Which is less pressured - state + tuition or prep school for 11+?

[namechangesgalore]

Any views?

Prep schools sound like they do more homework and have a longer day but many prepare for the 11+ (or 13+ where relevant) whereas state seems to involve lots of tuition for the 11+ if you want to go down that route.

Which is less pressured?

As with all these questions - it depends on the individual school (and tutor, in this case). And of course on the child.

A private school may prepare kids for 11+ and a few different private secondary entrance exams - so whether that's 'pressured' will depend if your kid finds the various tests really rather fun or stressful.

If is difficult to have a definative answer as most people will have done one or the other and so much depends on the individual schools and the children themselves.

We've done state to 11 then entrance for private.Entrance exams vary so much depending on the school so it would actually be best to ask in relation to the schools you are considering.

I would say you would need to go through some past papers/bond papers but I wouldn't say lots of tuition involved.Parents I knew who had children in the private system already, did this with their children too.
The children in prep around us certainly had more homework than my children and perhaps the pressure is greater for these children in that most of their peers were sitting the exams also.

I would say we have managed entry to an academic senior school without alot of pressure but my dc were of a capable level to do so without tuition just exam technique guidance .

hi our prep school refuses to prepare for the 11+ as the school goes through to 13 and the last thing they want is people leaving earlier than that. So those who want their children to do the 11+ still end up tutoring in order to get practice (it is quite different an exam to Common Entrance apparently. So prob worst of both worlds if you go with a prep school with this philosophy!

I can see that Janet - one of the reasons we avoided the nearby up to 13+ prep. I didn't think it left our options open.

Ok as it stands, ds seems very bright (teacher feedback and kind of obvious, not just my biased opinion!) so IF that carried on, presumably that might mean slightly less tutoring needed from state and it could focus more on exam technique?

My child is at state school and I am preparing him for 11+ myself and I think it's a lot more stressful for me doing it this way because if he was at an academic prep school I'd be a lot more chilled out.

He gets very little homework so it's a lot less stressful for him.

Talking to a Year 7 attending grammar school, (her background is state and tutor and lots of preparation) She said the girls struggling in her class were all from private schools. Suppose the inference is that private schools can get average pupils to pass 11+ but that tutoring enables bright state pupils to get in too.

Actually really agree with you coolasacucumber, state schools aren't really geared towards getting your child into grammar and unfortunately if you don't prepare them they mostly won't pass it. Tutoring gives a bright child an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have. Unless of course they are really really bright and can pass it without help - but the test can include things they haven't even covered yet at school and also key stage 3 stuff so unless you prepare the child they probably wouldn't pass it.

A little tutoring can make the world of difference to an already bright child. My dd was tutored in maths just to help her grasp some concepts. She had one hour a week tuition, so she wasn't intensively tutored but I believed that she was bright enough to do it but she was just getting a bit lost in the classroom.

I don't believe that tutoring will make a child who is not capable suddenly become a top student. My friend tutored her dd 2.5 hours a week for nearly a year and she was still getting 40-50% in practice tests.

Preps round here aren't allowed to coach for the 11+, if caught they lose their partner status which allows them to enter children for the exam.

Depends on the schools and your finances.

Finances not an issue but what is is that dc very happy at local state school with a much shorter journey than if went private.

Local state school is not that good though (at the moment but a few years to go yet). V bright child but who knows by then.

Fundamentally we're trying to work out whether jumping ship at 7+ would be better or sticking with the current school and tutoring.

How many hours a week of tutoring and for how long might a bright kid need?

I am following this with interest as we have just had a letter from an excellent (fee paying ) school where DD sat the entrance exam. She passed easily without any tutoring. All we did was look at some entrance exam papers that I managed to download from the internet. I took the view that if she needed loads of tutoring to pass the exam she would always struggle at the school.

We don't have the 11+ here as there aren't any schools that require it, but all the prestigious schools have their own entrance exams, so I don't know what the difference is between the 11+ and the entrance exam.

I would say that if you have a bright child then all you would need to do is look at past papers to get used to the technique and style of questions.

At my sons prep school, parents are actually told if their child is capable of sitting the 11+ to avoid unnecessary dissapointment.

What they do at preps is teach them exam technique- time management, checking their work, structuring a story, NVR. Even the best prep can't turn a lump of poo into a diamond but they value their relationships with the senior schools and won't send in a kid who has no chance. Unless you are prepared to sit over your kid with a stopwatch and Bond papers and understand how to do NVR or pay a tutor to teach them two years worth of curriculum that they won't have had at a state school, then switch.

lump of poo

i hope horsemadmom kids are not a lump of poo

sadly it's true, we moved DD to private in year 5, just in the nick of time. She finished the 11+ in half the allocated time and many of the children from her old state school, even the tutored ones hadn't a clue when it came to the maths papers, they simply hadn't covered the work which is utterly wrong IMO.

My DDs went to a state primary. They needed tuition in VR and NVR however I found they had covered all the 11 plus maths topics in class where the school had offered maths enrichment to the top set. Both state and private schools vary enormously in standards.

Do kids that go to an 11+ prep school require further tuitions?

My DDs also applied to 2 selective private schools in Kent. They had to do an english paper and reasoning papers but the maths paper was easier than the 11plus and the pass mark in all subjects lower. I think that at 13 a child might need additional tuition for CE but not at 11.