10+ exams

[squashpie]

I've been wondering about the 10+ exams lately. What are the reasons that people choose 10+ over 11+? do those that do 10+ do them for 'scholarship purposes', ie try and get in at 10 and then take the exam again at 11 to try and get some sort of scholarship. Or do DC take them to try and reduce the uncertainty/ give themselves as many opportunities as possible to get into a school?

Would be interested to hear people's experiences and reasons for choosing to take 10+.

TIA!

Well the main reason given by the schools which offer 10+ is that they often see Year 6 as a "wasted" year in primary schools, where children just practice exams either for 11+/indies or SATS. Some parents hear horror stories about how many dvds the year 6 children watch over the course of the year, and decide a year spent learning new languages, new sports etc might be better.

Usually competition for places is "easier" at 10+ and you have the advantage that you get to know the school and get your places in teams etc before the main 11+ entry arrives.

A number of parents seem to view it as a good trial run for their child, almost a mock, though they then are thrown when their child is offered a place.

Some parents know they are going private and want the certainty earlier.

If parents are paying for prep school then often the school doesn't prepare for 10+ or 11+, but 10+ usually requires less preparation. Here the scholarships come into play as it is possible that the scholarship means that the senior school fees are less than the prep school fees.

In some cases a younger sibling is off to join an older one.

Thanks very much for your informative reply. I'm interested in why the 10+ needs less preparation. I realize the DC won't have covered the full KS2 curriculum yet but won't the 10+ exam still test them on where they've got to thus far?

In our area, you can take the exam early but you don't take the place until you are 11. Don't know if that has an affect: the 10+ DC having taken the foot off the pedal academically, so to speak, in comparison to those who've more recently taken the 11+?

we were like those parents that LM refers to who put ds1 in for 10+ as cheap mocks for 11+ - thought we would try the most academic ones and then use it as calibration and work down from there for 11+. To our suprise, he was offered places, so we decided not to bother with 11+ and go straight in. He has been very happy, and having seen his friends waste a year in Y6 being drilled for SATs and goign thru' the parental hysteria of 11+ we are glad we did. For DS2 we therefore did 10+ as well. He was offered places at the schools he sat - we opted for one that was deferred as it is the same his bro' is happy at. Sadly that school has changed the rules, and now defers places, rather than going immediately. Their rationale is that 'state schools were refusing to give refernces otherwise as it was denuding them of their best pupils' DS is not taking his foot of the gas, tho' sadly it is us keeping him focussed rather than his school. We could have chosen one of his otehr offers and gone immediately, but on babalnce have opted for the deferred so he can be ith his bro'.

A-ha! That makes sense. Thanks very much for responding. I think we may well take this route when the time comes.

Our son is doing 10+ at a school where they now defer (may be your one Mrs G - does it begin with a K?) and for us it's just to test the water really. If he gets a place - fantastic (although i can see the problem of not being able to keep them motivated over the next 18 months until they go), if not, we'll probably lower our sights a bit for the 11+ and look at some other schools.

Stillfeel18, if you don't mind me asking, are you tutoring your son yourself or have you organized a formal tutor, like many do for the 11+?

Good question - perhaps wrongly we're telling DS it's "just a practice" so we are just doing the odd paper at home, but not enough to arouse his suspicion that this exam might actually matter, if that makes sense! If he doesn't get a place, we'll probably start him with a tutor for mid-yr 5 up to the 11+ exams. It's tricky because his older brother (who goes to the school where he's trying) did the 11+ and therefore only did tutoring from mid-yr 5, so DS2 feels a bit hard done-by having to do anything earlier than that, but I'm trying to restrain myself from saying "but if you pull your finger out and do some work you might be able to sit back and relax for 18 months!