11+ being scrapped

[musu]

At one school in Essex here

Interesting development which follows on from Bucks CC overhauling their 11+ and trying to make it tutor proof (although everyone I know in Bucks is still employing tutors).

How? schools just use verbal reasoning. IQ tests test every area of a child's knowledge and future potential.

iQ tests are eminently coachable. And notoriously unreliable ( don't tell Mensa- they get upset)

And can you imagine the appeals if selection went on school reports!

Many 11+ tests do require knowledge rather than simply potential. The verbal reasoning tests often used expect a really wide vocabulary, for example. And the maths tests usually expect knowledge not taught in year 6. Or at least, not til later in the year.

The highly academic private schools expect their Year 7 kids to come in with a high level of English and Maths since they don't really want remedial work to get in the way of their accelerated program.

This means that part of their entrance exams need to favour those who are at KS L5+, either through their school or through tutoring.

So it is highly unlikely that any of the highly ranked private schools will change their exams such that that the very bright state school kid (who doesnt have pushy parents or go to a pushy primary ) isn't going to be at a disadvantage.

.. KS L5 plus when they take the test at the start of Year 6 ...

Oh, sorry, is this thread about private school entry tests? I thought it was about the 11+.

.... says the woman who insists on talking about the ethics of buying factory chickens in a thread about education.

MTS - how about not derailing this interesting thread? Just a thought.

The thread started with Chelmsford High School for Girls-state grammar. However private schools are having exactly the same problems with selection.

seeker - upthread Eton was mentioned. I was responding to that poster. Jeeze seeker. You make personal snipes and then you complain when I return fire.

I think that private school tests are different because if you are just one school you can change your test every year, or decide you can bget a place if you can make the best Victoria Sponge or something. The problem with state selective schools is making an untutorable test cost effective, particularly considering how few children it actually applied to.

Common Entrance is eminently coachable- there are schools that do little else.

Apparently only a third of prep schools prep for CE or 11 plus.

I don't think they can be prep schools, then!

My friend's prep does minimal 11+ prep. The cynic in me says that they want you to fail and stay with them for another 2 years. But you probably find that all/most switch into top gear for 13+. I mean, you aren't going to be very popular if you can't get most/all of your kids into the senior school.

RE predictable papers, a friend's DC recently took a paper that was a rehash of their 2003 paper. The DC knew this because he had done this paper three times over 12 months of prep. Their only worry was that enough kids were in the same position thus negating any advantage they had.

"Grammars fairly local to us have maths and English as well as the reasoning tests at 11+
All that happens though is that people hire maths and English tutors in addition to the reasoning tutors. It certainly doesn't level the playing field at all."

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. If you have an 11+ exam comprising VR, English and Maths, then it does level the playing field a little, as opposed to a straight NVR/VR, where you could tutor pretty much anyone to do it adequately in a non-superselective area.

If you had a state-educated child who had no access to extra training in VR, but was naturally bright in Maths and English, of course doing a VR/English/Maths 11+ would level the playing field, as opposed to a VR/NVR test where they'd had no familiarisation.

You can tutor all you want for English and Maths but if they don't get the sophisticated inference in English, then they don't get it, simples. It's not really that much different to GCSE's where kids are taught/spoonfed and then presented with something to tackle in an exam where they'll hopefully be able to apply their knowledge and exam technique.

I want a tutor-proof 11+ where money and privilege and have mimimal influence on the selection process . You can't level the playing field perfectly when state schools aren't allowed, or simply don't have the time to tackle VR/NVR or any other of the demands of the 11+ exam, but private schools can do it. There's more issues at stake than merely looking at the subject areas covered and the format of the exam.

Dons tin hat.

seeker insists that state schools are banned from offering space for after school 11+ clubs. I'm a bit about that but that aside, surely there are teachers out there that are willing to devote an hour a week on such a club at the local scouts hut for example if the school ban is for real.

Giving all children access to tutoring has to be a better idea than changing the goalpost which will only benefit those resourceful enough to continually adapt?

Having a maths paper doesn't level the playing field when the paper is taken at the very beginning of year 6" and state schools don't cover a significant chunk of the content until later on in the year!

And, while it's possible to be very good at NVR papers "naturally", the VR papers require a very wide vocabulary indeed. For example, I remember a question which required the candidate to know 3 different ways of using the word "sage"!

If CCHS is doing this, then I would assume that the rest of the CSSE schools are going to follow suit?

Which is bloody unfair for my DS1, as he missed out on a place at a CSSE school by just one mark, probably because he didn't have a tutor, when everyone else had two years worth of tutoring.

It's a good thing for those that follow him, but unfair for him!

My DS1 has an IQ of 134, and still didn't get a place at the superselective.

He is working on lvl 6 English, lvl 7 maths, and is extremely good at VR and NVR.

I can only put it down to the fact that I couldn't afford a tutor.

I'm almost definite that DC's who are less academic than my DS1 got in because they were tutored and he wasn't.

Right up to school allocation day, I was sure that him not having been tutored wouldn't make a difference, and he would get in on natural ability alone.

He scored a mark that has got a place in the last 5 years. Yet he didn't get a place.

We are on the waiting list and hoping

piggy - in an attempt to make their test untutorable, DC's school doesnt make past papers available.

DC went in blind and got tripped up by a few maths questions which was in a format he had never seen before.

In Year 7 I got talking to one of the moms who had older kids there. Apparently a number of then hired a tutor that was a former teacher and therefore had knowledge about the test albeit from two years ago. Even without that teacher, the mom 'debriefed' her older DS right after his test so she had a good idea of what to expect anyway.

My point? Someone will always have an advantage.

Couthy - in my situation the child with a tutor did have an advatage but for tests where past papers are available I don't see what a tutor can do that you can't do