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?

One of my sons would not have passed an 11+, his (private ) school took him (he's no less bright than anyone else in the family) and by 18 got the best A levels in the family. Also 3 of our children got music scholarships and I think in private schools if you are very good at one thing and can generally keep up with the rest of the subjects too then you are probably more likely to get in on the basis of that particular strength (although you certainly also have to pass the exam of course too).

Anyway at the end of the day the big thing that seems wrong to me is that so much of the country has no grammar schools or that some do. I cannot see why it's fair that tax payers pay the same tax in Bucks as Newcastle and yet we lost grammars in Newcastle in about 1970.

I think Xenia is right. My dyslexic DC struggled with CATs and got a miserable mark on the Tiffin 11+. And, frankly, was way behind many of her peers in English. The prep school head suggested "country boarding" as her only option as he did not believe she could cope at a London day school. (The deputy, who had taught her Latin disagreed - as far as she was concerned DC was bright, regardless of CATs score.)

A friend who was deputy head of a sought after private secondary asked first whether I could see her at Oxbridge. (Possibly. Even at a very early stage she showed a flair for maths.) Then suggested that private schools were happy to take one-sided kids as long as:

1. they could keep up in their weaker subjects. (She recommended additional help in either maths or English if there were any danger of a child falling behind as good basic skills were crucial for academic progression.)
2. They were very good in their stronger subjects, and likely to shine at A level.

With her CAT score and her performance in English, I suspect had DD been in the state system she would have ended up with lowish targets, and lost in the middle. Particuarly as the inner city school she was allocated has a high proportion with various social and educational needs, so the resources available for a child who was doing OK but not flagged as being G&T will have been limited. (The school refused our request to look around, saying she had to wait till the induction day in mid June, but did send DD a contract where she would commit not to take drugs, knives or guns into the school!)

Dapple It was a question asked by the Good Schools Guide and as I am dyslexic and so are my DDs I take an interest. Of the most selective schools (and I know Eton looks at more than just academics) it stood out for only having 7% ) I no longer subscribe but that was backed up by informal feedback I have had from parents on the attitude to .SpLDs. The problem is often one of an individual heads attitude as it was at Ibstock, and the prevailing attitude in the most selective schoolsbis to appreciate that these are learning differences and with the right support pupils with SpLDs can do very well indeed.

Incidentally the old reasoning based admissions test for the grammars were tests of ability rather than attainment and so able pupils with SpLDs were often successful in gaining entry, often to their teachers surprise. My family have always been successful in gaining entry to the local super selective Grammar School (with the very competitive County Scholarships before they ended) but once there have not had a happy experience in terms of understanding and support (and that is recent experience right up to the present day as well as my own.)

No, why? It is a standard measure used to compare top perforimg schools. Although allowance may have to be made nowadays for the increasing numbers applying to the top USA Unis which is very much the thing to do for those with bottomless pockets.

It is useful to know how many applicants there were from each school relative to the number offered places because it helps to understand numbers going to Oxbridge from a clearer perspective and arrive at more informed conclusions.

Needmore This is the issue I raised earlier, your DD presumably got a score for her reasoning ability when she was diagnosed, it is the gap between those and the attainment and processing and Working Memory scores that indicate a diagnosis. Able pupils with SpLDs should score just as highly in the Tiffin test and my DD scored at the same percentile as she did in the reasoning tests she sat with the Ed Psych. It may be your DD has particular issues on the day or with that test but she is clearly bright and should not have got a miserable score particularly for non verbal reasoning if the Tiffin tests were accurate unpredictable tests of reasoning ability as opposed to predictable tests that can be tutored for. Wimbledon recently decided to go for a reasoning based admission test precisely because they were after potential not attainment, and wanted to neutralise the impact of tutoring. Tiffin tutored pupils apparently reported it was "different" and "impossible" (and I have heard the same said of the KGS reasoning test).

It will be interesting to see how the proportion of pupils admitted with SpLDs are affected by the inclusion of tests of Maths and English. The very selective independent schools know the signs and the difference between answers that are the result of making simple errors and problems with reading the paper but clearly manifest ability in the answers and those who were able to steam through straightforward questions accurately as a result of tutoring but could not meet the more complex intellectual demands of the more demanding parts of the papers. Presumably the Grammar Schools can only legally have one correct marking scheme with no room for subjective judgements and that will make it harder for pupils with SpLDs to get in.

Also life is pretty unfair to most of us a lot of the time so it doesn't do children any harm to learn that early on either. Things will go badly. A teacher will be unfair to you. You'll get al ow mark in a test wrongly and unfairly but you just have to bounce back and make the best of it.

I would imagine it would be easier if you are very bright but have a special need eg maths genius but not great at another subject you would probably find a selective private school more likely to take you than the super selectives which are in some but by no means most of the country. If comprehensives get more pupils into Oxbridge than grammars which i think the Sutton Trust did find by the way if you compare areas with no grammars and areas with grammars and then discount for family wealth and other factors then you might find a child with special needs but very bright does better in the vast areas of the country without grammar schools. it is very hard to generalise.

All our family seems to do much better in the sixth form when you can get rid of all except your favourite subjects which if we ever move exclusively to IB or more subjects at A levels will be very bad news for us or may be we are just pretty lazy until university is in our grasp.

One thing no one has mentioned is how old you are in the year group as factor.

The independent schools don't apply a standard policy where as it seems that all or nearly all the grammar schools standardise the scores based on age.

So perhaps if you are an able child born in August it could be easier to get a place at the super selective grammar than at a selective private school.

Of the children who sat the Tiffin test from my daughter's school, all were summer born except her (autumn), and only one other got past the first round. DD was the only one to get a place. I was surprised by that, to be honest.

Waffle AnnaHindrer. Oxbridge offer the most competitive courses for most subjects, with some exceptions. It is reasonable to assume that in a school size cohort the numbers not applying to Oxbridge because it is not the best option for their course are similar in schools with similarly able DCs.
You seem to think that allowance should be made for the low numbers applying from some schools because their predictions and eventually their results are not good enough to get a place.

Lupiform, obviously when they standardise the scores it doesn't make you any more likely to get in if you are summer born than born in the autumn. It just means that they are likely to have a roughly even spread of ages from the children that took the exam at Tiffin.

Even then I suspect that the superselectives will have more autumn born children than summer born children.

That's because they will compare you against the children your age who are actually taking the exam not the national average. There is self selection going, on as on the whole only people with children that are already doing quite well at school will be likely to be entered for this type of exam by their parents in the first place. All other things being equal that's more likely if you are born in the autumn than the summer.

However I would definitely expect a academic private school that didn't standardise scores to have significantly more autumn born children than summer born children.

Hence my comment that if your child is born in the summer perhaps it is relatively easier to get into the super selective than the academic private school. If the private school took account of age that would no longer apply.

Educating The independent school exams don’t have the same sort of rigid mark schemes that the Grammar Schools have to stand by. They take into account all sorts of evidence, interviews and school references, not just scores from the written tests which as I have explained are about the way the tests have been tackled as much as getting the right answers, that the Grammar School exams do not. I certainly know of pupils who had jnterviews skewed at probing further into weaknesses in the written tests, such as a failure to show creativity or in numeracy. I am sure maturity is one of the factors and certainly it regularly came up in parent teacher discussions that one of my DDs friends was extremely immature and a late developer (though not actually summer born). She only really caught up with her peers in sixth form. There is not a discernible skew in birth months - there are parties throughout the year.

Cake -What are you on about? where have i said anything about lowering offers and making allowances? What I said was it'd be useful to know numbers of applicants versus numbers who got in for both state and private. Projecting much?

And of course if reasoning tests form part of the admissions process (and sometimes even if there are no standalone reasoning papers, reasoning questions are built into other papers) then the scores provided will be standardised as part of the process of developing the questions. In fact all reasoning test scores are standardised according to the relevant characteristics of the cohort sitting them to enable better comparison of results, including those sat by adults when used as part of the selection process for jobs/ promotion.

Oxbridge offer numbers only works for comparing selective schools. Oxbridge applications are made by those who are likely to meet the required grades, so your comments make no sense whatsoever for comparing results. You seem to be suggesting that results should only take account of those who applied whereas I keep trying to make the point that this is irrelevant because most of those clever enough will apply. And if they are not clever enough that just shows that the entrance test for that school which was supposed to select the brightest didn't work. Your comments would only be reasonable if non-selective schools were included in the comparison,
And projecting what? I firmly believe that Westminster is the most academically successful school in the UK and therefore must have the most successful admissions system for identifying the brightest DCs at the point of entry. I don't have DCs there and have no personal connection to the school but it something I believe based on their sending unequaled numbers to Oxbridge year after year, i.e. averaging 50%.

Cake - You have no idea why I asked, nor have you asked. You are putting words in my mouth made up from your own suggestions.
Please stop it.

Whatwould - thank you for answering my question. I agree about the right support making a big difference.

The prep school system at 12+ gives boys in particular an extra year or two to mature and also is quite good at telling a parent straight - your child is no way going to get into XYZ school so no point trying, whereas some parents look at their children with rose tinted spectacles. and then I think a reference goes in too from the school but most of it is decided on your exam results.

the very academic private schools are fairly fair and open eg no early registration dates fo 5 years before, all comers can register whenever the deadline is; no interviews with parents; no photos of the children so marked blind as to who they are etc etc. as I am sure the grammars are too.

Ron, I confess I don't know too much about dyslexia. All I know is that DDs processing speeds are extremely low, and that she consistently performs poorly on timed written apptitude tests like CATs, UKCAT, Tiffin 11+. If the test is tough, extra time does not really help as she has used up all her concentration by the end of normal time. (It helps a lot, though in normal exams which don't require the same amount of pure concentration.)

We focussed instead on helping boost confidence by encouraging her to do things she was good at. Academics are not everything. Who cared about the girls boasting they were "top table" when she was first pick for a sports team. Which is why we preferred the greater roundedness of private schools to Grammars (just as well as she would not have got into a grammar.) As it turned out, and I am sure this is true of other bright dyslexics, she developed compensatory skills like a strong aural memory. Like Xenia's DS she was not the brightest at 11, but A levels suited her.

A few points to note about Westminster/Tiffin Grammar schools though:

Westminster (boys only to 16) takes in a cohort of 60-70 extremely bright girls for sixth form - the Tiffin grammars probably find it more difficult to nab anyone from the selective private schools in the area - nearby Hampton for example has 58 boys on 100% bursaries.

Westminster sent 70 to Oxbridge in 2017, a further 10 to universities in the USA but only 8 pupils went on to study medicine/dentistry/vet science.
Tiffin Girls sent 29 (not 20) to Oxbridge in 2016 and 2017 plus 29 girls went on study medicine etc. from a smaller year group (40/50 fewer pupils than Westminster and Tiffin Boys).
Tiffin Boys have much more lacklustre results with Oxbridge (14) but 31 for medicine etc.

I think the cohorts of pupils are very different.

DS has very bright friends in Kingston/Merton state schools who did exceedingly well at GCSE, but having not got Tiffin at 11+ none of them opted to apply there for 6th form, despite it being much more local for most of them. Three of them now have Oxbridge offers, 2 for science couses, although obviously they need to make the grades. I have always thought that those boys were very bright and so it has just proven to me that the old VR/NVR selction method didn't work. I do find it intersting that Tiffin find it difficult to attract 6th form applicants.

USA unis are very much in fashion at the moment. Oxbridge is very old hat and there are huge bust ups at DS's school about who got Harvard offers etc and I know from a friend that St Pauls is the same. There is far too much money in SW London.

Clav, the medicine thing might be because young medica are not very happy at present and pay is poor and perhaps if we did a law comparison you might get a similar difference - that plenty of people do a different degree before law but are headed down that route.

The bottom line is that all these good schools are a good start for any potential university student.

I am not against any of my children going to US universities but people need to choose carefully and I am glad my youngest have chosen to stay in the UK which is what they wanted anyway.

If you look at where the most junior barristers at good chambers in London come from in terms of university that gives a reasonable indication of where it might be worth applying to. I just had a quick look at one at most junior recent juniors and saw Bristol University, Oxford a lot winning prizes for best marks in the year which always helps.

Needmore I am not convinced anyone really understands Dyslexia or rather the myriad of neurological differences that fall under the umbrella of Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia as a label is now more tightly defined as relating only to problems with literacy) though I think perhaps Learning Difference is perhaps a more accurate description. Unless somebody has written a book on the profile of your own child's challenges then you are probably as expert as anyone, and will have to draw on expertise from a lot of sources.

However it is emerging from research and recognised by the most forward thinking (including Sarah Fletcher who rose through KGS and CLBS to take over SPGS) that traditional teaching styles are a big issue especially where they require strong memory skills, use talk and chalk etc. As you move through school to university the balance shifts from those teaching styles, and tests that are heavily reliant on memory and time limited (the new GCSEs will obviously make that even worse) to the quality of a pupil's intellectual and problem solving skills and the ability to contribute ideas to discussion and debate so I don't think it is surprising that the strengths of able pupils with SpLDs start to assert themselves. The latest research shows that the teaching styles that work for dyslexics work for a lot of other pupils too so beginning to shift the emphasis earlier in schools would actually be a good thing.

I suspect Grammar Schools would not be at forefront of recognising that though since tradition is such an important element of their educational ethos that makes them popular with parents whereas private schools have far more flexibility.

Clav I think the Tiffins are pretty unique amongst Grammar Schools in London for having such a strong Asian contingent (it was recently up to 70% BME at Tiffin Boys). Asian friends have commented that private schools are much better than the Tiffins in exposing their pupils to the full range of opportunities in STEM they can aim for. They feel that some Asian parents' focus on medicine whilst they help enable many to succeed leaves too many students sat on biomed courses reapplying in vain and feeling as if they have failed.

Drs at DC's school complain about being the poor relations and they pretty much are. But for other social groups Drs are probably the most affluent people they meet in day to day life so it is hardly surprising that it is seen as such a desirable profession for them. DH comes from the back of beyond and its exactly the case there. DG can't understand why none of the DCs are interested in medicine, for her it's the ultimate role in terms of pay and prestige but to my DCs it certainly isn't.