Entrance Exam tuition?

[gingerg]

Just been told that 9 yr old DD is very G&T and should be entered for selective school nearby. Advised, though, that she should have a tutor before sitting entrance exam just to help her prepare. Anyone know how I can find a good tutor? Especially grateful if anyone knows where I can find a good tutor in Orpington?!

we were told that if we wanted to get tutoring for the Tiffins we would have to have had their names down already (I have one in yr1 and one about to start reception)

personally, I can't stand the thought of children being tutored especially in primary school

Are these schools really so bad at spotting genuine ability and potential?

That sounded arsey. I think what I meant was, clearly these are good schools, with good staff. And judging from the posts, untutored children do get in. So are the tutors necessary?

gingerg, have you looked at the school with your daughter, and, if so, did you both like it? I ask because I visited one school with an excellent reputation that DS1 and I detested on sight. At the test for another school, he was sitting next to a boy who was less than keen on going there and may well have deliberately messed up the test (I hope his parents hadn't forked out a fortune for tutoring).

beackybrastraps, it is down to the entrance criteria. For the school in question the girls with the top 130 test results get in. If you get within 5 marks of that result you can go on the waiting list. It is not down to talent or abilaity at all, but as they gets lots of G&T (and otehrs) applying they have chosen one measure - and one that it is hard to appeal against.

Untutored kids get in, but I suspect not very many children who have never seen an example paper would get in. You might not need a private tutor, but you do need someone pointing you in the right direction.

At the Tiffins, it's all done on two papers - verbal and non-verbal reasoning. They simply take the best candidates, and, when 2 children get the same score, the results are age-weighted. The Tiffin websites claims you can't be tutored for the tests, which are specially designed for them, but this is clearly not true.

Celia, she told me last summer she had a list for Reception children going and I could have put down DS2, but he was still only 3 (started Reception this year) and it seemed a bit ludicrous!

gingerg, it is worth thinking about how you would feel if you went down the tutoring route and your daughter did not get into the school. That would be particularly a concern if the tests consist entirely of verbal and nonverbal reasoning which are not very useful outside the funny little world of school selection tests - extra tuition in English or Maths might have some longer term value irrespective of the test result.

Beckybrastraps, I don't think lack of attention for G&T children is the fault of the staff in the vast majority of primary schools; it's more to do with the other calls on their time and having to manage limited resources to do what's best for the majority. Wish the school we were looking at for DD2 adopted the same common-sense approach as SueW's - seems emminently sensible to me to talk to the child as well as testing him/her although more time-consuming.

Hallgerda - not sure that either she, or I, would be desperately unhappy if she didn't make the top 130. Quite happy with the ethos and teaching at DD1's school and that was where she and we had expected DD2 to end up until her teacher spoke to us. Keeping the whole issue fairly low-key at the moment so as not to put pressure on her (or DD1).

You can get books on how to do verbal and non-verbal reasoning, but the main benefit from tutoring is to get experience in exam technique.

We also turned down Tiffin - it seemed too unremittingly academic. I'm sure the fact that our car was towed away during an open evening there and cost £450 to recover did not colour my thoughts one way or the other!

Celia2, DS1 is only in Y3, so have not really looked at any schools as it is a bit early, and have no idea what will be right for him in a couple of years. I've got friends with children about to go into Y6 and looked at the Tiffin website after one of them asked me what I thought of it for her DS. It is a big topic of conversation round here from about Y3.

I've also got friends who have gone the pre-prep/prep route with their boys, and so my info on entrance exams for KCS/Colet Court etc comes from stuff they have shown me.

Which year is your DS1? Is he at senior school already?

what area are you in singersgirl?

gingerg, I think we may have had a north/south divide cross-cultural misunderstanding - I didn't intend to cast any aspersions over whether you would put undue pressure on your daughter, it's more the "dead waste of £30 per week" aspect I was thinking about! It's great that you wouldn't be very upset if your daughter didn't get in - knowing I had an acceptable default option really helped me this year.

I wouldn't have thought there was a lot of exam technique involved in multiple choice verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Isn't it just a matter of going at the right speed and knowing when to cut out the obvious wrong answers and guess between the plausible ones, or have I missed something? Athey (my earlier link) sell a nice cheap booklet on verbal reasoning and their nonverbal reasoning packs contain advice on how to tackle particular types of question.

clerkKent - about your car! That's terrible.

FIS, we are in Mortlake. Local secondary schools are Christ's and Shene International, and also ADT in Wandsworth.

Celia2, I'll be trawling round the girls' schools in the autumn - very early since dd is still in Yr 3, but it'll take us years to persuade her of the merits of any schools we fancy. I'll have to be clocking the things I can lure her with, eg lovely art room; lovely grounds; better trips than ds has had; ermmmm...

Singersgirl, we liked ADT, and had it as our fallback option.

have you got a dd (aswell as your ds)? because you could also factor in Waldegrave

Two DSs, so no hope of Waldegrave. I know of a family who've just moved to Twickenham to get closer to Waldegrave.

shopping secret - I tend to agree, but the only thing is that there are only a limited number of places available in the year 3 class (e.g. 8 -10) and they are ususally over-subscribed on a 5:1 ratio, so if there is any way I can just help my DS to do 'as well as possible' I want to. I'd hate to think it came down to one or two questions on a test he was a bit unused to.

"Quite a lot of other parents have cut us dead since dd1 got into the grammar school, and the headteacher of dd1's school came into Y6 to congratulate all the other children who'd got into their first choice (comprehensive) school, but pointedly didn't congratulate her. So the culture was very much against her."

That's awful, frogs. Really disgusting. Poor dd and you and what horrible people. I am "politically" anti-selection, btw. But I would never let that ruin a friendship. And the headteacher should be absolutely ashamed of him/herself. It's not up to dd where she goes to school, is it? She's 11, ffs. Tantamount to bullying, imo.

Maybe we should compare notes come the autumn. I will definitely have noticed which ones have fabulous art rooms and fancy trips abroad, and maybe you can fill me in on other attractive features I might have overlooked