Tuition from year one and grammar school chances

[squashpie]

Couldn't think what else to call this question. DS is in year 1. He seems to be in top third in the various subjects. A few of his classmates have tuition/ kumon, which I'd always been dead against. Now I've discovered today that two of those tutored/ kumoned kids have extra maths to stretch them because they are clearly excelling.

We live in the London area and competition for grammar schools is fiercer than fierce and the local non-selective state schools are dire. It is our dearest wish that, if he were capable, DS would get into a grammar school. But how much of an advantage are the tutored/ kumoned kids getting. Will they be that far ahead when it comes to 11+? I've read on here that pupils level out but I can't help thinking that those who are so far ahead they are getting extra maths because they are already ahead of their year group are just going to maintain that lead. Do non-tutored but bright kids get into grammar school at 11?

Sorry for long post.

This is the list according to the book.

Year 2 things he is doing (essentially all the list):
-number bonds (currently on 17 - they increase one a week as long as they pass a quiz at the end of the week)
-mental maths calculations of 2 digit numbers (addition and subtraction)
-doubling numbers to 20 and halving them
-multiplication (knows 10, 5 and 2 currently and working on 3,5)
-names of common 2d and 3d shapes
-symmetry
-metres and centimeters
-tables (gathering data)

Year 3 things:
-partitioning HTU
-fractions
-starting to understand right angles.

sorry, meant he is working on 3s and 4s

hmmm... can I be really cheeky and ask you for the whole year 3 list?

Year 3:

-working with whole numbers up to at least 1,000
-learning about where to position numbers on a number line
-partitioning HTU
-rounding
-mentally adding pairs of numbers that make 100 exactly
-written methods to add and subtract up to 3 digit numbers which are not friendly to mental means
-3,4,6 times tables
-recognizing multiples of 2,5 and 10 (to be able to know that 495 is a multiple of 5)
-calculations like 48x10 or 35x100 to explore how bultiplying by 10 or 100 work
-division as the inverse of multiplication
-proper fractions (eg 1/2 1/3 or 1/4 of 12)
-work on angles
-relationship of measurements (eg how km and m are related)
-telling time to the nearest 5 min
-Venn and Caroll diagrams
-read scales

Thank you

He's doing tables (2, 5, 10), numbers up to 1000, mental maths, basic fractions, knows his 3d shapes. There's a few in his class who are given such work. To be honest I didn't even realise it was Yr2 work until I read it on another thread. The school don't make a big deal about it, they just go with the kid's abilities.

Just noticed I can't do apostrophes

• meant to add, I don't think DS's school is unusual. Must be lots of Yr1 kids across the country doing maths similar to him.

I was surprised by the list. It seemed very unambitious as DS is hardly a maths ace and is at his level without any extra tuition or teaching on my part. I guess if the expectation is on a child to achieve a certain level, they rise to meet it.

I agree with you LeQueen.

It's a list of targets for the average child to achieve though. So that means (am guessing here) if you had a class with the whole range of abilities, you'd expect 50% to be doing more than that and some significantly more.

"Grammar schools should be for naturally academic children."

Mmmm, define 'naturally academic' or rather, if you could ever get a true picture of academic entrance to these places, try and isolate the number who get accepted WITHOUT extra tutoring or a private prep school education. I think you'd find very few.

I don't think an 'uncoordinated' child is a proper comparison with a child you would possibly politely define as 'non-academic' unless you are trying to suggest that such children are somehow equally incapable of ever being able to achieve - in this context academically.

Let's use your sports college analogy this way.

Your 6 or 7 year old is not very good at football and perhaps doesn't show any inclination to play it. However, your society prizes football above all else and all the local aspirational parents think so much better of you and your child if your child is good at football. You feel you are letting your child down and limiting his life chances if you don't ensure he plays football in the same way as everyone else.

The best players at football get in to the 'football academy'. Wow, what a dream come true!

So, you get your child playing football in his free time and hire a professional coach to do train him as you can't possibly let him 'fall behind'.

Lo and behold, at 11, he passes the 11+ football scholarship.

Some things are natural, some by achieved by graft. It depends if you think it's worth it and what you feel it represents. But don't let's pretend it makes you necessarily more of a 'natural' talent than anyone else.

Trouble is, out in the real world, not everyone plays the same game.

I don't think that the analogy works, but that is just because the level of sports ability to get into an academy just cannot be coached. Ditto music. You can coach someone to play an OK game of tennis or play mechanically, but they will lack the spark which will allow them to become the Roger Federer or the Horowitz of the future.

I will speak about the top private schools (I guess the private equivalent of the grammar school) as I don't know anything about the state sector in this country (I'm not a native). The very top private preps/seniors also try to weed out these very coached but lacking-in-natural ability children through sussing out the Headmaster's Report and through the interview. One of the schools has the interview first, and only upon passing that will the child be invited to sit the exam. What they look for in the interview is that inner spark which cannot be coached. An old Head of St Paul's school said that what he looked for in interviews was passion and irony as these are 2 things which cannot be coached.

I have no issue with this approach because the children who should be attending these schools are those naturally gifted children. Just because my son does not go to those particular schools does not mean that he is doomed for failure, just that the school was probably not appropriate for him.

Oh please, I went to Oxford which was full of privately paying, coached, rich students who felt they had been chosen because of their 'innate' ability and charm or 'passion and irony'. I'm sure such comments make the fee-paying parents of such children feel that their child has naturally risen to the top of an apparent meritocracy.

And I completely disagree. Ask any professional athlete/footballer/musician if they were born with their ability to perform as they do or whether they have used their natural talent and then put in a hell of lot of work to develop it.

Grammar school entrance is not a meritocratic process that is why they should not be subsidised by tax payers. They are used as free private schools by middle class parents who would otherwise pay for their children to attend private schools but have no need to because they can get the exclusive education they want from the state. To access it, some pay display more natural talent than others but very few have not been coached in some way. It's a matter of degree

The 11+ is of course not capable of weeding out students on the basis of passion and irony either.

I will stick my neck out here and ask - does it seem to be predominantly london parents on these boards talking about very early tutoring

tiffin which is a school that is named a lot on here - is it really that difficult to get it - are standards that high?

as i have said before - we have the grammar school system and there is not nearly the 'stress' to get in

stix - the passmark is normally published for the previous years and as we also do nvr and vr i would really like to know the passmark

smee my DS is also in Year 1 and is doing quite a few things from the Year 2 list. Again there isn't any big thing about it - he is just doing what is appropriate for him.

I do occasionally consider what will happen for him and DD (4) in their schooling as they get older. As I went to a comprehensive school and was academically successful*, I don't feel that going to a comprehensive is going to thwart your ambition.

DH went to private schools (was incidentally less academically successful than me) and I think that in my school he possibly would have struggled.

At least there's no need to consider private schools at the moment as there is no way we could afford it . And no grammar schools round here. But I would hate DS and DD to lose their love of learning.

*although not as successful as MrQueen . Did have 10 grade A GCSEs though.

Of course parents will try and get their dc into a grammar school, when many of the comps are so bad.

It is free and a good school.

Yes, the dc may struggle once there, but if the parents think it's better than the alternative, then who can blame them?

I agree with debs40. I believe that coaching and graft play a huge part in success, even for sports.

The head of St. Paul's is entitled to admit whoever they want. But in my opinion they are making a mistake by basing so much of their selection on a 30 minute interview that looks for passion and irony. They run the danger of looking for children that fit a mould, and they will be missing out on children who are possibly more intellectually gifted. There will be many shy introverted children who will be very nervous at interview and will not be able to demonstrate passion. However, they may have outstanding intellects. There will also be pupils who are outstandingly intelligent but who may misbehave in lessons, muck about, and have a personality clash with their teacher. The report from their head will probably not look too good. I am all for academic excellence, I think ideally selection should be based on that. But that is a decision for St. Paul's to make, and it is their loss. I remember reading a newspaper article a few years ago where a teacher at one of the London grammars was talking about how he interviewed 11+ candidates, and told what he thought was an amusing tale of how one of the boys when asked if he had any questions, said "what do you think about global warming?". I don't think that is funny, I don't think they should make decisions about who gets in on that basis. This poor boy had been coached by his parents who were too keen, but that should not disqualify him if he had achieved a high score in the exam.

I think entrance should be based on academic ability measured by a test that is the same for all candidates. Life isn't perfect, and some pupils will have had the advantage of coaching, but I think it is fairer than ruling shy and nervous candidates out because they didn't show enough passion or didn't say the right thing.

McBitchy, I am not in the Tiffin area. As Quattrocento said, Tiffin only tests VR and non-VR, which are relatively easy exams compared to maths and English. Therefore the amount of preparation etc. is cut down, and I don't think you really need a private tutor for that. You can study for those by yourself. But it is still tough to get in, because of the competition of 2000 odd candidates vying for 120 odd places. To make sure that you get a place, you will need to get a very high score.

LeQueen your definition of naturally talented enough for graamar schools simply won't work. Not every grammar school child can be top of their year: there must be a whole raft of children under them who are not top. What is the entry criteria for them?

snorkie, agree entirely. I went to grammar, as many of us did. The range of abilities was very wide. Also some pupils did well in some subjects and not in others. Not everyone can be top of the class, it doesn't matter. The ones at the bottom were not shattered by being at the bottom. My grammar was and is still one of the top in the land, but it wasn't as competitive as what is described on here.

claig - what you say about 'easy' is subjective surely

i have seen the maths and english papers and dp and i commented that we would both rather take them than nvr

also the pass marks are what makes the paper hard surely - creaming off the top ability

i see from the league tables Tiffin is high - are the schools to which you refer substantially higher?

I agree NVR is hard, you either get it or you don't. But it doesn't require hours of revision or tutoring. That is what I mean by easier. You don't really need a tutor for it, you can do it yourself.

I agree that Tiffin is hard to get, due to the 2000 candidates vying for 120 places. The competition is fierce so a high mark is required.

I could only find league tables for 2006 for A levels and Tiffin Girls was 19 then. The school I was talking about was substantially higher. I don't know what the situation is now. I will try to look for links.