Tutoring and the 7+ / 8+ exams

[User44444]

What do you mumsnetters think of tutoring for these exams? I am following a 8+ thread here and another debating tutoring for 7+ Bute exams with interest.

My son just sat the 8+. He is at a pre prep that prepares boys. Although I had some serious concerns over the quality of teaching and preparation for the exams, which wasn’t great, I stuck to my guns and did not tutor. He is a bright boy and he works hard at school, we did all the homework and over the Christmas holidays in particular got our heads down with additional work using resources like Bond papers.

He did well, got invited for interviews at all the top 3 schools applied. One rejected him outright and he is currently on the waiting list for 2 of the schools. Not the outcome I hoped for but not disastrous.

Looking at the boys who were offered places none are particularly bright but all have been subjected to hours of extensive professional tutoring every week - for months! Some have hired so-called “super tutors” at sky high fees and even former headteachers to coach their boys. When money is seemingly no object....
I guess I just feel disappointed in these schools who make a big deal out of claiming not to want tutored children but year after year cannot see through the tutoring and seem to pick mostly heavily tutored applicants. It makes me wonder if they actually care or pretend to care.

User44444 sadly you were a bit naive. At most preps and pre-preps the majority of parents tutor, so the school's results have to be taken in the context that they were obtained with the help of tutors. Fingers crossed for movement on your waiting lists.

Userxxx8543 “Njshore - ask to see the class list for new entrants at top London Day schools and you’d be hard pressed to find many British names amongst them.“

Yes, i’ve seen these lists and been in the classrooms and I can assure you ethnic children are less than a quarter of the class/year group.

Userxxx8553 sounds like you resent kids who learn outside the classroom. In fact, I would venture so far as to say not much learning goes on IN the classrooms with one teacher and 20-22 children with possibly an assistant. Where would they learn more, 1-1 with parents/tutor or 1-22 at school?

At the end of the day, sounds like jealousy here from hands-off parents who don’t/can’t tutor and their children are falling behind relative to those who do.

It is the children over coached to cope in academic environments beyond their natural ability to satisfy parental vanities I feel sorry for. Red mentioned in her post that girls as young as year 4 were already self harming. Sad. I don’t know of any girl at my daughter’s school doing that but there are certainly several that are clearly very stressed languishing at the bottom of the class struggling to keep up.

Njshore I didn’t say anything about ethnic minority’s children clogging top schools. I would actually love to see more of these children at the best schools if of course they have the intellectual abilities to deserve the privilege. It is the American/Euro banker set that crowd these schools having elbowed their way in with ridiculous tutoring. Ethnic children mostly don’t have the benefit of £300 per hour super tutors. It’s not an even playing field. In my daughter’s tutor group of 10 girls at a top London day school only 2 including mine have British parents. The only upside is that within a few years this euro/American set often lose their jobs and are sent packing. I think schools should consider longevity of families in the UK when offering places.

I think the schools should do more to design tests which are difficult to tutor for. I have seen some progress eg a move away for just interviews to ‘assessment days’ but the schools should constantly change these/throw in suprises to see how the children deal with them.

There assessments tend to stagnate and therefore allow these ‘super tutors’ to arise.

Though as a partner at a big four what I would say is to consider this all in context. We now don’t even ask for A level results, we only ask for degree (I appreciate that A levels is a stepping stone to degree). But we don’t care what school/what your results from school were.

The whole thing is very sour grape to me. The top American/Euro banker will often lose their jobs? Where did you get that illusion from? The once in a thousand story told on newspapers? If they are sent packing, chances are they are posted overseas with better packages. Equally, there's no guarantee British parents will always keep their jobs.

Again, you are urging schools to pick up children not based on their merits, but on the family background. White British first? How about running a DNA test before exam registration?

I very much doubt how would you cope with this ever changing global environment with your narrow mindset. Oh, no, you don't. You just moan on a forum, and wish everyone else back luck.

I think that once I retire, I shall become one of these supertutors.

Hhks for several years I worked in a trading job for an American bank in a team with multi nationals. The cull started in 2008 and continued. Very few who left their roles were deployed anywhere. Most went back to their home countries and changed their career paths altogether often earning peanuts at their new jobs as chefs or teachers. Those with children all invariably had them in top UK private schools and had to pull their kids out to return home. I took voluntary redundancy after my 3rd child before most probably being culled. You think job security in London now is much better than 2008?

If you assume I am some kind of bigoted white working class idiot because my views don’t much yours think again.

BringonSpring I completely agree with what you say. The schools wax lyrical about how dreadful it is that children are tutored to get in; all schools say they want raw intellectual talent yet the entrance tests have become ridiculously standardised such that Hhks, Njshore and their expatriate friends wearing their “I have an MBA so I can beat anything” hats simply call in the tutors and hey bingo!

I am sorry this thread has become so bad tempered 😂😂
Was just genuinely interested in what you wise mumsnetters think of the current state of affairs whereby a very intelligent child can be overlooked in favour of a less able one who’s had the benefit of extensive tutoring. Speaking from my experience I saw children who have struggled all the way through school being subjected to several hours of professional coaching to pass entrance tests and wonder how the schools couldn’t spot them.

I am British but I also believe in fairness. I don’t think a British child should be given priority entrance into any school ahead of more able children from overseas backgrounds. I do however feel the schools have all become lazy and complacent with their selection process and just take on children who tick certain boxes even though they know fine well many will have to be tutored when they arrive. Too many robotic children being bred at these schools - I agree entirely with Bringonspring.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy from school heads In London schools and I would love it if any of them would read these threads.

Not sure where that leaves my son waitlisted at 2 schools with no confirmed place in September yet.

op, 7+8+ is not the right time to tell natural talent. So there's no need to get angry if you are not selected or overjoyed if you are. if your DS is talented, he will do well in your backup school, and thrive at 11+13+16 or A level.

I have been to the open day of the 3 schools you mentioned, one HM said "don't tutor them, bring them to the museums", one said “it is OK if they can't write, they are still young", and one said "it's not a school for every boy, please prepare for the exam, but don't over tutor". And I think it's up to the parents how much you choose to believe.

Also, instead of "schools have all become lazy and complacent with their selection process", i think they are rather running out of ways. they need a relatively objective fair benchmark for selection, but not gut feelings. They have a few hundred candidates for a handful of places, it's impossible to sit down with each children for hours to see through their natural intelligence. Even if that is possible, how would you prove it's fair but not personal preference?

As you said, everything is tutorable, even the newly proposed exam format. then what would you ask the school to do?

7/8+ may not be the right time to evaluate talent but it is a significant entry point for boys and it is not unreasonable that many parents want to apply at that point to secure a place rather than wait.

I disagree schools are running out of ways to assess children objectively. It’s just complacency. Most just stick with the status quo eg 25 minutes to write a story. After the exams when parents were more willing to share info I discovered some had hired former teachers at these schools to give them the marking schemes - marks for including similes, speech marks, certain words Etc. Does a child who has simply been told by tutor to include this stuff in his writing deserve a place at these schools more than another? It’s all too formulae driven. Another example - Head Of st Paul’s at Open day said don’t worry about handwriting, not a problem. So I didn’t. My son has sloppy writing and guess what - he didn’t get St. Paul’s. Feedback suggests his creative writing score was not great.

A million other things schools can do - standardised age adjusted testing is quite effective at identifying raw intelligence. Most schools do these tests and include in reference reports but do the schools even consider them? And what about summer born children? Is it fair to compare the standard of writing of a 7 year old with that of another boy 9, 10, 11 months older? Also What about a boy’s performance over time? You can easily spot a heavily coached child because they often suddenly shoot up in test scores a few weeks/months before the exams. Truly bright children are the ones who were achieving high marks effortlessly before parents woke up and thought - huh! Exams around the the corner let the tutoring begin.

Heads just play lip service to the issue and lazily just pick whoever ticks certain boxes.

I could rant on forever to no avail I suppose....

User44444, I’m sorry to say you finally understood how these entrance exams are played too late, but you’re not the first and won’t be the last and that is to say, don’t listen to what the Heads say but do what you think is best for your child to have the best chance of admissions.

In fact, the lessons you learn from this 8+ exam can be applied to 11+/13+ so I guess it’s never too late. Better get a tutor for next time.

I used to think school report should be significant until recently, because schools do vary, and the talent pool in schools also differ. some schools attracts more bright boys than others, and the kind words from HM, especially from lower-performing schools don't always reflect the situation. And I don't think that any HM would write in the report things like this boy was so bad since reception, and he should not be going to school xyz? And also just because a boy has been consistently scoring high in school doesn't mean he is able to do 7+8+ papers, because school internal exams are always very easy, and 7+8+ is exceeding NC by A LOT. My son always scores close to 100% in school exams without a single minute of preparation, but I don't see how he would do 7+8+ papers without extra work.

yes, i found most HM's speech hypocritical, and contradicts to what they do.

I also agree that schools should look more at age differences, especially at 4+7+8+. Ideally, they should take equal number from each months? maybe it's too idealistic.

Ultimately though this is a business model. I'm sorry you found out the hard way but the heads are simply spouting utter shite when they say don't tutor and things like hand writing don't count. There is a huge demand for these schools and a tiny supply. They want the most sure win kid. And by win I mean the transfer list. That is their ultimate goal. They don't care about raw intelligence. Why would they? If it's a prep they care about which senior school a boy gets into. If it's a senior school it's all about league table results.

But you can opt out by going for a less selective school. One that doesn't live and die on its transfer list. One that has way more flexibility in how they choose boys. My DS is in a preprep and almost all the parents tutor whether that's themselves or hiring someone. The head when we took a tour said don't tutor. Come year 1 she asks you who the tutor is on the damn form! So clearly she expects their to be one. If you have a boy who is truly a high flier from young age then fine. Tutor him to fine tune his test taking skills and brush up on manners and interview. I don't think you do a kid any favours to tutor them to death when they don't have their own internal drive.

User44444, I’m also British (Userxxx8543 is grasping at straws with elitist attitude and has no basis of facts) and these exams has nothing to do with fairness. After all, no one cheated.

It’s an entrance exam for god’s sake and you must prepare for them, no matter how clever your child. Have you heard of the cramming schools in South Korea/China/HK where super tutors advertise on billboards and make millions? Most parents who apply to these top schools believe their kids are very intelligent but, given the intense competition for limited seats, there’s little margin for error.

It’s probably best to teach your child now that it takes more than natural intelligence to do well in this competitive world and don’t expect his future employer to identify him in a pool of other bright and talented candidates who were better prepared. Yes, unfair but reality.

User4444 you are absolutely right regarding disengenius fellow parents and heads. you find out the truth from so-called friends once results are out and the writing on the wall is so blatantly obvious regarding who was tutored and who got places. Unlike some I was always very open with other parents about the prep I did with dd even before exams. And unlike some posters in this thread I don’t consider putting in hours of hard work with your child “cheating”. We certainly didn’t employ a super tutor - but did read in various exam forums and in talking to fellow parents who have been through it, as well as parents of kids in hot house pre-preps that there is a formula to a “good” 7+ essay. My daughter is naturally gifted in maths but sadly none of the exams ( mocks or real ones ) challenged her in that regard. With writing she initially struggled so that was where most of our prep went. We would go through the paper together underlining interesting vocabulary, similes, adjectives describing all 5 senses ( what you see, hear, smell, taste, feel) , making sure there was a clear beginning-middle-end and the end circled back to the beginning . After writing a lot of stories she had a great grasp of this concept. Then we focused on getting the stories done in the allotted 25-45 minutes .
None of this was magic and most of this was free - we worked for 45min to an hour on this before school daily. I am extremely proud of what she accomplished - she worked super hard, never gave up even when it was an uphill battle. She can now have this experience for life of seeing hard work pay off - of going back to her stories 6mo ago vs now and seeing just what can be accomplished by putting in the time and effort.
If anything it’s this type of “tutoring” that’s available to parents who maybe can
not afford a pre prep. So yes, this type of testing will not identify geniuses but will identify hard workers which is arguably even more of a predictor of future success.
I really hope that your little boy gets a place as I am sure he worked very hard as well - and it’s incredibly impressive that he made it so far - and I am sorry for the abundance of incredibly judgemental, selfish and disengenius parents out there ( few on this thread) who perhaps steered you into a false sense of security about the exams .

Userxxx8543: “If you assume I am some kind of bigoted white working class idiot”

Your words, not mine!! Not a stretch of the imagination given your rants about injustices in this world and how “delusional” parents in this forums are for simply stating the obvious. Really, if people want to educate their child in a way that is different than yours, stop judging! I’m sorry for wanting to spend my money on education rather than a holiday. You really have a chip in your shoulder.

schoolmadness2016, very well done on the writing preparation. having just finished the journey myself, I totally understand how much it takes to achieve that. DS is similar, good in maths but hopeless in writing. and his school didn't seem to get them start writing early. it nearly drove me mad to get him to write. aha.. five senses, i hate five senses... LOL....

😆🤣 exactly hhks. You show me one 7yo who would “naturally” write : “ One sweltering summer’s day, as I strolled through the grass, green as an emerald, I felt a gentle breeze caress my skin...” . I am willing to bet 7yo Hemingway wouldn’t even pass the first round at WU.
And with kids struggling with writing you truly do need 1-1 attention - constant feedback and individually targeted exercises to improve .
Congrats to your ds as well!!

Schoolmadness reading your last post I feel slightly depressed. 7 year olds regurgitating pre learnt story beginners - is that really a god thing? Is that a good measure of how a child can thrive in the intellectual environment of schools such as WUS?
All credit to WUS they did try to avoid this sort of thing in the 8+
this year. Half of the creative writing test wasn’t a story - for the first time ever. Boys were given book covers to discuss and apparently my son scored well in that.
We need more of these kinds of initiatives to discourage tutoring in my opinion.

44444 I agree completely. In fact there is a very academic prep school in Chelsea that sends most of their boys at 13+ to Eton and Westminster who have taken composition completely out Of 8+ exams because they were fed up with reading pre learnt sentences that didn’t tell them anything about a child’s ability. Their exam is now only verbal reasoning and comprehension.

My son did have a tutor for an hour per week each term because I didn’t feel I had a choice so I can’t be too hypocritical about it. If tutoring didn’t exist and it was an even playing field I think my son would have done just fine. Perhaps one day schools will device a “tutor proof” entrance procedure. Here’s hoping...

User44444, i think schoolmadness2016 was just using WUS as an example. In fact you wouldn't know what will come out in the paper until the assessment day. And would you not prepare your children for that?
OK, fine, WUS and the school mentioned above (SH?) won''t test the pre-constructed writing. How about SPJ and KCS? as long as you are sitting those exams you would need to do that, right? you of course have your choice to protest by not sitting those schools, but they are never short of candidates.

Removing composition from exams would, for us, negate 90% of the work we did. We’d still need to work on exam technique and comprehension as well as grammar etc. But yes the stories, at least for the girls schools, seem to be the truly defining feature, cause, as I mentioned before, not one of the 6 schools we sat seemed to challenge her maths ability ( according to her).
But in all fairness regurgitation was not at all the aim of this . There was a defined format - and some tutors do seem to suggest memorising phrases and even whole stories - but that is shockingly inappropriate and not the message I would want my child to take away. All of her stories were original and used varied and appropriate vocabulary ( which we worked on through reading books and doing Mrs wordsmith ) . The example I used above was an exaggerated version of a typical sentence . However she did initially have a list of good sentence starters and format ideas for endings. Which they would learn anyway in creative writing in year 4.

I would also add that in addition to making the assessments more fluid that for those elements which are ‘tutorable’ then the school should aim for as much transparency as possible, for example a lot of different opinions on this thread on the merit given or not given to hand writing. You could say; 10% of marks for hand writing, 10% grammar etc.

It would annoy me as head that so many tutors were profiteering from my school that I would at least like to create more of a level playing field.

I agree with what PP have said on pre preps and the ‘no we don’t recommend tutors’ we also heard this at open days. But it’s rubbish, their business is built on their leavers list and that is currently (under this system) improved greatly by pupils having tutors.

Ultimately though you unfortunately have to figure out the game that is currently being played and that is you need tutors.

User44444 you seem lovely and I really hope your son gets a school he loves