The Trinity-Whitgift-South London school 10+/11+ thread of 2014

[Ladymuck]

A few days early I know, but most of the entrance exams will be out of the way in a fortnight or so, and I'm sure there are a number of us who are in need of or or as we watch our (still very little) boys forget everything that they may have learned over the last couple of years. And there are many veterans of the process who will hopefully be around to reassure us that we will all come through this unscathed.

I guess I was more pondering the fairness of the grammar exams, especially given that Wally boys and Wilsons have gone to almost opposite extremes in their writing tasks.

The independent schools will almost certainly screen the boys in relation to their primary schools, hence why they all set reasoning tests. The 2 larger boys prep schools locally help their more average pupils to prepare identikit essays which I would imagine are immediately identifiable to the staff reading them. Whilst I would expect most of the prep school boys to pass, for some of them it will be down to that fact that a) their parents are willing and able to pay; and b) the boy has shown enough willingness to adhere to the prep school's methodology, hence showing that they are capable of doing the same for GCSE.

But for the grammars it seems an odder, and possibly more unfair selection. Perhaps that it just my perception as I think that it is relatively straightforward to practice VR at home, but the writing skills at this stage are harder.

And another one with no (or very little) creative writing at school; and certainly nothing timed. Done DIY and with a tutor only. Hopefully enough to get through.

LadyMuck - you know much more than me I'm sure, but wouldn't an indie school know that anyone can learn the methodology needed for GCSE if they have the "base" ability?

Last Maths paper this morning rewarded with a new game for his Xbox. (Not brilliant, ran out of time, and frustratingly long-winded - getting the correct result in a couple of questions but in a very round about methodology (which took much too long). Hopefully "it will be alright on the night".

We are where we are and only 2 days to DC test. We are now officially downing tools .....

DH marked a City of London Girls school maths paper this morning that DS did yesterday. Apparently it was very good, though DH tends to be a bit slapdash about marking. So I'm feeling fairly becalmed, and, like you justanotherusername, we have downed tools - DS is just over at his tutor's having a quick hour on NVR and that's it.

Justanother see you here on this thread on Monday evening post DC?

Enjoy the down time! Hope it all goes well (especially travelling!)

Certainly hardly any creative writing at our primary. Hoping boys will be rewarded for 'raw' work rather than an obvious pre-planned essay. As this part of the exam is so subjective hard to know what is good/ not. Tricky to gauge the level of maths needed as looking at individual schools their papers vary so much from easy to very difficult. I notice Manchester Grammar says their papers are meant to stretch any adult ( they do) and 50% pass is considered as good. Here's hoping none of us are up against anything as tricky.

yes - am sure I will be back post-DC. Good luck to all for Monday.

I find this "stretching" of MGS a little too much. It is just demoralising for the DS to try and largely fail. I gave up on them. DC and W tests seem much fairer.

I am getting DS to do one Dulwich maths paper this weekend, not timed and just a few questions at a time. Just so he is familiar with the format on Monday (presuming they don't suddenly change the format!). He is still not showing enough working IMHO but what will be will be.

I have heard about children doing identikit essays as well. Not sure how true the story is but a few years back evidently a teacher told one mum that she had seen rather a lot of essays describing an "azure blue sea".

The English teacher at our school has pleaded with the children not to write about guns or puppies. I guess knives and kittens should be fine .

Those doing DC: do look at the sample English papers on the website. Assuming they don't change the format for Monday, they don't have a 50% comprehension, 50% creative writing format. It's 100% comprehension, with a 24-mark question that asks for a scant page of creative writing, driven by the comprehension reading passage.

Hope they stick to that format, because DS and I have had quite a close look at it.

ladydepp did Teach say anything about bombs? DS tends to write much more about bombs.

Our first exam done today at KGS. Managed to finish English paper which was only 50 min - I was worried DD wouldn't manage to allocate time, but says it was OK. Fortunately no story - choice of follow-up from the text and a descriptive title. Maths was "easy" - not sure how close to reality this is. BUT - huge debacle on VR. They were not allowed to work in the booklet, had to use scrap paper and we never practiced this, never. It didn't occur to me that anything like this might happen - so she didn't finish and I can gauge how many questions were left out and I don't know how accurate the rest was because all the strategies and time-saving techniques were very much based on the use of the booklet - the alphabet, sequence loops, codes, everything!

Does anyone know how common this is? For Alleyn's, can they write in the booklet? I am now going to worry about the rest of VR exams.

I think it's multiple choice on a computer for Alleyn's - same as Dulwich. (Also for NVR.)
dont' know if they get scrap paper to work on, though if they don't, it'll be difficult for DS as well.
What about ringing the Alleyn's reg on Monday and asking her if it's computer based; multiple choice; if they get scrap paper?
If you do, can you post the answer back here?

I think that the Manchester Grammar arithmetic papers can safely be said to be the "extension work" of 11+ papers! There are some very elegant questions, but to do them properly goes beyond ks2 maths (in my very inexpert opinion).

Poozie - I'm fairly sure that imagination and creativity are greatly welcomed - especially if presented legibly! I'm sure some of the standard version essays must be incredibly tedious to mark, especially where a prep school has an entire year group using the same vocab (which has been known to happen apparently).

Ooops, cross posted with the last flurry of posts.

Doesn't seem fair to make the VR harder than it needs to be. Thought that they would just need the answer sheet to be computer read.

Hadn't realised that Alleyns would be computer based. Seems odd that they've sent out the GL papers as samples? I must go and read through all the bumpf that has come (still waiting for details for one school!).

Mrs. Steptoe - The teacher said nothing about bombs, so bomb away! My DS once ended a story "the needle plunged into my arm and I blacked out"

The Alleyn's exam syllabus says that VR and NVR "answers are marked in pencil on a pre-printed multiple-choice answer sheet (similar to selecting numbers on a lottery ticket)" I can't imagine why they couldn't write in the booklet, I would assume they wouldn't even need to write their name on it as their name and number will be on the answer sheet.

I'm not certain that it is, LadyMuck, but I have a feeling that it is. Doubly so in the case of DC (which I know you're not sitting).

BHopefully if anyone gets accurate info on this, they'll post back here

Oh, thanks ladydepp - obviously I haven't read it properly

I agree, that's going to make it a right pain - all kinds of thought processes are going to be derailed

Today's was multiple choice too - you mark the answers on the answer sheet with a line, but in terms of working out, were not allowed to use the question booklet for working out, only scrap paper.

I will call Alleyn's but at open day the registrar had to ask somebody else re whether the test was computerized or pen and paper so not sure she'll know the intricacies of writing on the booklet vs scrap paper. At open day they told me that they use online reasoning for 13+ but not for 11+. Apparently, 11+ is pen and papers still. Computerized would be a blessing - no scope for transferring answers wrongly on answer sheet, etc. Just the other day, DD worked out the code correctly "tail" but chose "tale" on answer sheet, etc.

Will report back if get any answers from Alleyn's.

Irisha, the most important piece of information is whether you managed to count the number of candidates .

Sorry to hear about the VR debacle. Was it the last exam of the day or did it throw your dd for the others? Iknow that DS is also relying on a preprinted alphabet appearing as it always seems to in his practice papers. In fact I'd better check that he knows the alphabet . [I still remember learning the alphabet backwards at this age for my 11+ back in the day....]

I agree re MGS papers - some great questions there, but way to much extension stuff to give as a paper. I am happy to give DD Withington Girls and SPGS as papers, but not MGS. I am just using questions selectively.

Re Alleyn's, I asked the Head of Lower School explicitly about the writing task and he said they had moved away from story writing as they were getting "identikit" essays all the time. We actually have a girl in our class who is memorizing short stories with her tutor to recycle stuff in an exam. The Head of Lower school told me that it's normally a writing task with a choice of titles - but not a story as such, more a choice of descriptive, discussion/persuasion or follow-up from comprehension.

I don't trust the sample papers for Alleyn's too much as they have been on their website with no change forever. If anyone has a clue on how close they are to the real thing in terms of difficulty, would love to know.

It was fortunately the last paper, hooray!! So at least DD didn't get demoralized for maths and English. I am sincerely hoping it was a fluke (they are experimenting too much - last year it was online, the year before VR+NVR, now VR that is MC but can't write on the booklet, etc,) and hopefully other schools are will be more in line with our expectations. I get standard vs MC, but I don't get this scrap paper business.

I am actually glad it happened in first exam so DD prepared for surprises in the future and has this behind her.

Will go through VR question types to see how to adapt strategy to scrap paper vs booklet. I hope we won't need it, but at least DD will feel more prepared if that happens, e.g. speed writing the alphabet.

Hi all,
Find these posts very helpful
Does anyone know if VR for D and Trinity are both multiple choice?
Also read in these posts that the Dulwich paper was 1 1/2 hours?

Thanks

Dulwich English paper is 60 mins plus 10 mins reading time.. I did put sthg misleading further up the thread, but I think I put 3 hours, so we suddenly went into undergrad mode!! I'm looking at the sample paper on the DC website as we speak, and it def says 60+10.

Trinity VR used to be standard form not multiple choice, but I could be out of date.

Last year the DC English paper was very difficult to finish in the time. In fact I don't know of any boy that managed it! My DS didn't and he was offered a scholarship so tell your boys not to panic if they're running out of time.

Have just asked DS re Alleyn's reasoning and he thinks that they weren't allowed to write on the booklet and were given scrap paper, but he's not 100% sure. I do know that the creative writing task was to write the beginning of a story (as it was the year before). I wouldn't be at all surprised if they changed it this year though.

HTH

Just had email from one of our schools, who have missed their (already late) deadline to post out exam cards and details for their entrance exam next Saturday. When compared with the other schools it seems a bit under-whelming. The wait for the postman already starts....