any 11+ tutors out there?

[PerpetuallyAnnoyedByHeadlice]

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I'm not an 11+ tutor - but I'd be honest. Not fair on anyone otherwise. They can always find a different tutor if they're not happy with your answer.

However you'd want to be pretty damn sure that they would fail the exam before telling them that. :)

I am not sure it is possible to predict that they will fail the exam. With hard work they may well pass. Also, I don't believe that just because children might be struggling to do well in these exams, that this implies that they will struggle at grammar school.

I would tell the parents that it looks like they are a long way off from doing well, but I don't think this means that they will fail or that they are not grammar school material.

Hello again Claig :) you and I are on the same page about this.

At 11 not many would have thought I was grammar school material including, most importantly, me. The teachers didn't 'believe' so I didn't 'believe' and consequently fell behind. Weak maths and poor writing surely meant I simply wouldn't cut the mustard!

I was a 'late developer' who went on to do quite well. Most people can learn most things, they need to believe that they can and have others that believe in them.

I realise not everyone is cut out for a strictly academic path in life but I always feel saddened somehow when decisions are made about academic potential very young and that it's believed ability has a ceiling.

As a parent I would like to think I would appreciate your honesty. The 11+ in this area is purely verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers. They do not do maths or english papers. It is therefore suggested tutoring is pointless and to simply practise papers such as Bond. I can therefore see that some children who may not appear 'academic' could do very well. I'm not got top that stage yet with dcs though .

hi Cortina, good to see you again . Yes, it comes down to good teaching and hard work. I agree that most people can learn most things. Just because a child os currently not good at maths, non verbal reasoning or verbal reasoning, doesn't mean that they can't improve in the future. Also grammar schools teach many subjects. I don't think that non verbal reasoning has anything to do with how good a child may be at learning French in the future.

There is a tutor near where I live who tests children in September prior to taking them on for 11plus tutoring. If she does not feel they will make the grade then she explains this to the parents and advises that it might be best not to continue.

It just makes me sad that so many parents are putting their own kids under pressure to do this when they really are not cut out for it, and that the result CAN be that the kid then feels a total failure at the age of 11, parents having spent ££££ and them feeling guilty/a total disappointment, or they can just scrape by, and be utterly out of their depth at a grammar - with 2 hrs of homework from day one. Even if the child wants to go to the grammar for whatever reason (friends, convenience of locality etc), the parents might be better off breaking it gently to them that although they love them dearly, they just are not cut out for it

the headmaster at the boys grammar sat all the parents down at the first Y7 parents evening and said "its already blatantly obvious to us which of you had your children tutored to get them to pass, and I want to tell you that you now need to keep this up so that they get the high level GCSE grades our school is used to"

There are no guarantees of anything in life. But if you don't buy a ticket, you won't win the lottery. I believe in aiming high and having high aspirations. If the children knew it all, then they wouldn't need to see a tutor. They go to the tutor to learn, and they are all capable of learning. I don't believe that they are not cut out for it. When I was a student, I used to tutor people for GCSE and A level, and I improved their level greatly. Anything is possible with good tuition and hard work by the student. I went to a grammar, and not everyone is Einstein. Some of the pupils are poor in certain subjects, but better at others. All of my classmates passed the 11 plus, but some were a lot brighter than others, the range of ability was large.

Claig - But it's pretty hard to improve your verbal / non verbal reasoning test scores isn't it? Isn't the whole point of them is that they're more like IQ tests, then what you've learnt / how hard you've studied?

And, there are some kids that won't be able to pass the 11+ no matter how hard they work.

Grammars are selective schools. They select the 'brightest' kids. If everyone could get in by hard work / good tutoring, then they wouldn't be selective school.

I think it's really cruel to tutor someone who you really know won't pass. Or at least it's cruel to tutor them for the 11+ exam - they may well want tutoring for something else.

But I have seen "miracles" happen...not particularly bright kids pass the 11+ (I've also seen the brightest not pass.

If you don't tutor intensively, than unless your DC is very bright, then they will be lucky to gain a place.

"Grammars are selective schools. They select the 'brightest' kids. If everyone could get in by hard work / good tutoring, then they wouldn't be selective school."

If only that were true.

I am currently tutoring (for want of a better word) a child who's just left y5 in English for his 11+ exams. There are no tutors in this area as there aren't many (any?) grammar schools here, just the local independent school which gives grants based on an 11+ style exam.

I say I tutor him, but really I've just gone through Bond papers with him and comprehension papers, helping with interpreting the questions and highlighting what kind of answers they're looking for in these things.

The boy I'm helping is really, really bright, and a real grafter too, enthusiastic, resourceful, etc, etc. But English is his second language, and they rarely speak it at home, so he struggles with comprehension. He has also had little exposure to story telling in English, which again shows in his writing and comprehension work.

We've been studying around this area for 6 months now and he is much, much better than he was, but he still stumbles on word definitions on occasion and on the 'reading between the lines' type questions.

I do this on a voluntary basis and I still worry that he may not get through, though his scores on the Bond papers have generally been quite good. I could never be a paid tutor as I'd find the chance of failure quite hard to deal with. I do wonder if the second language issue is a common one in 11+ scenarios???

It's a myth that you can't improve your score in verbal and non verbal reasoning, just as it is a myth that you can't improve your score in IQ tests. That's why parents send their children to tutors to gain an advantage. It's headteachers who advise not to tutor and prepare, but those who listen to them find out that they have been hoodwinked.

I think a high proportion of children are smart enough to benefit from hard work and tutoring. Those who don't do so will probably come off second best to those who do. Not everyone can pass and some children are not capable, but an average child stands a good chance if they work hard and prepare, because there will be other parents who believed the headteachers and did little to prepare.

Yes - an average kid. But what about a kid who is well below average. Is it fair to tutor them?

Our 11+ tutor doesn't take on children who she believes are too far behind.
Most parent's don't have any idea of what is really required and what the child gaps are.
An inintial test is extremely important for the tutor to get that information and to see if given time those can be improved on.

Assuming current prices for tutition is about £30/hour and that would be say for about 50 weeks, sometimes more than one hour a week I think parents deserve to know if the child in eyes of the tutor is capable of progressing enough.

but I don't think the situation will arise. Usually parents have a good idea if there is a chance or not. I think the tutor should give the parent an assessment of the level that the child is currently at. It is then up to the parent to decide if they think there is a chance or not. You often read reports by tutors that they will only accept the top pupils and discard the ones who are less capable. They often do this for their own benefit so that they can claim a close to 100% success rate. I think this is wrong. It is the lesser able pupils who need more help and I would have thought it would be a much greater pleasure to help a lesser able pupil succeed.

claig - I think it may be building false hopes to take on a student who is not capable of passing very competitive exam

Yes you are right, there is a balance to be struck. But as LynetteScavo said, she has seen "miracles happen". It is a shame to rule out the chance of success by making judgements that may in the end turn out to have been incorrect.

There is a fantastic tutor with 100 percent result for 4 plus 7 plus and 11 plus in NW8 .I really recommend her.

Tutoring helps if done the right way.. if the only aim is to get into a particular target school then in the long run , i believe its not going to be good on the child academically...

I got the right tutor who gently raised the bar for my child, without pressure for the SAT or exams got the best out of the kid... it was more a confidence booster , getting the basics right so that the whole understanding of the subject is better.

i can definitely recommend my tutor
now i have a mature child who can take on exams on its own..

my experience has been good..

I agree with you our tutor was fantastic........

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