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.

Lots of very bright children manage to be successful in state schools. Do you think your son wouldn't be able to cope like so many others? Surely if he were that exceptional he would and would also be able to impart some of your his wisdom on the commoners.

Arisbottle - as you said , I dont want to say what is different. I dont want to offend. Least said eh?

Perhaps then the problem is you, Ronaldo. Can you not simply let him be a 6 year old child because it sounds like you are making him a mini me rather than a child.

You're trying to make out how privileged and extraordinary your ds is but I actually feel very sorry for him and for his future.

My children attend state schools with one exception they all attend comprehensives or will do, they all want to achieve and all have friends who want to achieve.

Ronaldo you will not offend me, I find you a constant source of amusement. If you with to tell me why your family are so superior to mine, go right ahead.

Ronaldo - I was Oxon (!) educated and saw a lot of privately educated people there. It was indeed a different world and a fantastic place in many ways, but it did contain an awful lot of *nobs without the hob... I certainly saw plenty of vulgar and immature behaviour of the sort I'm sure you would disapprove, mainly coming from the privately educated who really ought to know better, if what you say about the superior culture at private schools has any credence.

I then observed the same childish and vulgar behaviour working as a solicitor in the City with largely privately educated people.

I am just a very ordinary middle class bloke with ordinary middle class wishes for my DS. Nothing more. I think it is quite unnecessary to make your point by suggesting my D S is being disadvantaged because you do not want to accept that state schools do not cut it!

Lets face it, most of the real achievers are from private school backgrounds
( see anhother thread).

I feel sorry for your DC too - it must be terrible having parents like you too. IMO Glad my boy doesnt have to live with you.

Would you be taking your DC to Canada this Christmas?

Are you really fantastically wealthy and loaded Ronaldo? That is the only kind of "home life" you don't see much of in state schools. Although some of the super rich do believe in the comprehensive system, I don't think there are all that many exceedingly wealthy families at my children's state school.

Other than that I cannot begin to think what makes your child's home life unique. But you are being all coy about it so I'm off to interact with my children. Topics already discussed here this morning (just general chit chat) include the geography of South America, what is the weight of an elephant when it is born, what is the difference between shortcrust pastry and puff pastry, how does Sky (as in satellite tv) work, and I've been helping my Yr 7 dd do her level 6b maths homework. How I manage to do all this without being an elite of an elite I will never know!

No I am not taking my children to Canada, is that why my children can cope at a state school and yours can't. Is it something in the Canadian water?

Parents who want children at state grammars have to move to find them as most places don't have them. Others who like comprehensives have that choice and those who work hard enough to pay school fees have that choice too. If the state school parents like the result from that system and the private school their own resulting children then we're all happy, nothing to argue over.

This is thread about state not private schools. Most of those at Oxbridge who didn't go to fee paying schools I believe went to state grammars, same with judges - most of those who did not go to a private school went to a state grammar. The interesting issue is do we find that areas which have not had state grammars for 40 year like where I am from have they found their proportion of Oxbridge entrants has reduced, increased or stayed the same as the same children will be in those regions without selective state schools and presumably their IQs are not lower.

^So, what changed, then, because the move from no preparation to the current situation was far too slow to be because of the abolition of most grammar schools - and it has even spread to areas which still run a grammar school system without super selectives in the locality.

Was it the move to GCSEs and more people going to university? Did that result in the mad rush to get your children into a school with a "reputation" for excellence? Or did the standard of education drop so dramatically that people are these days having to make up for inferior primary education? Or are a higher proportion of people generally more neurotic, competitive and insecure these days and taking it out on their children, who 25 years ago would have breezed into a grammar school without years of intensive tuition in exam technique, first?^

What's changed; when I took the 11+, there were 3 papers English, Arithmetic and verbal reasoning. The English and Maths were what you were doing in primary school anyway. The verbal reasoning was an unknown, although our teacher did mention some of the types of questions that might come up. If the 3 subjects had equal weight, then parents who wanted their child to go to grammar school were probably missing a trick in not teaching it - but there wasn't so much information in those days - no bond papers and that sort of thing. Probably the internet has a lot to do with fuelling it.

Today, many 11+ tests have replaced testing things taught at primary school with tests of VR and NVR, (although I believe Kent adds maths to the mix). So nothing to do with inferior primary education. In fact the idea was to make up for variations in quality of primary eduction and the theory behind the tests is to test potential rather than ability. And, if all children came to these tests cold, that would be the case. But these days parents are much more savvy, much less likely to know their place, less likely to think 'if the test shows you should go to this school or that school, that must be the school for you'. Then you have far more parents who, years ago, wouldn't have thought of state education entering the competition - for competition is what it is.

Yes, that's all very well, but we want to know about Ronaldo and his non-state- educatable son.

Sorry, that was to Xenia not you Cecily (thank you for your interesting post).

personally i think the stranglehold on top uni places by privately educated kids is a bigger problem that needs addressing. my son's girlfriend goes to one and she is one of only a few state educated kids on her course.

for the state to provide the best uni education only to privately educated kids is just totally wrong. and rather than just tweaking grades something must be done to widen access to all bright children eg give them a decent education in earlier years.

Ronaldo, you really do have delusions of grandeur if you think that there is no other child in a state school that is sufficiently like yours, that your child would have to make a tremendous effort to learn to fit in - certainly at 6 years old. Even Boris Johnson was in a state school at 6.

You see, its threads like this which reinforce my view on private education. It is not something I would choose for my children.

None of my family or dh family went private either. Between the families there are 6 siblings, with 3 PhDs, an md, a barrister and I think 9 other degrees. Not quite sure how we have been disadvantaged by our lack of a private education. Apart from imvho having better manners, a lack of snobbery and a lack of a certain superiority complex.

Although that may be seen as rude and showing off to some. I would never list things like this normally, it just really irritates when the view that success can only follow a private education is wheeled out.

I think it probably applies to me as well, Mintyy, as I had only read the the first page before I posted.

'Lots of very bright children manage to be successful in state schools. Do you think your son wouldn't be able to cope like so many others? Surely if he were that exceptional he would and would also be able to impart some of your his wisdom on the commoners.'

Huh! That brings back some fond memories alright. DS was already a fully paid-up member of British MENSA at 6 and was helping teacher to ?impart? some of his wisdom on his state school peers. This went on for the next few years when I decided it?s time someone else imparted some wisdom on him for a change and off he went to private school.

Could his teachers not impart some wisdom to him. Was your problem that state school teachers are not very bright or that your son is so bright that he has nothing to learn from adult?

At Even Boris!

Why have you changed your name back?

I think the 11 plus examinatin should be totally abolished. It is a ridiculous system and I would never have lived in an area that used it.

*Examination. See, I wouldn't have passed.