Am I being naive re.private school entrance?

[canny1234]

Dd is doing an 11+ type entrance exam for a private school in January.The top few are offered a Scholarship and exam is anecdotally meant to be easy.
Dd is bright but has recently starting coasting and concentrating on her social life ( at 10!) and many other sporting activities.Her current school are entering her into level 6 papers in Maths and English.
I have just ordered some Letts 11+ papers so she is familiar with the concepts.We will also practice and maybe have a few tutorials from an external teacher.But have I left it too late?I am utterly shocked by the level of tuition some children have.Surely the 11+ is a mark of intelligence not learned ability?

And now I've sent a nonsense reply. Half reading, half baking.

Yes to contextualised offers.

I don't think there is much of a problem over this with university entrance. Most people from all types of schools will not be able to get into Oxbridge. The main requirement for all the universities will be your grades and if you do really really well compared to everyone else in your school (like at my private school where most girls did not go on to university) then you will stand out and may be given a bit of lea way. It's always worked like that and it mostly works fine.

Some children will want to do lots of hobbies and others not many. It just depends on their personalities. My teenagers had a university day today - each of the upper classes in the school got a lesson off to go to see some university people who were at the school. I'm sure they were told it was the grades which principally matter.

To answer the OP's original question. No I do not think you have left it too late. DS is doing exams in Jan for yr7 entry for a good selective indie but not a nationally known name . School just last week sent home info. They recommend a couple of books for VR/NVR practice and state clearly tutoring is not required - you can learn techniques but not a list of absolute answers so once basic concepts are grasped it's just ensuring speed is reasonable.

I'm just arguing to keep the extra stuff out of the admissions process, unless it is particularly germane to the subject being pursued.

As a veteran re-reader of Personal Statements for French Terminale pupils applying through UCAS my feeling is that there is very little space on a UCAS application to talk about extra-curricular activities that aren't directly relevant to the course to which candidates are applying. This year I have had an aspiring journalist applying for European Studies write in detail about his extra-curricular writing/media/journalism experience but barely mention his significant sporting achievements. And a Philosophy candidate who barely has space to talk about her (extraordinary) musical talent/achievement.

All "my" candidates get the offers they want, btw!

Iseenodust thank you for that.Its sounds similar to the information we have received.

Dd won the academic scholarship luckily.We spent about 4 weeks practicing Letts papers and she had a couple of sessions with a tutor covering verbal and nonverbal reasoning.We did however have to cover ground,especially in Maths that her state school was still in the process of getting round to.
Thank you to all the posters who helped with advice.

Well done to your DD.

canny

Well done your dd. congratulations.
Good luck to her