly maybe the tutoring improved & developed his intellect. This can happen.

Ha! I get your point Hamishbear (it wasn't really the parents who were shocked with the outcome, it was the children actually! It offended their sense of 'order'). Yes, you are right. She was an excitable child so her over-exuberant manner might have just distracted her from learning earlier on in her school career. It is quite possible that the the three years of tutoring harnessed her abilities - maybe that's the point of it. But then by that token, all children with reasonable abilities could probably get to that level with tutoring? Certainly there were other bright children in the class whose parents couldn't afford tutors and whose DCs didn't get in...

Personally I think they probably could but appreciate not widely held or popular belief. Sadly not a level playing field for all.

gazz - at the expense of coming across as one of those posters who seizes one word or phrase from an entire post and makes a meal out of it...... Parents who can't afford to hire a tutor are not at an appreciable disadvantage. Is your DC at a disadvantage if you taught your child to swim compared to someone who hired a swimming instructor? Of course not.

Some schools don't publish past papers so, yes a tutor that has knowledge of that school's exam can give a parent an advantage but IME the majority make their papers available for download. It's as level as one can make it.

I think you are probably right TotallyBS. At lot of it has to do with parental motivation IMHO. At the end of the day, I'm afraid the uber-competitive ones usually are the middle-class ones. I have witnessed it at school. Even if they know their DCs probably won't get in they still talk the talk, walk the walk - it's a tribe mentality!

Since getting into at least the super selectives around London is nothing to do with ability (at least over a threshold "grammar school standard") but more about how motivated the parents are in getting the DCs prepped for the frankly useless VR/NVR tests, perhaps there could be another way of selecting which doesn't involve misery for the DCs. But equally tests the DPs motivation

Something like this:

1. Test kids to make sure bright (no tutoring needed for this since mark is set sensibly) a couple of years in advance.

1. Then the parents of those DCs who pass have to learn Navajo or some exotic language no-one will already know or something similar.

1. The parents that learn it best, get the place for their DC.

The parents then go through what otherwise the DCs would have gone through: a couple of years of weekly tutoring doing something useless (respect to any native Navajo speakers).

LOL Ohdearconfused! I suspect you'd get a pretty similar set of pupils to the ones that get in today.

It's like my idea of the juggling test. 2 schools next door to each other. One takes all comers, the other asks that both parents be able to juggle before their child gets a place. Th juggling school will have significantly better results than the other one. This explains why oversubscribed faith schools appear to do better than non faith schools. Doesn't half p**s off the Christians when you tell them that, though!

Lol, spot on ohdearconfused!

so's that!!!

Ah seeker, busted, yes indeed - just like that, and in fact, I probably did copy was inspired by you. I'm sure I've read your posts to that affect before.

ODC

Yet more anti dyspraxia bilge. :(

Nobody said it was fair, Russian- that is rather the point!

It's a conspiracy. :(

Life's not fair- as I am frequently told !

Maybe you could learn Navajo instead?

But joking aside - it's also wrong. The school that didn't take dyspraxics wouldn't have better results because all the super brainy next-evolutionary-step dyspraxic people would be at the other school getting better results.

Although actually - you wouldn't dream of using something mocking blind people as an example. Would you. Food for thought. The nepalese example was much better.

I'm really sorry- I didn't intend to mock. I used juggling when I first used the analogy because it's something that loads of middle class adults I know do, and which is, for most people, possible but tricky to learn. And which you can learn to do by yourself, but which you can also be taught. And which you need time, and knowledge and space to learn. And which some people can do straight off, And which some people can't, however hard they try. And which has absolutely no bearing at all on how you do at school.

Just like the 11+ really. Or being Christian.

I have to say that back in the hippy 70s the borough I grew up in had a great scheme to attempt to level the playing field. The Primary School Heads nominated which pupils were best suited to the three different sorts of schools and four pupils who were borderline direct grant / grammar and grammar / secondary mod, who then went off to a gorgeous country house where we spent the day playing, building things with wooden blocks, doing puzzles, some tests, having discussion groups about things like whether God existed I know!!! but I am sure I remember right, juggling and learning navajo, actually I made the last two up, I think... I just remember it being enormous fun. They then decided where we fitted, it was called the Thorne scheme and though I remember being quite amused by it all, it was subsequently endorsed by the Plowden Report

"The Thorne system, so called from the neighbourhood where it was first tried, was designed to take account of these two observations. An initial quota of selective places is given to each primary school and is generally based on the results of the previous three years. The accuracy of this figure for the current year is checked by a careful investigation of all borderline pupils undertaken by a panel of head teachers. A further check is provided by the feedback of information from the secondary schools to the primary schools. The purpose of this system is to avoid distortion of the primary school curriculum by dispensing with an externally imposed test. It achieves this object without loss of accuracy. It is acceptable to teachers and parents and has led to cooperation between primary and secondary schools. We are impressed by its advantages and hope that authorities which continue to use selection procedures will study its merits."

The section of the Plowden Report on selection is itself interesting since written in 1967 it proves what goes around comes around.www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/plowden/plowden1-11.html

What I do know is that my peers at the direct grant grammar came from all sorts of backgrounds, and it enabled girls from working class backgrounds to go on to university and successful careers.

Comment by from secondary school history "The old scholarship system of selection by examination in Mathematics, English and Verbal Reasoning itself became the subject of examination. In 1962 a pilot scheme was launched whereby certain children who were borderline cases were allowed to attend at a centre in Ilkley for one whole day. They were given tests in Mathematics and English and were able to pursue work in other creative media. Meanwhile experienced teachers with understanding had the opportunity to converse with the children in a relaxed and natural atmosphere and so discover about the personalities and characteristic qualities of the children. The Thorne Scheme of selection as it became known was established in the area and worked favourably so far as our school was concerned."

Loads of middle class adults in Kent juggle? :)

Copthall I had an interview after the 11+ tests for my direct grant place. A different method I know, but still useful I guess. The HT and an unknown (but very avuncular) man talked to me for quite a long time in the HTs office. They asked me what I'd read or heard about in the news and, interestingly, asked me to demonstrate with my hands how long certain measurements were. And I think also about the meaning of certain words. I think they asked other stuff too, but those are the things which I recall the most clearly. I'm assuming dyspraxics would have difficulty with the measurement thing.

I don't know whether the results these interviews threw up were good or bad. I got offered two direct grant places (to my first choice and to another London school mentioned often on this thread) - which leaves me none the wiser. But looking back at the kinds of girls who were offered places under the scheme, it's absolutely evident that there was no middle class bias.

Yellow It's a scarily wierd place.

Yellow As you know I was the first year after Croydon scrapped the 11+ and that year (and for at least 2 years afterwards) C had an interview as part of the admission process. We had to take a book and talk about it. I don't remember any measuring things with hands. But I fell over walking into the head mistress's office so the writing was pretty much on the wall. But they knew me anyway (and they knew I'd been offered a full scholarship to OP which my parents had turned down) so I don't think it was an issue. That year, 100% of the girls from RC who applied to C got in, which hadn't been the case under the 11+, and which certainly indicates that it was popery they cared about not poshness.

Is it just me who knows loads of irritating people who can juggle?

Yes seeker, I really think it might be :)