Super selective grammars - what is the standard?

[VarioPerfect]

I’ve got a year 3 DS (May birthday) - he’s alway had greater depth in all his school reports for all subjects, but I don’t think he is exceptional.

We live in East London and I don’t love our local secondary options, can’t afford private so considering grammar (and would move house to facilitate that). I dont know though how and when to work out if it’s worth putting DS through the ordeal of tutoring etc if it’s a waste of time. His school (state primary in East London) don’t have a track record of students applying for grammars so (though I will ask them) I’m not sure they will be much help.

Is there any kind of benchmarking test I could do that is reputable? And/or workbooks that it’s worth looking at/using to benchmark ourselves?

For context, DH and I both have first class degrees from Cambridge so can definitely support DS well in the process, but also - we were both absolute nerds at school, massive bookworms etc whereas DS most definitely is not. Not sure if this will come more with maturity as he’s obviously still only 7!

Well, yes and no - it looks like everyone finds the jump from primary to secondary quite hard even if going from a feeder prep to its secondary across the road, children don't change overnight when they turn 11.
You do you of course. I wasn't keen on 11+ either, that's why we did 4+ for all through schools.

Definitions of "normal" and "reasonable" are not universal, they're contextual and depend on your objectives as well as many other factors.

No, I don’t think kids change overnight. But I do think that as they mature over the 3 years from year 4 to year 7, increasing levels of homework up to say 1 hour a night becomes more realistic.

To put it another way, I disagree with the suggestion that if you aren’t willing to put your child through intensive prep at 8/9, that means you/they are unsuitable or will not be able to cope with the homework demands at grammar at 11. (Of course they may not get in to the grammar without doing that, but that’s different!)

The norm for our state primary was for those using external tutors:

• Year 4: 1 hour tutoring plus 1 hour homework per week (that is 6x10 minutes, or 2x 30 minutes, however you want to structure the homework)
• Year 5: 1 hour tutoring plus 2 hours homework per week (6x20 minutes, 3 x 40 minutes etc), plus mock tests in the spring summer term. Take off 1-2 weeks during the summer holidays for a full ret and some do extra revision courses.

If that does not get a child in, then I think superselective grammar may not be the right place.
The reason I know this is because I spoke to everyone I knew in great detail when I structured DC4’s revision. Most kids had done 300 hours odd in total, we only had time to do under 100 hours over the summer. I structured it carefully and it was fine. I made sure I tailored it to weak areas.

None of the above homework load is more than the music practice we did. Plenty of people do a gazillion clubs taking hours a week. In fact, the reason DC refused to do 11 plus is because he wanted to read instead and do music practice.
To keep it less stressful, plenty of parents do drop a club or two and plenty of kids are perfectly happy with 20 minutes homework a day in year 5 and some attention from a 1:1 tutor. Plenty positively thrive because often they did not get much attention at state school and may have some gaps.

In Year 7, DC4 has about 1 hour homework a night 5 days a week, that includes revision for tests.

By GCSEs, DD2 was going about 2 hours homework and revision a night (that is in year 11).

By year 12, she is aiming for 2-3 hours work a day. She usually takes off one full weekend day.

The 10 minutes in year 4 is absolutely fine in the greater scheme of things.
Our state primary only ever set a bit of homework which ours would race through, suggested daily readings and 10 spellings a week.

Carefully structured and kept low key without panic, the 11 plus is fine. The problems arise when parents are unrealistic or anxious and expect too many hours from their DC. Kids need play and time to exercise, recuperate etc

I agree - that’s why I mentioned it.

No sure what pint you’re trying to make. I have tried to be helpful on this thread. Don’t know why I bothered

Is your DD autumn born? My DD started school like that (maybe not quite to that extent, but could read and a year or two ahead in maths). It turned out that it was mostly because I'd taught her as she was getting bored at nursery (lockdown actually helped here), and a bit of picking stuff up quicker because she was nearly a year older than some of the class.
It evened out over the years and she is now decidedly average, although it did also turn out she is autistic which may have affected things.

Just to dispel a couple of myths - first of all people in state schools often assume those in private Preps spend hours per week in entrance exam prep. This isn’t quite true. Some do none or very little as standard because they feed into specific senior schools which don’t require them to take entrance exams as feeder schools, and just offer a club or similar for those planning to go elsewhere.

Preps who do actually prep for 11+ or deferred 13+ often do less than people think. It might be an hour a week for a couple of terms. Sometimes kids are applying to a range of schools which all have different entrance requirements (varying reasoning tests, varying structures, some requiring story writing etc) so the practice can be quite generic rather than specific. And they won’t be setting hours and hours of Hwk - it just isn’t the culture. So it’s those who choose to tutor lots of hours or self prep (with lots of Hwk) that are arranging the hours and not the schools.

Secondly, it’s a misconception that superselectives set hours and hours of Hwk. Actually they often set little in yr 7 and 8 because the kids are able to cover the curriculum at pace in class and they don’t need to. They often focus more on extra curriculars. But some parents don’t like this and want their kids to do lots of Hwk - maybe because they are in a pattern of this from 11+ prepping. Those families who have their kids doing hours of Hwk from early in secondary are choosing it rather than the school.

Undoubtedly, Hwk grows in GCSE years. But bright children who are well taught in school, have good attendance and who do maybe 1.5 hrs per weekday night alongside extra curriculars can get strings of good grades - and many achieve these with far less work than that, in all kinds of schools….because the standard for 9s at GCSE isn’t at a level that only geniuses can achieve.

The top superselectives have a cohort of clever and from focused with often v determined parents. They have the ability to do really well and should and can without daft effort levels.

All this pressure and hours of grind comes from parents not schools. It’s often cultural and fear led and certainly parents feed a frenzy which makes it worse.

If you have anything helpful to say about my original question I’d love to hear it!

I started this thread as I’m trying to decide what to do about my DS and yet I’ve had few people trying to minimise my DD’s ability - seems to be an odd instinct many people have.

My 2 go to a Birmingham grammar and were tutored from year 5 (a year long once a week programme at a local tuition place). The eldest was also a huge reader. The younger, not so much but very bright and seems to pick up concepts quickly. Neither are exceptional, both are clever.

The grammar suits them for different reasons. The eldest is more nerdy but also a self starter, so probably would have been fine at the local decent comprehensive. But the slightly smaller school suits his personality. He’s thrived academically.

The younger loves sports which the grammar take seriously and would probably not have done so well in this area at the local comprehensive given the much bigger intake. Academically, he’s definitely not top, but doing fine and keeping up with his peers.

Some of the boys are obviously super intelligent but from my limited observation, most are simply more clever than average and have been tutored.

Personally, I think a year’s tuition should be enough but get him reading and maybe doing games like sudoku, word searches, chess, puzzles at the moment.

Tutoring covers all the work that an ordinary Primary school doesn’t. They will also extend the child’s vocabulary and encourage reading. They will practice IQ tests. and will teach them to time their work for the exam. DSs tutor made him select an item from the newspaper to talk about every week. DS was offered a place without sitting the exam because he was able to talk at length about a news item the interviewer hadn’t read! Tutors will also undertake practice interviews and generally give the child confidence. They usually have a good knowledge of the tests set by the local schools.

I think the general gist from having read the thread (which has some extremely useful advice @WombatChocolate particularly!) is that it’s risky to move to an area specifically for a super selective school as there are so many variables at play and as you’ve said yourself, children change so much/develop academically over the latter primary years. If you were living there already and wanted to know if your DS should take a shot at it then you’d probably get more positive responses as it’d be a case of “well might as well, what have we got to lose?” But moving because of it, to many who have been through the process and know how competitive it is, that probably seems like an unnecessary risk. Unless you were completely happy with your back up options. Personally, if you’re keen to go the grammar school route and are restricted to areas around London then as PP have suggested, go for Kent or Bucks where around 25-30% get into grammars and in west Kent specifically you still have the chance at a super selective and the back up is a “normal” grammar plus great comps.

@VarioPerfect I'd recommend you get your DC1 tested for dyslexia. There are a few red flags there for a bright dyslexic child: very academically able parents and always read to... yet hasn't taken to reading. Bad spelling: look out in particular for the same word being spelt in different wrong ways, and words which he should know being misspelt. The speed and carelessness also fits: bright dyslexic children learn to guess... and because they're clever they often guess right, but not always if several things are mentioned in the text. It's often the small, non-visual words they particularly struggle to read and get into the habit of guessing - but which are crucial to meaning.

Don't rely on the teacher spotting it: - even if you ask about it - very bright kids can often mask it, especially in the early years. They don't mean to, they're just trying with all their many skills to do the tasks we set them... which they can't do the usual way! With mild/moderate dyslexia, they will be able to read. It's just much harder for them, and speed, spelling and accuracy suffer.

It gets harder for them to compensate as they get into late primary, and will certainly affect grammar exams because those are so heavily based on speed - and dyslexia will kill that.

A very academic school might still be right for a dyslexic child. Dyslexia is nothing to do with intelligence, and actually as they get older and school is about understanding complex topics (rather than the huge focus on reading and writing of primary school) it actually gets better. But it's better to know about it as soon as possible, so that they can learn techniques and also so that it doesn't dent self esteem.

Oh, the audio books would also fit. It seems that he loves taking in information. But the act of reading is much harder and more unpleasant for dyslexic children than non-dyslexic, so it's a big barrier to get over for the reward of the book content.

@strawberrybubblegum that’s really interesting!

I don’t think he is dyslexic - he’s an excellent reader, learned before he started school, top reading group, full marks phonics screening, usually gets full marks in his spelling tests (we never practice at home but they must at school) and he was very chuffed to be the first in his class to get a pen licence. As I said he’s always got “exceeding” or greater depth in English, including when they did internal SATs last year.

However when he is actually writing eg a story he will make silly spelling mistakes - eg he will write eg “realy” and “verey” instead of really and very. Words that I’d definitely expect him to be able to spell at 7 but admittedly I have no frame of reference as reading and writing was very much my “thing” as a child.

And he doesn’t choose to read for pleasure but we enforce a 30 min silent reading before bed and he’s ploughed his way through 6 of the Harry Potter books (the later ones are massive). What surprises me though is at the end of the 30 mins, even if on a cliffhanger, he will happily wait until the next night and not pick it up in between whereas at his age I would have been up all night reading to find out what happened.

Not sure if relevant to dyslexia but he’s a talented musician and has never had any issues reading music.

This is some of his writing (from almost a year ago, when he was 6) - he got a prize for this which is why I have a photo of it! Obviously fair few mistakes in there but I really don’t know what is normal.

My son enjoyed the one to one attention of a tutor. I would get one for maths, one for ENglish. Explain why you want him to do it and how difficult it is to get in. If he hates it / makes a fuss then I'd move somewhere with decent comprehensives. If you both have 1st Class degrees from Cambridge and he doesn't mind light tutoring over a long time, he'll probably be fine getting in anywhere her wants.

My mum did this with me - granted it was in 1993 but we were working on it since the end of year 4. Couldn’t afford holidays anyway, so every day, we were doing a practice paper with my same age distant cousins, not timed at first then timed conditions thereafter. The cousins were less able so their mums sent them to 11plus tutors once a week during year 5 and year 6. I didn’t need any help. It’s good to start prep early so you know what your guy needs and whether he is enjoying the process. I obviously did and I thrived at a grammar. My parents moved house to facilitate me attending it.

The advice is more conservative these days because some grammars eg Tiffin, have catchment areas. I still think it’s worth exploring a house move and trying for the exams if your boy is well suited to it (which I suspect he is if his parents went to Oxbridge).

NB I have friends who had parents let their homes and rent in catchment areas for them to attend a good comp or a grammar.

On the music front, Wilson’s in Sutton is very good and has music aptitude places and a great music block. Skinners and Judd are also quite musical for state schools. These are if you look further afield.
Looking at your DS writing, looks pretty good to me for a year 2 May born. Lovely handwriting! Most children have to learn to edit and check their work and it increasingly becomes a criteria. I think our state primary increasingly encouraged this for greater depth students from year 2/3. I think it’s a pretty normal hurdle. Also to replace with stronger words/synonyms/varying sentence openers increasingly and more complex punctuation.
I have kept all my children’s English books from primary. There are some hilarious gems in there and embellishments of our home life. I sometimes wonder what the teachers think!

If your child is good at music, have you considered looking at London comps with aptitude places for music?

We did that with DD. She scores 132-135 on CAT4, is severely dyslexic, no real interest in academics, but was exceptional for music. She doesn't do grade exams, but was around G6 level in first study and G3 in second.

She sat for every music aptitude place where we could realistically get to the school, had 5 offers and went to our top choice of Kingsdale in East Dulwich.

They cater for every level - those who are going to get fourteen 9's at GCSE down to those who will do functional skills. Every subject is set, so you can be top set for Maths and a lower set for English.

Had a very happy 5 years there and now at specialist music college.

DD is a total whizz at NVR and not much behind at VR - with no tutoring at all - but would have been utterly miserable at a grammar (I went to a super-selective) due to her SEN so we avoided them completely.

I personally have chosen to avoid the super selective, although I have a GD child who loves learning. I work outside of school with some of these families and the teens are so miserable it breaks my heart. I just couldn’t put my child through the experience of being at a super selective grammar school. It might well break your child. Their mental health stats would be appalling, if such a league table existed.

The ‘super’ selective grammars aren’t as super selective as they like to make out. A famous one is near me and they aim to take the top 5%. The elite private schools like Westminster and St Paul’s are after the top 1-2%.

It is also really difficult to assess 10/11 year olds and a lot depends on their intellectual maturity. Most are now massively overtutored.

The problem is that getting in isn’t the end of the journey. There are no sets and teachers teach to the top end. Those overtutored (but less able) kids really end up suffering and underperforming.

Before engaging a team of tutors, I would have a good look around the school, meet the pupils (there are always open days) and decide whether the school is a good fit for your child.

I disagree. There are cultural differences in how various people extend their DC’s education. For some cultures, it is by rote learning, for others it is via playing the bassoon and putting on History podcasts and debating politics.
And there is increasingly racism and classicism in all of this and sexism too.