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

exoticfruits That is I what I mean by that we are one of the very minorities who are affected the most and have very little voice. We don?t really have a choice but to take the 11+. Many of the people they only come into our area for the gs. They don?t live here or pay tax in our area. But if our dcs want to go to their decent local school our dcs have to fight their corner in the 11+ arena.

So you agree Copthallresident...the predictability of the tests could be something other than 'natural ability' that is evidenced by tutored childrens' success
There will always be exceptions to the rule (untutored children who think in the ways tested). If your children are doing well in this sort of testing with the EP then they are obviously able in this type of thinking. There are also different levels to the standard of the tests and each GS will have different levels of testing according to how oversubscribed they are. Some are very secretive about their testing procedures and others very open, but there are only so many sorts of VR and NVR questions that are likely to come up.
Agree that any more than about 6 practise papers is unlikely to improve your ability to answer the questions, but familiarity with the question styles and practise in answering within increasingly tight time limits (famous tutor techniques!) will certainly make the difference when it comes down to the cutoff score.
There is no reason for GSs to change the test procedure unless they wish to consider other intellectual strengths (such as the ability to write well, do maths to a high level, or consider other intelligences that make a well-rounded, 'successful' person). The high scorers in VR and NVR are likely to have strengths in a number of areas and in super selective schools are going to be likely to get the grades that will keep the GS at the top of the league table, so there is no real incentive to find other types of student.
I think there should be more grammar schools around so entry is not quite so competitive because there are certainly many students narrowly missing out who would benefit from a GS education. There are plenty of boroughs that do not have GS which means the pressure on surrounding area GS entry is hugely increased.

We live in catchment for GS and there are already people trying to find tutors for this new 'tutor proof' exam. I can't see how it will work when the culture around here is to tutor. I was delighted when ds changed schools to one that finishes at 13, not least because it takes us out of the game where 11+ is concerned. Ds is in year 4 and everyone we know has already reserved tutors.

I think that the best thing would be to publish practise papers and then on the day do something entirely different!

schmedz I think we are in agreement. I am at the other end of this schooling process with DD1s peers in uni now and it has been reassuring that in the end whether they went to state (all outstanding though, and via outstanding sixth form colleges), grammar (just about the most selective in the country fed by a massive tutoring industry) or indie the bright ones, by the very subjective measure of me thinking they are bright , have all ended up at the best unis. What worries me is that this parental desperation feeding off the tutoring industry and vice versa leads to a lot of psychological pressure on pupils and damage to confidence and self esteem, not to mention it too often being a miserable educational experience (which it has no need to be of course) whilst making very little difference to the outcome.

I know many parents who regret having got sucked in, and schools have had a moral responsibility to do as much as they could to discourage tutoring. I do hope they now succeed.

Copthallresident, we are most definitely in agreement! Wise words

Copthall I agree with a great deal of what you have to say usually but I do think your speculation on the motivation for grammar schools to make tests tutor proof incredibly shallow and dismissive.

Yellowtip Are you referring to my speculation about why Grammar Schools have not taken action to make entrance tests tutor proof until now? What other explanation is there since what is proposed is not rocket science, or new, the scientific rigour for instance, that stops VR and NVR tests become predictable and possible to prepare for has been around since at least the 1980s. Yet the Grammar Schools in this area have long had admission purely on VR and NVR, and an industry has grown up tutoring children in the minutiae of what tutors claim they can predict can come up in tests, fuelled by the fact that you have to score in excess of the 97th percentile to get in. The tutors stand outside the gates of the Grammar Schools on open evenings, though the names of the ones supposedly with the greatest inside track on success are passed around in secret. Whilst I am cynical about the extent to which these tutors can make a difference, especially as the magic preparation seems to consist of cramming as many around a kitchen table as possible doing endless repeat papers, and they have certainly failed to get some very bright children in, it does seem there is some effectiveness in their methods, and there should not be.

@copthall you so realise the scenario you describe - worrying though I agree it must be - isn't common practice at all high achieving grammar schools, right? Tutors lurking outside school gates like pushers, I mean.....

As far as an untutorable test goes - from what I've read in the press about the proposals for Bucks, which might obviously be incomplete or just plain wrong - it sounds like it won't be untutorable so much as un-doable for anyone with dyspraxia. Which presumably wasn't the aim. VR, English tests, maths tests (although there are some areas which will always be a challenge but that is life) are fine, but pictograms? Visual transformations? Not ever going to happen. And completely irrelevant to most fields of academic ability. :(

DO realise. Not so realise. I haven't turned into a teenage due to the pressure of listening to DD1 talking to her friends.

It is nice to hear from some mumsneters that the private schools their kids go don?t push children to do the state 11+.
However I was told that in our neighbouring borough all the private schools are pushing every child for 11+ regardless of academic abilities. Many parents they coach their state school dcs either by themselves or tutors are people with ordinary incomes not wealthy whatever class. These parents are not spending effort and/or money to gain advantage for their kids. These parents want to get some equality for their kids. By the way there are many wealthy people out there regardless middle or working class. So I don?t think class got anything to do with the gs issue.
We live in a very different world now. In general parents of all backgrounds have very different approach to parenting and education. We don?t live in the 50s,60s,70s any more. GS should be a thing in the past.

Don't think tutors do stand outside gs at open evenings trying to sell their wares!

Though it's a great mental image...

i agree that gss are keeping the system deliberately but that may be because they know that good results are not down to brains alone but also to hard work? A child who scores highly after committing to improve their maths or whatever and puts the effort in prior to the 11+ will be the same child who commits to studying prior to GCSES so not such a bad reason for choosing them over someone with greater natura ability but less work ethic. I got to Oxford based on lots of hard work but unexceptional ability.

That is also a fair criterion to choose someone for a gs place. As long as everyone has access to the 'work' eg I do think all schools should have 'intro to 11+ lessons' as happens in N Ireland.

By the way, as an examiner, i think the supposedly untutorable-for exams are nothing of the kind - the CEM exam which claims to be so is not and the schools which accept its claims are frankly lazy.

bread and butterfly go read the Tiffin threads!

Tutors don't have to make an effort to sell their wares- they are in great demand- word of mouth gets parents queueing up!

Over the past twelve years since DD1 went to the grammar I've known so many tutored kids who didn't get in and so many untutored kids who did that I think a lot of the time parents are kidding themselves and burning money while 'tutors' are growing fat. It's reasonably predictable who will get in and who won't and tutoring doesn't seem to alter the actual results. It seems to me to be the ultimate dupe.

Given a reasonable primary I suppose.

I largely agree yellowtip but the 'given a reasonable primary' is quite vague - a primary might be very good but just not have covered all the KS2 topics by the start of year 6 - that's where tutoring cab make a difference (esp maths). Plus of course a child who has never had the chance to try a VR or NVR paper will be at a disadvantage over one who has done several. (Though a child who has done 100 won't nec be at an advantage over one who has done 5 - so intensive tutoring is not required and it crtainly doesn't require a 'professional' to do so.

I wrote 'professional' as, contrary to some parents' imagination, there is no such profession and tutors need not and cannot have training in teaching in the 11+ - in reality, they are all amateurs and confer no 'special' knowledge.

bread and butterfly

I can't be bothered to go right through the threads but here is the google search on the subject

"Tiffin Schools Admission Arrangements (full thread) | Mumsnet ...
www.mumsnet.com ? Topics ? Education
100+ posts - 6 authors - 27 Apr 2012
Tiffin Schools (Boys & Girls) have issued their Determined Admission ... They only test children outside the catchment area if places cannot be filled by ...... It is common practise for Tiffin tutors to wait at the gates or lurk around ...
Wilsons, Wallington, Tiffin, Sutton ? why so many applications? Are ...
www.mumsnet.com ? Topics ? Secondary education
100+ posts - 1 author - 27 Jun 2012
I went along to the Tiffin Open Evening last night and there were tutoring firms giving out leaflets outside the school gate on the way in."

Elsewhere there are comments that said tutors also lurk outside the gates to get feedback on what was in the tests after they have taken place ...

In addition *bread and butterfly I can't for the life of me see any value whatsoever in subjecting your child to this, picked at random from similar posts. Whilst it may hopefully be at the extreme, it does I can assure you reflect the sort of miserable educational experiences experienced by many of DDs' peers.

From the Tiffin School Admission Arrangements thread

"Mumzy Sun 29-Apr-12 10:17:09

I know someone whose ds got into tiffin this year and I have been utterly shocked by what he's had to do to get a place. He is a vey able child and top of his class in his state primary. From year 4 he was tutored very specifically to pass the allegedly untutorable NVR and VR tests. He went to a tutoring firm for one hour a week then he was given 3x 50 minute pieces of practice homework to do a week. He was given lists and lists of words to rote learn and if he got less than 90% in any test his tutors advised his mum to make him redo them aiming for a score of 95%. His parents were also advised not to go on holiday during the summer holidays at the end of year 5 but to spend the 6 weeks doing at least 5x 50 minute NVR and VR tests each day which they did. I think Tiffin school know the majority of its intake has been subjected to this sort of drilling drilling and should be concerned about the childrens' welfare and the quality of its recent intake due to the narrowest of its test."

Yellowtip I would love to agree with you and I do hope there are some Grammars out there who successfully discriminate but going on all the accumulated experiences of Tiffin it does seem that they have allowed the tests to be tutorable to some extent, pretty much accepted by those who go there as well as those who don't get in, shown in these threads as well as amongst DDs' peers.

And in recent years between my DB's older children going to their northern grammar, when there was no tutoring of any significance, and his now much younger DC trying this year there has been a huge growth in the use of tutors, and teachers have noticed a very definite change in the profile of the children getting in from local primaries. Again VR / NVR tests. Thankfully Grandma being a teacher herself stepped in to make it a positive experience, but very sad. There is absolutely no reason for parents to buy into the whole thing either because the town with the Grammar / sec mod is ringed by other towns with outstanding comps, some outperform some Grammars, it is not as though it is that or the sec mod. But then that also applies for a lot of those trying for Tiffin too.

Tiffin is not the only grammar though. Tiffin is not the best grammar. Perhaps the huge numbers applying for Tiffin do make (both of them) a special case. But the answer to that is surely to consider whether the qualified demand is so high as to merit two additional schools somewhere in the vicinity.

With DD1s school - there might be small clusters of tutor activity. There might even be secret handshake tutor passwords. But with the school covering a radius of >50 square miles, most of which are rural, it's never going to be the same as the tiffin situation. A great tutor at one edge of the zone isn't going to be much use for someone living at the opposite end. I'm sure that some people do use tutors but I don't know anyone at the school who did (although I do know two kids whose parents are teachers who basically did the job themselves. But that's a slightly different deal I suppose).

Russiansonthespree If some schools are managing to admit irrespective of tutoring then clearly their tests are by definition tutorproof. No problem. However at the schools where this clearly is a problem, as in the case of Tiffin, and tutoring is skewing the playing field, and resulting in miserable and quite possibly psychologically damaging experiences for children, then the schools should make use of the means available to them to make them fairer. I hear of similar problems in Kent.

I'm completely convinced that following the bucks model (ie using tests that, if the descriptions in the media are correct will likely be impossible for people with dyspraxia) is not going to 'make them fairer'.

@copthall At least as far as our school is concerned I'm not convinced that they admit 'irrespective of tutoring' just that tutoring really isn't a 'thing' in this part of the country. I may be wrong. We do, of course, have a proportion of kids in each year who went to posh primary schools which is, in my view, rather worse. But the private school industry is, again in my view, a serious problem in this part of the country.

Russiansonthespree If the proposals do discriminate against those with SpLDs then they have not made effective use of the means available to them, and I would have thought that they would be open to challenge at appeal if not in the courts, but certainly in the public domain.

I love the 'lurking' bit.

I have no personal experience of professional 11+ tutors but our violin teacher 'lurks' inside the exam centre. She could be there to snag potential pupils OR she could simply be there to show support for her students and to perhaps to pick up from fresh feedback which may make her a better teacher.