Are top state schools harder to get into than top private school in London?

[ramennoddles]

I was just wondering if it is more difficult to get into a top grammar school like Henrietta Barnett or Tiffin's Girls School than say Westminster or City?

I’d assume so based on numbers vying for state places alone. In the private sector ability to pay already excludes a large portion of potential applicants.

To some extent this is true. DS went to Westminster but failed to get a place at Tiffin. His sister joined Westminster in sixth form but at 11, had been a very long way down the wait list for Tiffin.

Money will rule plenty out of Westminster but equally a lack of tutoring will rule others out of Tiffin. They are timed tests and you need to be fast. They are both looking for bright students, but for slightly different things. You wont get to Tiffin without being strong all round, you need to score well in every section. The private sector has the freedom to look at good, perhaps dyslexic, mathematicians or those strong in English or the arts, even if they are not as strong across the board. Other things like intellectual curiousity, sport and music will also come into the mix.

As a result you will also find pupils at top grammars who failed to win places at top independents. Put simply, grammars select on performance in their tests. Independent schools aim to select on potential.

A huge number of people apply to grammar schools that have no real prospect of scoring well enough in the test. It's a free option for aspirational parents that either haven't been told or won't listen to their children's teacher that their child maybe isn't able enough.

The same is true of private schools but the prep schools, tutors along with fees control numbers and add a bit of expectation management. The issue is that people apply to many, inflating numbers.

So it's hard to say if it really is harder or not.

Everything is stands it falls by the test in the state system, whereas there is greater input (heads reference, interview) in the private sector, to which school attach different levels of weight. But there is scope for pleading the case of the boy who had an off-day at the pre-test, and who they hope to her promoted from waiting list to full offer (your comparator schools are both 13+ CE with pre-test, not 11+)

Also state schools are harder to get in to because your address might matter (if on tie-break score, or if the school is not superselective)

So I think state grammars might be 'harder' to get in to because of their processes and address-based tie breaks. But I do not think that means that pupils need to be cleverer to get through the 'harder' process. They may however need more specific schooling (at school or by tutor) for type of exam (if you have to get through oodles of questions in a short time to stand a chance, then you need different preparation than for a shorter exam which has more open-style not answer quatiins) as well as living nearer than other people on their score (just in case it's the tie break score)

Very true that the financial hurdle limits applicants to indies, but there are still plenty of takers for London day schools and it's extremely tough to get into the likes of SPS, Westminster etc. I have a foot in both camps with one dc at Tiffin and one in a 'top' London independent, and I'm not sure of the answer. True that there were about 1500 taking the first stage Tiffin test, but only abt 500 got through to Stage 2. Not sure how that compares to e.g. SPGS and how many taking Stage 1 seriously wanted or had an expectation of a Tiffin place. I do know that my Tiffin dc is much shyer and I think probably performed less well at indie interviews than the other one, who's sporty, confident etc. So the grammar school no-interview model worked in our favour for the quieter one. Both are in the right schools for them, but we didn't try Tiffin for both so can't compare directly.

Based only on the children I know, the state grammars in London are harder to get into than the top independents. Many girls who didn't get a state selective place got into top independent schools. They are all very bright girls but it's a numbers game at the state schools.

That said, I don't know boys who went to Westminster or St Paul's. Maybe it's different for the top boys schools but I just don't have the experience of these schools to say.

I agree, in our experience the grammars were way harder than the pretty selective schools we went for (City etc). i.e. came nowhere near getting into the grammars, aced the privates.

I do however know a boy who got into the grammars but didn't get interviews at the privates. I think he might have had really messy handwriting.

Also my elder dc is/was very immature. I think that the privates being in January rather than September made all the difference, especially since it was first experience of exams (applying from a state primary).

Accepting that London academic private schools are easier to get into than places like Tiffin, a different but relevent question is the extent to which the different methods of selection account for the difference in results. I was once at a Yr 7 parents coffee morning in West London which turned into a bit of a bitch-fest about Tiffin tutuors and the promises they made but did not keep. I have little doubt that most would have gone to Tiffin if they had been offered places. There was also a fair chance that the same DC would have tried and been rejected from one of the St Pauls schools. Yet looking back the results/outcomes of these 11+ failure DC have been super, more or less the same as Tiffin.

Is this because of the ability of a private school to consider entrance test results in context, including interview. Or is the teaching that much better uin a private school despite presumably little difference in the ambitions of each cohort, support from parents or willingness to bring in tutors.

DS didn't get Sutton grammar places, but did get offers from Alleyns, DC, Trinity Boys.

IMO, and talking to the teachers after the offers, it was a combination of them looking at his maths and deciding that he was worth a punt and probably wouldn't embarrass them; liking him at interview, despite the rather skimpy evidence of any outside interest beyond Lego; and, mainly, spotting a spark in his written English that they liked the look of.

The extra few months before they sit the indie exams in January seemed to really make a massive difference, but I can't rule out the possibility that failure to get a place at the grammar spurred him to a greater level of effort as well - I often wonder whether, had we not done the grammar thing, would he have done as well in the indie exams? I'll never know.

waves at Needmoresleep

Waves back!

I think you would have to compare the top super selective state to a scholarship at the indies and then you are looking at similar children for a large part of the time.

What I find more interesting is actually how good is each schools 11+ assessment as an indicator of real potential and future attainment. Tiffin is mentioned up the thread as a superselective, but if you look at their A level results on the official govt website they are a long way down the list and just below nearby Ibstock Place, an Indy most would describe as "selectiveish".

Interestingly, the top performing school in the UK for A levels last year was a 6th form specialist STEM college with no 11+ entry.

I would agree that at 11+ it's harder to get into some if the super selectives than the very popular independents, in terms of applications per place or the fact that many children seem to get offers from the independents and not the state super selective.

For those who can pay for the fee paying alternative, certainly in London and the south-east, there are lots of independents which outperform the perhaps more selective state super selectives. If you look at The Times Parent Power tables for A/A for both independent and state schools, far more independents are in what is called the 90% club (90% A-B at A level) - I think perhaps 45, compared to 10 state schools. And there are similar patterns if you look at the 80% club too - so those fee paying schools, some of which are very selective and some significantly less so, in terms of applications per place, seem to be adding lots of value.

Outside of the southeast, the trend is not so clear cut. Because many private schools are under-subscribed they are far less selective and their results reflect this.

If you get a place and QE boys and HB girls, or the Tiffins or a handful of other superselectives, then yes, those schools appear competitive with the very very best. Many other superselective state grammars are still clearly doing a great job, but their results are lower than many independents, and if you look at the non super selectives in areas like Bucks, again the results are great but nowhere near as great as a good number of independents.

Certainly there's kudos in some circles of being able to say your child passed for QE boys or Tiffin, but actually if you live in those kind of areas and have money to pay fees and a pretty bright child, even if your child can't beat off 1500 other applicants for a place, they can get a top education and do as well as those kids in the end in lots of independent schools. As has been said before, people who know they can pay fees, perhaps don't invest quite so much in the preparation in terms of crazy efforts, because they have a number of options - perhaps these kids aren't quite so bright, but they are bright and given he right education can be huge successes. And people who can pay, often like the fee paying schools broader focus which meanies them at least seem to not quite so much exam factories (although to be honest, all those schools in the 90 and 80% clubs will be exam factories to some extent). If you can't pay and know scholarships are usually fairly small amounts and that you won't qualify for a substantial bursary, the incentive to prepare for those super selective state schools is greater, no doubt about it.

Who knows, in the end, perhaps all of the kids in those London/south east selective state and fee paying schools are of similarity ability - they are all bright, but it's the extent of tutoring and preparation that gets the bright into the super selective state schools or stops them getting the places. Perhaps the similar ability explains why the independents can deliver similar or better results??

I know many children who have failed to get into our local super-selective state school (not London) and have easily got places at excellent private schools. I don't know anyone who has done it the other way round.

Agree with @irregularegular. Of course there are exceptions but essentially here in North London, those who get into Henrietta Barnet and Latymer etc nearly always get Habs and NLCS etc. Parents often choose the privates for all sorts of reasons, they sometimes hold the state place too for as long as they can. Like a badge of honour.

As CW says for most (not all ) grammars in terms of A and A* at A level comparisions with the selective private schools show the private schools end up being the better choice (if you can afford the day school fees or get a bursary).

Most of the country by the way has no grammar schools. We are outer London and unless you travel there are no grammars. Where I am from in the NE grammar schools were abolished around 1970.

NLCS ( private where one of my children went) 80% A A and 43% A A level
Henrietta Barnett (state grammar) 76% A/A and 43.7% of grades were A

Sutton Trust does some useful comparisons www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/UniversityAdmissions-1.pdf

But it is interesting that on MN it is always Tiffin that is mentioned as being super selective but compared to other grammars the A level results don't really bear that out. The top performing grammar last year was Henrietta Barnett, followed by Wilsons, QE and Reading. I've never read a thread about Reading or even seen it referred to as super selective, but maybe their 11+ test is better at finding potential.

A good friend teaches maths at Tiffin Girls and I am always giving her stick about their A level results. My point being that if you take the brightest 0.5% as an intake and the average number getting A at A level is 8% (its actually much higher for maths) then all of your results should be A. She actually gets quite frosty about this and her defence is that VR/NVR are not A level subjects. But she loses that defence in a few years time at which point she will probably retire.

Link to govt league tables for anyone interested.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&phase=16to18&for=16to18&orderby=ks5.0.TALLPPE_ALEV_1618&orderdir=asc&datatype=integer&sortpolicy=inversepolicy&page=1

I agree that VR and NVR aren't necessarily going to be the best way to find potential, rather they're good ways of finding bright and, more importantly, well prepared children. The children I know who've done well have all been mature as well - the difference between an immature 10 year old and a mature 11 year old is vast.

As for private schools that claim to be selective at 3, that's even more of a nonsense. One prep in N London apparently choose boys whose parents are Oxbridge with a successful father and a previously successful mother who's now stay at home/freelance (i.e. best able to support). I suspect that's not an inaccurate way of doing it.

ourkid is right. We would not have chosen a grammar over NLCS/Habs for all kinds of reasons. Yet in other parts of the country outside cities there is one state secondary school only in that area and you may be lucky if there is a private school at all (due to lack of money locally). It is very hard to generalise across the whole UK.

I must admit to being a little dubious about a level results comparisons just because they are so easy to rig...eg all the kids get 3A gives 100% yay brilliant, all get 3A AND an A gives 75% - much worse results for the school but better for every child! By not letting kids take a levels where there’s any chance of it not being an a*/a you keep your results good but potentially penalise the child.

cakeisalwaystheanswer - I was actually referring to Reading as that is where my son is. It would be defined as a "super-selective". But it isn't in London - obviously!

Irreg - looking at the tables you look absolutely correct in your earlier comment because no other school near you has anywhere near as impressive results. This is exactly what I would have expected to see in SW London but didn't.

I find it interesting that I never see Reading mentioned in any threads despite it being one of the top performing schools in the country. Maybe it's on purpose to stay under the MN radar?

Don't know! Maybe Reading mums aren't MN types!?

You should go on the 11+ forum. Plenty of info and angst about Reading there!