7+ Failure

[phoneisoff]

Just a bit of a moan, but for those of us that didn't pass the 7+, I do find it frustrating the school don't give a breakdown , especially if you plan for 8+ or are keen to work on 'weak' areas looking forward to 11+

We applied for a big name school, didn't get past entrance exam, despite scoring 70%+ on many various test papers.

I just wish we could be given the score -, DS exam results were X% and we only selected pass of Y%. Or even DS exam results were X% but standards in interview blew him out of the race. Something like that would be so useful.

We put our tiny children through all this and have nothing to show for it, not even an indication how close or far we came !

I'm not going to mention the school except it's a big name in London/South East area , just a little p'd after registration fees, time, prepping DC and letting DC know its 'not the school for them, right now' a bit more than standard rejection would have been nice.

I'm assuming asking for test results is a big no no??

This post is just a moan, we only applied to 1 school which was silly of us, but we didn't want the pressure on DS.

I know I'm lucky to even contemplate private education in these hard times, and DS is currently in a decent school and has good friends, we live in SW London, so DS has so many options state, private , moan over....

Your child does absolutely not need to be getting high 90s in Mocks! Don’t worry! And I never know what ‘working a year ahead’ means either in reality.
Don’t worry- the 7+ is a bit ridiculous. Lots of bonkers parents chasing the dream of the big names and tutoring up to the eye balls. All a bit more normal at 11plus. My children are coming to the end of it all now and they all seem to end up at the same universities etc regardless of what combo state/ private combo they went to for primary, secondary and sixth form.!

My children are coming to the end of it all now and they all seem to end up at the same universities etc regardless of what combo state/ private combo they went to for primary, secondary and sixth form.!

That’s really interesting. Within my immediate family, with a mixture of biological and adopted children, who have attended anything from stare comprehensive to big name private, I would say that this is broadly true. The over-riding factor is genetics / stability, with the outcomes for the adopted children being different. Parental occupation and values seem to have an impact on subject choice. But universities attended and results are broadly comparable across the full range of schools attended.

This is interestingly a repeat of the previous generation - very different schooling, almost identical university degree outcones.

I don’t think you can conclude that children going private would have done just as well had they gone to state. The children I see who benefit most, although all do, are the ‘invisible middle’ children who may have been lost or certainly not reached their potential in state. Parents often pay for the children who clearly need it the most who they can see would t thrive in state. Smaller classes, a wider curriculum, sports and a huge amount of confidence boosting opportunities make an enormous difference not to university offers but to who that child fundamentally becomes. Ours have all done a mix of state of private and I can’t say I know a single parent who sees a university offer as the end game.

It is extremely hard to say how an individual child would have done in another system - for the obvious reason that a single child cannot be split in two and ‘matched pairs’ studies (on identical twins?) are not likely to be attempted.

I am saying, however, that in a range of similar, genetically related, families (with roughly similar, involved parenting styles from similarly educated parents, all of whom have facilitated a wide range of extracurricular activities - sport, music, performance, outdoor - as well as the chosen schooling), the outcomes both educationally and in how the young people present are similar. The ‘big name private’ seems to give slightly more surface self-confidence.

Had the parenting styles been different, had the genetics been different, had there been a reliance only on schools for sports etc, then I agree, outcomes may have been more different.

The language you use in your thread is really interesting/telling - we/our etc.

This seems to be your dream rather than your DSs and it’s a shame you feel the need to “put him through this”.

Cousins share 12.5% of their genes roughly soooo unless you’re screening potential marrying-ins…

Point taken! I would say that all parents are from v similar educational backgrounds (more than 1 pair met at uni) so the gene pool was not particularly ‘academically’ diverse!

This this this x100 wherever they go, whether it’s a highly selective private school, a non selective private school or a good state school they really do end up in the same place. I’ve come to the end with my first and GCSE, A levels and uni destinations were pretty much the same wherever they went. Now they’re all post uni they’re all on the same track with Law school, big 4 consultancy, training contracts, mgt consultancy etc