Prep school children at a disadvantage

[slickrick]

When taking the 11+ for independent schools compared to state school children according to the admissions lady at a top independent school. Children in independent schools are not prepped for the 11+ only the 13+ what is the point in going private if this is the case? I was under the impression private schools were at least a year ahead of state schools.

There are effectively 2 systems going on, one where children transfer at 11, and another where they transfer at 13. There are prep schools which stop at 11, and in particular prep only for 11+ (either grammar or day school, most boarding schools start at 13), and others which stop at 13, and therefore primarily prep only for the 13+. So you do have to choose your prep option bearing in mind the limitations at senior school. If you are aiming for Eton on Winchester say then you need a 13+ prep school, but you will find other schools eg CLSB then you have different entry points. There are pros and cons to both systems and, in London in particular, both operate. Eg it is possible to apply to City of London at 10+, 11+ and 13+. About one thirds of the 11+ entrants come from private schools, whereas the 13+ entrants are almost entirely drawn from prep schools.

Your prep school will want you to stay until the end, especially if it is a 13+ school, and actually prep school fees are cheaper than senior school fees so most parents are happier too. The downside of course is that you don't have a definite senior school place until later, but because of pretests most people have a conditional offer, and sometimes and insurance offer by the end of year 6.

I'm not aware that state schools prep for the 11+ at all. A 13+ prep school will not want to lose its pupils at 11, and so won't be working with the pupils for 11+ tests, but will of course be ensuring that they are fully prepared for any year 6 pretests, which are still at a high level, so I think that the admissions tutor was being a bit harsh in suggesting that the pupils are not preprared. But as senior schools rely a lot on the prep school headteachers report, parents are ill-advised to go against the advice of their heads.

We certainly found that to be true of dc 13+ prep school but local 11+ ones prepped their candidates to the ears for specific school entrance tests, just as many state school parents have their dc tutored for them. Yes the dc were "ahead" in many ways but not in terms of test readiness at 11, especially as they did no SATs and the majority stay to 13 and take CE.

Prep schools to age 13 prepare for common entrance (at 13) and not 11 plus so the lady was right. Common Entrance is completely different to 11+ as it covers a range of subjects. It more like GCSE with exams in differing subjects but obviously not at that level. You can opt (depending on which school will be marking)to do extra papers, such as latin, greek or an extra language.

You may be better choosing an independent junior school (assuming you don't want state) that runs to age 11 instead as they will probably prepare for the 11+ exams.

And in term of prep school pupils being at an overall disadvantage, this is clearly not the case, when you dig down into the numbers. Not every prep school pupil is capable of getting into the very selective schools, but most end up in a suitable senior school. The relative competition at 13+ in terms of the numbers of candidates vs the number of places is far far less than at 11+. Otherwise, yes, parents would move their children, and few prep schools can continue to operate for long if they lose a substantial number of parents.

At DSes prep school most pupils carrying on privately stayed for Common Entrance at 13. Any pupils who were leaving to go to private schools at 11 were prepped according to the school they wanted to go to.

The grammar school candidates were also prepared for the 11+.

I was told that most state educated children are ahead of independent children at 11. This is quite annoying as I have spent a lot of money putting them through private school. Even at 13 the school only teaches common entrance it does not teach them how to pass the individual school exam papers (which are much harder than CE)
I think the whole thing is a waste of time and he would have been better off in a state school with tutoring after school.

If that is true, I am very surprised.

"I was told that most state educated children are ahead of independent children at 11." Well I find it hard that anyone in London school admissions would give such a huge generalisation! I've used 3 different prep schools (as it happens, one going to 13+, one to 11+ and one attached to a senior school). Admittedly the one attached to a senior school didn't prepare for 11+ exams, only its own senior school. The 11+ school has had a 100% pass rate for children passing the exams of the superselective grammars, as well as a good scholarship rate for 11+ entry to senior schools. Even the 13+ school got lots of boys into schools at 11+, as well as having the odd Queens Scholar for Westminster etc at 13+. I would certainly be upset if I thought that any of the prep schools were allowing children to lag behind their state school peers, but it simply isn't my experience.

Out of interest where do the children at your prep school end up, if they are behind their state school peers? Presumably you were happy with the leavers destinations when you chose the school?

Presumably you were happy with the leavers destinations when you chose the school?

Yes, but that was before I realized I do all the work. I think they are deliberately holding the children back until after January when the entrance exams are over so children stay until 13.
I dont want him to stay until 13 I would him rather be in a senior school enjoying all the benefits of a senior education.

The experience you are having at your school is nothing like the experience I had with my DSes prep school. It was very supportive of children leaving at 11 and ensured they got to the schools of their choice. Maybe it's just down to the prep school your child goes to. Not up to standard.

Have you spoken to your head about what you want, or are you just trusting the word of a registrar who knows little about your child? Usually your head would have spoken to you in years 4 and 5 about your hopes for senior school, and would guide you accordingly.

Prep schools aren't mind readers, and only the largest preps have the resources to be able to prep for both 11+ and 13+. In dcs year 6 class there are children doing exams almost every week (first the grammar schools, now the girls independent schools, with the boys schools in January). Every child is being set homework according to which schools they are sitting, and the homework is being tweaked as results come in (EG first 2 weeks of September was all multiple choice in time for grammar exams, then it went to an essay every night ready for the phase 2 grammar written exams, and now gearing up for the written comprehensions and essays for the independents). It is a massive task, given the number of children, and different combinations, as well as fitting in arts, music and sports scholarship assessments too. Certainly if the vast majority of the class were doing 13+ you would want to be embarking on the CE syllabus and concentrating on that, so it is only those schools who have lots of children in a year group and who can essentially operate different streams who will manage to keep both 11+ and 13+ pupils fully happy.

We had the same experience - our prep aimed at everyone leaving at 13 and would never support prep for exams for am earlier departure; head was very very rude to anyone asking for advice/support to go 'early'. It meant that dd was behind the curriculum when we moved in year 3 and we were advised of where the gaps were (and she was top of year in her old prep). We moved specifically to a prep that aimed for departure at 11 as we didn't want to have to tutor dd on top of her already busy schedule. Many others did the same.

Oh dear. How sad.

Oh dear. How sad.

Why's that Curlew?

lol... Why send your children private if they are behind state school kids. I thought that private school kids were supposed to be on average two years ahead of their state counterparts.

You need to talk to his current school.
The first thing to do when choosing any school is to check the leaver's destinations to ensure it tallies with what you want.
There are great advantages to staying at prep until 13 btw.

Surely the point of schools is to educate children rather than to coach them through very specific exams.

In any case, your gripe seems to be that you might have wasted your money because it hasn't bought your children the advantage you hoped over state school children and that the school is set up with the expectation that the children will stay in the independent sector. It really isn't the case that prep schooled children are disadvantaged in any real sense.

In London there is a wide choice of Preps and approaches perhaps reflecting the wider variety of 11+ and 13+ testing. Different parents will have different priorities so it is important to choose carefully.

A co-ed prep has a problem. Girls might stay on till 13 to board, but most will take 11+. 11+ varies so Wycombe Abbey, say, tests on subject knowledge, whilst others might test a combination of maths, english, VR , non VR and, in the case of SPGS, science. Grammar schools have different tests altogether and it is strictly marks in the exam. . The academic private schools are looking for potential, and children who will thrive within the particular ethos of their school, so interview and school report are important.

Boys then either head for 11+ or 13+. And even at 13+ there either school exams or Common Entrance, the latter being quite a difficult test of knowledge across a number of subjects. (At the prep they suggested that the reason why senior schools got such impressive results is because they were taking kids who were already close to GCSE level at 13.)

My kids prep was quite focussed on 13+ and did not separate out the 11+ candidates. This generally did not matter as the local 11+ senior schools could use the combination of results, report and interview and make a judgement on potential. DD tried some less obvious schools, and she did quite a lot of exam practice at home. It might have been easier to send her to one of the Central/West London girls preps who are very good at prepping for 11+ and getting girls into academic schools. I am glad we did not, despite having to provide extra support at home. She started in Yr 7 way ahead of the others in a variety of subjects which provided her with a really useful confidence boost. She was also perhaps more engaged in education than had she spent significant time at school practicing VR and non VR. People looking at Grammar school also had to prepare outside.

So a case of Caveat emptor. If you see the primary function of a Prep school as getting your child through to the next stage, find one which feeds large numbers into your chosen secondary. If you want something more child/education focussed and are content to make a later decision on where the child goes onto, then choose your Prep on that basis but keep an eye out for any gaps in secondary school entrance requirements, and discuss these with the school early on. (The school were helpful in finding the extra material for practice at home and gave her some extra lunchtime help but would not have been able to set aside class time specially for her.)

Did your prep school lead you to believe they supported 11+ leavers when you joined?

My DC prep was quite clear that they only really prepare for CE and that yes they would support 11+ but it was not the norm and more something done in a change of circumstance etc. They kind of loosly said - if you want 11+ then we can help but its not our specialist subject and you may be better looking elsewhere.

So we knew before DC started they would probably be staying to 13 to sit CE.

Bear in mind that when the admissions woman talks about state pupils, she's probably seeing a very skewed sample because a disproportionate number of state applicants will be looking for a bursary/scholarship and hence know that they're having to compete at a particularly high level. Whereas the private primary school applicants have mostly got wealthy parents and hence are just looking for a place.

I was told that most state educated children are ahead of independent children at 11. This is quite annoying

Not to me - I find that rather heartening actually. If a little unbelievable.

If I'd spent upwards of £24,000 (say 4 years of school at £6k a year) I think I'd be a little clearer upfront about what I was buying.

Ditto Kewcumber, heartening albeit unbelievable.

I think that neither the OP's assertion nor the 'private schools are working two years ahead of state school pupils' is actually correct, but the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I think private school parents are told this line about how far ahead they are than the dimmos in state schools, but actually they're being told about how far ahead they are than the lowest national expectations, without realising that many (certainly the majority of well-supported children with, let's say, graduate parents and no learning difficulties) of state school pupils are also working one, two, three years ahead of these.

City of London Boys says that the success rates of private school applicants and state school applicants are very similar. Obviously not at 13 (there are no state ones), but there are plenty of privates that end at 11. And if all private school kids were so far ahead, then they would do much better in these exams, surely.

I have always thought that the "private schools are 2 years ahead" to be, in general, a load of cows turd - and I am a user of private education. However, I do believe that because there are selective privates, those particular schools really are 2 years ahead. In fact, the maths workbook DS uses at school is the one slated to 1-2 years ahead (they use things from both), and he is a very below average maths student for his year group.

I also believe that the statement that "most state students are further along than privates at 11" to also be of a similar caliber statement. I agree that the statement is probably aimed towards those state students applying for the superselective privates at 11, as this is predominantly a state school intake year at certain privates (at least at the big London Day supers electives). Extremely bright students in both sectors, and either side bashing the other makes me cross.

I don't understand why people are expecting private school pupils to be two years ahead at aged 11.

That is not my understanding. Private schools will get their pupils to the level where they are guaranteed to get into the school of their choice. My DS's prep school got all the pupils into all the schools they wanted to attend at senior level in the ten years I had children there, including a top private school where the majority of the pupils go at 13.

Surely there is absolutely no need to be two years ahead? It would be totally irrelevant. The schools need to have the children being prepared well to the age relevant year, which is the evidence I have seen.