What kind of marks do you need to pass the 11+

[gigglinggoblin]

I know it probably varies year to year but is there a rough percentage they must get to pass? Am trying to get ds interested and he would feel better if he knew he was doing well but all google comes up with is a load of companies trying to sell practice papers

There are 17 girls in my dd's class. There are 4 who don't have a tutor.
She goes to a small village school with high standards, however, they had a disasterous yr 3 when the school burnt down & they were rehoused in temporary accomadation with teachers with no lesson plans & traumatised to boot (it burnt down during lessons infront of them whilst they were trapped on the field.)
My dd for one, cried almost every day of yr3 for one reason or another, she had night terrors from the experience and therefore fell back in her maths, which was great before.
Once we got to yr 4 and she became more settled, had a more nurturing teacher (yr3 was a man) she chilled out and showed a vast improvement. However, there are holes in her learning, not through lack of ability but from circumstance. The 4 girls who aren't tutored are the exception, 1 has SN, 2 have siblings already in the gs and 1 is just super super bright.
I feel I have no option but to offer her this support, the headteacher supports her fully in appealing if the need arises as her literacy, comprehension, science etc are a ways above the expected standard. She is not tutored in those subjects.
The maths in yr 3 was not banded, the teacher taught them all together and it was his first yr in teaching yr 3, he taught to a higher level, the kids that were advanced in math already did great, the low abilities who did in fact go to the senco dd great, the middle of the road kids floundered horribly.
I don't HAVE to justify myself to anyone but that's why I have a tutor for her.
It's also what we know, we all, in my family, went to GS.

The GS nearest to us ( next county) has a system where extra points are given for age...not sure exactly - maybe an extra% for every month after september. This resulted in a frind's child getting more than 100%
My DCs go to indie school and a few class mates try for the GS every year. The school does not help at all. The parents either tutor heavily themselves or hire in help.

QOD I hope you dont feel I was having a go at people who use tutors, I just genuinely didnt know it w as so widespread. I expected it to be the exception rather than the rule. I hope it helps your dd

Yes he does follow rules, that was the problem with the test we just did, it said to work through the questions and not leave any out so when he got stuck he didnt want to move on. He doesnt like unwritten rules very much. I have tried explining that you need to do as many as posible but if he gets to one and stops he needs a push to start again, thats what he needs thee help with. Guessing answers is also very difficult for him, he needs support to know thats ok as a last resort. Hopefully a bit of practice will help him stay calm.

bbm I think a lot of exams are rather like that, I have writen him a list of rules of how to do an exam and hopefully the one where I wrote 'read the question read the question read the question then read it again' will help!

Gigglin, don't worry! I do feel a need to defend mysef, not to you, but in general, like I don't think my dd is bright enough alone, you know?
It's all about giving them the right help, my dd has a friend, she has had 2 sessions a week of tutoring, she does test papers endlessly, in MY opinion she is getting the wrong "help", bless her, she has been in yr 4 maths classes until 2 weeks ago, so she actually needed TEACHING not coaching,
DD does do bits of papers, as homeowrk really, but mostly her lessons consist of teaching her the method & theory behind how to do the sum/method/whatever. ALso, she is in the "right" maths class/level and has been all year.
The next village over, 29 kids took the kent test, 26 passed and 1 parent is appealing!!! The word on the street is that they have a shit hot math teacher rather than a teacher per year who has to do everything

stuffitllama - I have also heard the 97+ pc pass rate story round here over the years, a long way from London. I think it's an urban (actually rural here) myth, and the marks are in any case 'standardized', so that unless you specifically ask for your child's 'raw' score you can't possibly work out what percentage they got anyway. For what it's worth, my dd got a grammar school place following some practice in verbal and non-verbal reasoning from books bought in Smiths, but really struggled with the maths in the test, saying it wasn't like anything she'd ever done at school (and still says that months later, following SATs). I suspect a tutor would have helped, in spite of new-style 'tutor proof' exam this year. Baffling system, shrouded with misinformation and rumour. Don't feel much the wiser for having been through it.

pyrocanthus agree totally re misnformation and rumour - add to that a lovely dose of urban mythology and the potion is complete!

I have been through it three times with possible three more

litchick in our non london area the age thing is weighted but the differential is very minor

as i understand it - very young summer born +2
very old autumn born -2
in the middle - none!

I am a bit proud of my dcs not having been tutored but I never say never. These are great schools and I do understand people going to great lenghts!

There are schools - the so called super selectives - which only take the children who pass the 11+ with top marks. Nobody knows, however how you score the magic 140 because it is standardised and changes every year according to cohort.

However, in most 11+ areas, there are grammar schools which offer places to anyone who has passed the exam. It may not be your first choice grammar, but you will get a place. And passing the 11+ means getting something round 60-70% on each paper. There is a lot of mythology about the 11+ exam - much of it perpetuated by the parents on certain website which will remain nameless.

A real life example. In practice, my dd scored on average about 80% on verbal reasoning, 65-70 on non-verbal and 55-60% on maths papers. She passed her 11+ (scraping in by 2 marks on her maths) and is having a wonderful time at her high achieving grammar. She is in set 4 of 6 for maths but happily keeping up and doing well in all other subjects. No sense of being left behind or struggling.

Don't be scared by the hype!

seeker in our area (north) it is far more complex than that

the brother and sister schools have different criteria but i do know that some years despite huge levels of application - places remain unfilled as students did not reach the required level

the pass mark is something they set and it alters year on year

Surely the passmark is floating? There are 60 places for a school, say. The results of all applicants are placed in order of merit and a line is drawn under the 60th candidate. And those under will be placed on the waiting list should any of the offerees decline to accept a place.

no that is not what they do ....

i think it is certain % of top local cohort and rest out of area must attain this level

clear as mud!

ds2 has asperger's and is very, very bright but also very, very literal! He's in Y4 at the moment and I've just started doing some verbal reasoning with him, along with english comprehension. We don't have a grammar system here, but I want him to have as many options as possible which could mean taking independent school exams as well as the local "borough" test.

Because he's quite rigid in the way he approaches things, I feel he needs as much practice as possible in order to get him comfortable with the format. Like your ds giggling, he doesn't always read questions in the way most other people will (his version always makes sense though!) I'm also trying to wean him off things like only being able to write in the first person if whatever he's writing about is literally true - because it makes him feel so uncomfortable he needs lots of experience to "desensitise" him.

We will definitely be explaining ds's difficulties to any school we apply to - some places allow children extra time for example

Ds doesn't need a tutor - in some ways having yet another adult help him could be counter-productive - we're just working our way through the Bond books, which aren't expensive at all

no voltaire, that's definitely not how it works here. The pass mark for all grammar schools is fixed. Should more than the number of children pass than places (which always happens) then over-subscription rules come in to play. The rules vary by school, but typically include looked-after children, siblings, distance from school. One school applies "highest pass mark" for out-of-zone children.

Voltaire of the schools you mention, habs (boys and girls), Westminster, City of london (girls only) DO have feeder junior schools, albeit their 11+ exams(or 13+ for W) are also open to anyone else from any other school. W and Habs, especially W, are certainly mega selective ! And don't forget NLCS, where its junior school sends the vast majority of its 11 yr olds to the senior school, along with about 70 others from other preps/primaries. I can think of others, but those are some of the most rigorously selective schools in the UK.

Voltaire - that is what happens here. Dd is at a "so-called" super-selective. There are 120 places and places are allocated to those who scored the top 120 marks. There is no catchment area so if you applied form the other end of the country and came in the top 120 you would be given a place. As you said the "pass mark" changes each year so someone who scrapes in one year may not have done if they entered in a different year when the overall scores were higher. And yes if people decline their place then the schools go down the list in order of marks and offer to the next person. Age and where you live does not come into it. The scores are given to three decimal places and that .001 of a mark could make all the difference!

Ours was a combination of methods - there was a set passmark - which was pretty irrelevant IMO - around 300 "passed" the exam. Then rules came into play - about siblings, being in social care etc - but essentially the top 120 got offered a place subject to those rules.

There is no distinction between selective and superselective. Only about half a dozen grammar schools within a radius of fifty miles and massive competition for places.

Yes there are prep schools but they don't call them feeder schools as the pupils from the schools have to sit the entrance exam to the senior school just like any other external pupil - so feeder it is not.

mrs bartlett roughly where are you?

I'm in Essex.

Apart from W, where i know the Under School boys sit the CE in open competition, (though the majority go to W) my understanding is that while the junior or prep school pupils from the "feeder" schools I've mentioned do sit the 11+, the default position is not open competition with other schools, rather the opposite in that their senior school places are assured unless - and parents will have been previously warned about this - a child is struggling academically, in which case they would be advised to make other applications as a back up. So in that sense I maintain they ARE very much feeder schools.

Sobanoodle - DS1 was offered a place at W, also H and SA at 13. Before that he was at a comp and uncoached for common entrance exam. I'm quite certain the majority in the under school (of the schools mentioned) go on to their intended connected senior school but it isn't always the case and certainly isn't guaranteed - the schools make that v clear. Whereas other schools do have genuine feeder schools and they take the long term pastoral care of their students seriously, but these type of schools are not academically elite like the ones mentioned.

just to add a different perspective, DS did two 11+ type exams in January and passed both. He came from a state primary where they did no preparation at all, and we just did some Bond practice papers for 2 weeks before the exams. he'd just got to grips with the idea of verbal reasoning and was doing well on the practice papers but when he went for one exam they came up with a weird format on a PC with paper-folding diagrams and questions! It was completely unlike anything we'd practised (which I think was the intention) and clearly did sort the lof=gical thinkers out from the tutored kids. One of the schools told us they could tell he hadn't been tutored and said they preferred it that way....