Changes to 11-plus to stop middle-class parents 'buying' access to grammars by hiring tutors

[breadandbutterfly]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241411/Changes-11-plus-stop-parents-buying-access-selective-schools-hiring-tutors-children.html

Similar article in the Times apparently but paywall.

Last year we went to several school open days and two of the schools I visited are grammar schools. As usual each time one or two pupils would show us around the building. So I asked the pupils how did they prepare their 11+. The first pupil said her mum help her because she is a teacher in the same grammar school. The second pupil also said her parents help her with the 11+. The 2nd pupil said they never paid for a tutor because both her parents are teachers themselves and during year 5 up to the 11+ her parents made her do one hour work daily Monday to Friday and two hour work each Saturday and Sunday and then two hours work everyday over summer holiday.
I am able to do the test papers and primary school homework but I cannot teach. I don?t have the professional knowledge, training and personality to teach. For me it is easier to find money by going to work or saving than to DIY teach my children. So I hire a tutor for my dc because I am not good at DIY. However we are not rich. Anyway there are a very wide range of middle class families some are well off some are not.

Depressing isn't it. Got to say, and excuse the generalisation, but mumsnetters, bit middle class, bit educated, at least interested in how to help their children, very often don't see it. They don't mind doing the reading, and the times tables, and buying tapes from ELC and singing in the car and blah de blah de blah. They think it's nice (it is nice!) But not when it stands in for something the schools should be doing - ie establishing an excellent grasp and enjoyment of reading, excellent writing skills and excellent arithmetic skills.

Are you saying you never did anything like that with your kids, Brycie?

I my day everything was done in school. We didn't have homework, we chanted multiplication tables in school with no suggestion of further practice at home, we certainly didn't get to take reading books home and neither were these readily available in libraries and bookshops. Did we all leave primary school at the same level? Of course we didn't!

@seeker - at your comment about how your Year 6 had kids at levels 3 to 6.

I know that it was your intention to show how great the school is because of how it successfully deals with a mix of abilities. However, I just can't get pass the fact that there are level 3 kids in Year 6, bearing in mind that the already low expected national average is a 4.

I suggest that you refrain from using this to make any points in the future.

APMF- not sure if you've heard? Some children have AEN. Level 3 is a huge achievement for some........

APMF, that's because if you have an average, some people will be below it and some above it, yes? And in a state primary, you can't close your doors to the children who are below it, do you see?

And actually, i wasn't using it as an example of how great the school was- it wasn't, particularly. I was using it as an example to show that the National Curriculum, for all its faults, does not make all children work qt th pace of the average.

I don't think you can usefully apply 'lessons' from prep schools to the state system, really - to me the main lesson is that more money, much smaller classes and well-motivated and probably well-educated parents make a huge difference - but we all knew that, didn't we? I don't really see how we can 'apply' those benefits wholesale to the state sector affordably or practically.

I just wanted to add that I attended a state primary school in an affluent part of west London and that many pupils (mainly boys) left us at 8 to go to prep schools. All but one of these children were very able, top performing pupils and the one that wasn't was, at least, average.

However, I just can't get pass the fact that there are level 3 kids in Year 6, bearing in mind that the already low expected national average is a 4.

I am afraid you are just going to have brace yourself and cope, AMPF, as they represent around 20% of the primary school population.

Cecily P: Are you saying you never did anything like that with your kids, Brycie?

I my day everything was done in school. We didn't have homework, we chanted multiplication tables in school with no suggestion of further practice at home, we certainly didn't get to take reading books home and neither were these readily available in libraries and bookshops. Did we all leave primary school at the same level? Of course we didn't!

Of course I did - and I did it with plenty of other children not my own. I never thought I'm alright Jack, I can do it with my own, its the other parents fault if their children fail. A lot of parents are too busy, too badly educated, too unwilling but it doesn't mean their children should be shrugged off.

Of course children don't leave at the same level - they're not all the same. But they could leave with higher levels than they are now.

Why do you call them my "much admired" prep schools? Don't you admire their results? If not - then you get what you admire. If that's not well educated children - what an odd point of view.

Gelo: the fact that you call it "idealism" says a lot about low expectations.

TOSN - You obviously missed the many posts where I referred to my state primary educated DCs, so yes, I do see.

So why did the idea of level 3 children in year 6 amaze you so much you completely forgot to address your misunderstanding of the National Curriculum?

Exactly the same question as Seeker - why do you find it so funny that some children are below average?

'much admired prep schools' was another posters quote - not mine. My experience of them is far too limited to have any feelings about them one way or another, beyond the common sense idea that if you select bright pupils from aspirational homes they, by and large, tend to do well.

I wasn't talking to you when I said it. I was talking to the person who made that comment.

"the common sense idea that if you select bright pupils from aspirational homes they, by and large, tend to do well"

which is exactly why schools and teachers and just People Generally should fight the tendency to write off bright pupils from different kinds of homes and give them exactly the kind of rigorous and demanding education that prep school children enjoy

"which is exactly why schools and teachers and just People Generally should fight the tendency to write off bright pupils from different kinds of homes and give them exactly the kind of rigorous and demanding education that prep school children enjoy"

And not limit their aspirations by deciding on their secondary education by making them sit a test at 10 that is skewed in favour of children from educated middle class homes.

In what way do you think teachrers and other people write off demonstrably bright pupils from less advantaged homes at primary level?

You can see it in the attitude of teachers - what can you expect, blame the parents etc. You can see it in the system - depending on parents for reading, spelling, times tables. In what way does that not write off the bright child with zero parental support?

Seeker once again: the problem is not with selection at 11, the problem is with a poorer education well before that. Focus on selection if you want (you obviously do want) but I think that's just a cop out from addressing the problem of so many children not achieving at 11.

I don't find it 'funny' that so many children are below average. However, I do find it 'funny' when you post something to prove how right you are and instead end up proving how wrong you are. I mean, many of you are basically saying that you can't improve your children's education without me and my DCs. I find that funny.

As for seeker's question, teachers on the whole dislike the NC because it forces them to teach to the test. In our case, the school was bring measured on how many Year 6 kids leave on level 4 so that was what they focused on.

Given the nationwide debate about the failings of the NC and league tables, I suggest that my school is more representative of the norm than seeker's.

"many of you are basically saying that you can't improve your children's education without me and my DCs. "

Agree

"I find that funny."

Disagree - I find it depressing.

Your first paragraph is incomprehensible. And I notice that you ignored my point about children for whom a level 3 is a significant achievement. AEN do exist, you know!

Your second is wrong- or at the very least out of date. A school would get very poor OFSTED if all it concentrated on was getting level 4s. No credit in a child getting a level 4 at the end of year 6 if he was a level 4 in year 5.

And the school i am referring to is not a particularly good one in many ways.

Why is it incomprehensible?

It's what anti-selections are basically saying. "The absence of you and your children is the problem making the rest of education crap."

Why do you want us so much?

As it has been mentioned elsewhere, teachers have been known to fudge things and enter 4 as their expectation and lo and behold, the child got a 4 as expected. Chalk that up as another success for the school.

@seeker - why is the 11+ skewed in favour of the middle-class?

You criticise others for saying/inferring that working class people are thick or lazy.You now seem to be saying that WC parents are too thick or lazy to download free past papers. These are papers aimed at 10 year olds. Are you saying that WC parents are too dim to help their DCs unlike MC parents?

I know that you like to but you can't have it both ways.