Is tutoring always necessary for 11+?

[sharkstale]

Has the 11+ gotten much harder over the years?
When I took the exam (90s), it wasn't really made a big deal of, I thought of it as a pretty standard exam, had no tutoring and passed.
These days, it seems that everybody employs a tutor to prepare their kids for up to 2+years beforehand.
I'd like my dd to take the exam (she's currently year 4 and definitely clever enough), but would I be setting her up to fail if she doesn't receive extra tuition?
I don't understand the pressure these days. What am I missing?

Almost always, yes.

Former year 5/ 6 teacher.

@AutumnAllTheWayfor what reason exactly? What's different about the exam compared to the 90s? I know it's a really long time ago now (🥲) and I'm sure a lot has changed, but what skills are required to pass that aren't acquired through basic intelligence?

No, my everyone needs tuition. Exposure to verbal/non verbal reasoning tests is a good idea. This was done in schools when I was a kid which isn’t the case anymore.

Mine didn’t have tuition but worked through a couple of books in the summer before the test. Bond 11+ books from memory.

Different areas vary, but 11+ tests cover stuff not covered elsewhere. Also, it’s useful to do exam practice before the actual day.

Either get a tutor or work through books yourself.

The following website is good for advice.

elevenplusexams.co.uk

No it’s not necessary for a tutor. Your child needs to practise papers and practise the speed required to get through them. If they will happily do this with you or alone then imo a tutor is not needed. My eldest did nothing and passed, my youngest did the practise by herself and passed

As I understand it the number of applicants is much higher now than in the 1990s.

There were few pupils at our children's grammar school who had not had a tutor at all.

State schools are not legally allowed to teach the 11+ content. Most of the maths is from Year 6, not Year 5. The reasoning is really tricky and had to be done very quickly. You can do the tutoring yourself with the right books and a compliant child. But I would suggest most adults would struggle doing 10 tricky non-verbal or verbal reasoning questions in 5 minutes under exam conditions if they’d never seen that type of question before.

It depends if they just need to pass the test or need to get the highest marks to get in in your area. DS just needed to pass the test, he decided 3 months before that he wanted to do it so there was no time for tutoring really. We worked through some practice books/ tests so he’d know the format and he passed. Which came as a shock to be fair! He’s now in 6th form at his grammar school. His friend was tutored since year 3 and didn’t pass, I believe it was the added pressure as he was a very smart boy (I used to work as DS’s primary school so I knew him).

If they need to get in the highest percentage of children, obviously it’s more difficult if others are being tutored.

As others have said, if they've never seen Verbal Reasoning or Non Verbal Reasoning, they'll struggle with the time constraint. The maths content is yr 6 which hasn't been covered by most schools at 11+ time.
My son's grammar had 180 places and took the top 180 scores. Over 400 boys took the tests that year.

A good tutor should see your child once and be able to give an opinion on whether your child is capable of passing with minimal work/familiarisation.
There are children who are tutored to within an inch of their lives, pass 11+, then struggle badly in a Grammar setting. The teachers can see who they are, after the fact, but can't do anything about it. Told to me by a GS teacher.

For the competitive schools a tutor is almost always required, especially for areas of weakness

I have heard of parents with time doing it themselves, but essentially they become tutors to their own children and have the time to do so.

Really depends on the area, indeed the school. Round here one school does Verbal reasoning/Non Verbal Reasoning. The other set doesn’t, within that one boys school doesn’t do a second stage test.

also depends on numbers and competition

in our area yes as the test is based on year 6 curriculum and you take it in September of Year 6

Neither of mine had a tutor but I did spend a fair bit of time with them at home doing practice and covering the year 6 maths topics that can show up in the test and that they hadn’t been taught yet. So it depends on your confidence with filling in the gaps a tutor would otherwise fill as well as how likely your child is to put in practice at home. I gave mine the choice of me/home practice books or a tutor and they opted for no tutor. But they understood that they had to do their bit and were both keen to avoid the threat of ‘extra school’ with a tutor as they saw it

The competition for 11plus places is far higher than in the 90s. What schools expect children to know at 11plus is beyond the curriculum. And your child will be competing against the huge numbers of tutored kids who will be taught not only maths etc at a higher level than taught at school, but also exam technique. Exam technique is more than half the battle, in my view.

I suspect that a smart parent with sufficient time - and patience! - could do the role by getting the right books and papers and tutoring their child themselves, but I would far rather use a tutor. Not only would it save my time and ensure the right things are being taught, I suspect it would be nicer for one’s relationship with DC than spending time doing maths together and having to be on their back about studying. Far better to outsource the boring bit to an expert and have fun with your DC outside of study time.

My dc each had a tutor for 3months just before the exam to get familiar with the type of questions asked and to get practice with writing quickly. I probably could have done this myself like Clarkeologist but I work long hours so the tutor could be more consistent.

it would be very hard for a kid to do well with no practice. But they don’t need to learn lots of extra content. Just exam technique.

No. We didn’t have a tutor and right up until the summer entire kept it light-touch. However, you do need to practice familiarity with the test content and format - including how to fill in the test paper, the speed needed to get through it all, the stamina to focus and keep going, and the skills not covered by the curriculum that are included. Even the brightest child would struggle to do well going in without preparation.

I don’t think you need a professional tutor but you will your child will definitely need to do some work up front. We worked through the CGP books and also paid for a mock test so he could see what it would be like sitting in a hall doing the test with other children

The main difference between the 90s and now is pushy middle class parents who have increasingly turned to tutoring to get their children in. Which has meant that the tests have had to get harder in order to differentiate between marks. It’s a vicious circle. If all parents stopped tutoring then it would lower pass marks and be more of the test of intelligence it’s supposed to be.

People, understandably, say they will do anything for their children. But tutoring your kid is “pushy” and “middle class”? The problem is the system, not the parents trying to navigate their way through in the hope of giving their children the best possible education. Obviously it would be better if everyone just stopped but while there are truly shit schools that people want to avoid, and while a good school makes the enormous difference to outcomes that it does, people will always do what they can to help their children get the best start in life possible.

And tutoring was common in the 90s. I went to a bog standard state primary, and was tutored to do 11plus exams for private secondary schools. I was competing against rich kids who’d been through prep schools and I still remember my tutor saying to my parents that I was really bright, but about a year behind what those in prep schools had been taught. So in one year, I had to do two years’ worth of work to catch up and pass those exams.

Your child needs familiarity with the sort of questions asked and they need good exam technique. If they've never seen a verbal reasoning question before the test, they're going to struggle. Similarly, the first time I gave my son a practice test, he spent ten minutes on the third question and failed because he hadn't answered enough questions. Once I'd drummed into him that he should make an educated guess after two minutes and move on, he did much better.
We started prep around Easter Year 5. He did a couple of prep books and some practice tests online. I also took him through the year 6 maths concepts on BBC Bitesize, although he knew a lot of them already from his love of Murderous Maths.
Around a third of his class took the test (superselective grammar). Plenty were tutored. The two who passed were exactly the two you would have predicted at the start of year 5 (my son included).

Our local grammar school had over 500 applicants for 60 places, so you need to tutor or for the parent to tutor to get in. Other schools/private schools with an entrance exam would not necessarily require a tutor depending on how hard the exam is and the ability of the child.