It's beyond me how any child manages to pass the grammar school test

[emkana]

We're not there yet (oldest child is 7) but some friends are and they are telling me about it and it sounds horrendous - the pressure, and such random and difficult questions - and 80 questions in 50 minutes!!!

Glitterball, appeal. Many others who failed by more than one point will.

yes do appeal,
When i went round the local grammars, I asked the boys who where taking us round if they had had tutors to pass the test and if they got in on the first round.

About half had tutors and 4 out of the 6 I spoke to got in on second or third round appeals.

All very smart and doing very well in 6th form btw.

i will appeal if the move doesnt come off, but the stats are against poor ds, bexley is evil when it comes to appeals & hardly any ever go through.......for the school we want, none in the last 4 years so whilst we have nothing to lose, i am not going out and ordering the grammar school uniform either!

i honestly wouldnt mind if there was a reasonable alternative but theres such a huge gap between the standard of the grammar schools & the others................

Glitterball, I hope you appealed for him. Several of the Dc's at Ds's school failed by one or two marks and on appeal, they passed them. I'm in your neck of the woods too and know what you mean about the schools.
I looked at a few non grammar schools as a matter of course, in case he didn't pass and I was quite impressed with Cleeve Park school in Sidcup.

Ooops! sorry, you've already spoken about that I see.

Ha ha at some of these

DD is in year 6 at an academic private school but have entered her for the 11+ because am not entirely convinced about the school.

No tutoring here. Not blardy likely. DD has done a practice paper every week since the familiarisation test.

The regime of practice tests has proved very expensive though. DH rashly promised her GBP 15 for each test. And he lets her off piano practice and swimming club on practice days. He is bonkers. DD is milking it for every penny ...

DD's passmark data is high but it doesn't help me because I have absolutely no idea if what she is getting is good enough to get through. We're not sure if she will go there if she does get in.

Roll on December ...

£15 gbp a paper.
I gave dd 2p per question, and offered £100 if she passed, hoping it would make her do the practice papers, she laughed and said "You had better start saving then".
It didnt make her do any more questions.

I didn't even think of offering a 'prize' to Ds for passing. I feel that is the wrong way to do it. Just my opinion mind.

I didnt think initially either, I thought the 2p and visually seeing the jar fill up would motivate her to humour me (by doing papers) in exchange for money.
We went through most of the summer holidays and she wouldnt do any practice and I got desperate...so offered the money. It didnt work.
She continued to refuse to do papers and screwing up any that I did persuade her to do.
I did sat the £100 was for a pass not a place, the pass was up to her, the place is still in KCCs hands.

Message withdrawn

£15 per paper! Madness!

90% is what it should be IMO, it is not supposed to be for the average or the slightly above average.

Dd is Yr4. We're in Bucks so 11+ will be two papers of 80 questions in a 50 minute test taken a week apart. The best scoring paper is standardised, 140 maximum score, 121 usually enough to get through.

I'm glad you all think that £15 per paper is undiluted lunacy

BUT if you are paying your child £15 a paper and it is motivating them to do it and they pass, and it saves you £26,000 in private school fees, its pennies, really.

money really does help all round, doesn't it.

That is the trouble, it isn't a level playing field at all.

The private schools coach for the exam(whilst pretending they don't), many state schools have head teachers who are actively against any kind of selection and will give no help whatsoever. The parents 'in the know' either coach their children themselves or pay for a tutor. Either way, money helps.

The ones who really lose out are the really bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds who would really thrive in a grammar school environment (that isn't to say that comprehensives would necessarily fail them, but in some circumstances it would help them) and they don't stand a chance at all.

yup

My cousin's 12yo son is at private school and has just taken his common entrance exam for the next one up. His school has been cramming him and his class for over a year and a week before the exam, mother and father took a week off work to prep him for his exam. They took it in shifts to work on the exhaustive timetable that they had made and he was allowed 30 minute break every 2 hours. They made him work from 9 am to 6pm for a whole week. I hope for his sake he passes.

DH and I can afford to send our DTS to private school but there is no way we are going to subject them to that. We both got PhDs by attending mediocre comps without tutors, coaching etc so we reckon with our intellect and support, DTS will be OK provided they are willing to put the work in themselves.

I want them to enjoy school, not dread it.

DS passed with us just doing practice papers at home - and NO bribery! He saw the school, fell in love with it, and that was his motivation. His primary school would not help and we could not afford (or want) a tutor.

He LOVES it there (now Yr9), so it was all worth it.

Good luck to everyone this year

My dd is one of the poor unfortunates from generations on single parents(I had her when I was 17, I did try and keep the relationship up with xp but sometimes you are best to call it a day) piss poor and passed IN SPITE of us. I swing between thinking she will be ok because she passed without all the intensive coaching and thinking Oh My God, she is soooooooo going to stick out from all the others.

I can assure you that private junior schools which feed into designated secondary schools (which most do) do not coach for grammar school entrance exams. T'would be contrary to their own interests to do so...

UnfortunatelyMurderedMe, you DD will be absolutely fine. She won't stick out from all the others. Once they are all there, no-one cares or knows about their backgrounds, you will probably find she is top of the class if she did it without coaching. BTW I certainly wasn't implying that coming from a single parent family makes you less capable of gaining a grammar school place (I know that, because I did!!)

Quattro, the private schools in this area whose pupils are not generally going on to common entrance exams, definitely do a lot of verbal reasoning practice from about year 4. Because we have several grammar schools in this area more private school pupils tend to go to them for secondary level. I know what you mean about isn't within in their interests, but many parents here send their children specifically to certain private schools in order to gain entrance to the grammar schools.