angered by tuition for grammar school 11+

[kelway]

i was curious but does anyone else here feel the same in being frustrated with overly pushy parents who get their offspring heavily tutored (ie 3/4 nights a week after school for at least 2 years before taking the 11+). I constantly hear of girls getting into our local grammar school who were not as clever as other girls in the same class at school but who were overly pushed by their parents. Subsequently it feels like the local grammar school has been almost 'hijacked' by such people who can afford extra tuition. I always understood that grammar schools were for the more gifted student that perhaps had parents that could not afford to send them to a private school. Our local grammar school has become very elitest. i get the impression that the way i feel is pretty standard of most mothers of girls where i live (if your child isn't tutored however bright they are they stand no chance of getting into the local grammar school).

Confidence's post suggests a very different environment.

Schools like Tiffin do not take the top 25%. It is more likely the top 2% or less. There is no catchment so kids will come from as far away as Brighton.

It is not correct to say that if a child does not pass the alternative will be fine. In inner London, some schools take a lot of children who come in with low levels of attainment, and struggle to provide a safe learning environment, especially for the more able. Even some parts of Kingston have poor schools, and unlike with the Grammars you are expected to stay in catchment.

With a shortage of school places there are very few schools which will take out of catchment children, and then only if they are religious or very very academic.

The pressure on places is severe and hence the pressure on children. Living further away meant we were reasonably ambivalent about our son being offered a place. If we had lived in Kingston it would have mattered more and we would have felt obliged to ensure he was on a level playing field, which would have meant tutoring. I assume that is the position OP is in.

I think having to sit next to a pool of vomit would merit at least a couple of additional points. My son was just very grateful that he was not in a position where he had to pass. Independent school tests (13+ pre-test, or 11+ for our daughter) were relaxed in comparison. Pity about the fees.

Weren't the police called to Wallington Grammar a couple of years ago when it turned into a near riot? Tiffin was more like Day of the Zombies.

I think the Tiffin situation is extreme, and gets fuelled more and more each year by the increasing hysteria and herd mentality of parents. Even 13 years ago, at my ante-natal group, it was already a topic of conversation - for some reason parents assumed that wouls be the aspiration for their child before it as even born - doubt any of them had actaully visited the school at that point, or considered that that particular school might not necessarily be the best place in 11 years time for for that person gestating...

I loved the Day of the Zombies and Day of the Triffids descriptions for the Tiffin exam! I have a DD1 in Tiffin Girls in year 10 and DD2 failed to get in last year. DD1 was not tutored but did practice at home for 3 months and DD2 similar. I did offer DD2 the option of a tutor but she declined. It has now become an arms race. The vast majority of DD1's friends were tutored, she considers 1 or 2 girls in the class are not as clever as the others and probably over-tutored. DD2 is the brighter child - though she is dyslexic. I think the successful tutors only accept clever kids and coach them in the difficult vocabulary and techniques. I have heard that some have built up a test bank of GLA questions over the years and the kids are therefore likely to be familiar with some of the questions in the actual exam. In my opinion it is virtually impossible to get into Tiffin Girls without intensive tutoring. Yes this is unfair. I have heard there is a test produced by Durham University that it is not possible to tutor directly for - why don't the schools adopt that? Or change to a different one every couple of years? Actually I think the school quite likes tutored kids because they are their parents are likely to be highly motivated and hard working!

@ mattelie,

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"In any case, the answer to comprehensives being rubbish is to improve them, not to propagate a system which creams off the top whatever percentage, thus making it even harder for the upper schools who are denied access to the most academically able in grammar school areas."

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How does "creaming off" the brightest pupils make it harder for non-grammar schools? Surely it should make it easier, since those schools will then be teaching to a less varied intake and more able to pitch the level of lessons to more of the kids. One of the hardest things in any school is teaching to widely varying abilities.

If you mean it makes it harder for those schools to achieve the same results, then yes, of course it does. But only an idiot would expect a non-grammar school in a selective area to get similar results to a grammar school (which is not to say that there aren't plenty of idiots in government, imposing completely ridiculous and irrelevant targets on schools with no regard for such issues.)

But I can't help thinking that people somehow expect the most academically able children and their families to make schools good FOR all the others, and that their buggering off to be in their own schools is some kind of betrayal. I really don't see how that follows - especially when there are issues of behaviour, bullying and anti-excellence culture that work towards bringing such students down and preventing them getting the education they deserve.

If there are social and cultural factors that mean non-grammar students and their families are not making their schools work, then it's up to THEM to change those factors (with necessary assistance from the government - and they get just as much funding as grammar schools). I'm perfectly happy to pay the taxes that are necessary towards any programme for achieving that, but I don't see why my kids, who are perfectly capable of behaving, listening and working towards a good education, should have theirs ruined just so they can be around diluting the influence of those that aren't.

@ Needmoresleep,

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"Confidence's post suggests a very different environment.

Schools like Tiffin do not take the top 25%. It is more likely the top 2% or less. There is no catchment so kids will come from as far away as Brighton.

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Yes, that was definitely part of my point. It needs to be remembered in any debate about selection that there is a huge difference between selection of the top 25% as in Kent, and selection of a very tiny minority as elsewhere. Here there still ARE plenty of kids who get into grammar with little or no coaching. A low-income single mother friend of our has sent all three of her daughters to the local grammar with none whatsoever, just by being totally supportive and behind their work at (state) primary school (and of course they must be reasonably bright to begin with). This is what I meant about how what people presume is about money, if often more about culture. This woman doesn't have a penny, but she is totally serious about bringing her kids up the same way we do ours.

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"It is not correct to say that if a child does not pass the alternative will be fine. In inner London, some schools take a lot of children who come in with low levels of attainment, and struggle to provide a safe learning environment, especially for the more able. Even some parts of Kingston have poor schools, and unlike with the Grammars you are expected to stay in catchment."

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Indeed. However, one has to wonder: If schools like Tiffin or Latymer are only taking the top 1-2% in their area, how much difference are they actually making anyway? If those kids were instead spread out among all the comprehensives instead, what difference would it make? Another half a dozen bright kids in each school, in some cases completely dominated by a non-academic culture anyway.

And furthermore, if there are so few kids (in total percentage terms) going to these superselective grammars, how much "injustice" is actually created by the tutoring culture anyway? Probably most of the kids would have got in anyway, but dint of natural ability plus general family upbringing and background. There might be a few that don't get it while a few that are less "innately able" do (if one could even measure such a thing in a way that discounts all factors of family upbringing). Of those that don't, many will end up in decent or excellent comps anyway and its debateable how much difference the non-existence of the grammar would make to these. I'm not saying the system is perfect, but I'm not convinced the injustice is as widespread in reality as people make out.

Isn't this largely about envy, because the system is delivering something fantastic to a small number of kids? I can see how this might seem unfair, but unless there are actual REASONS to believe that scrapping it would substantially benefit the others (and that the benefits would outweigh any disadvantages), then such a campaign just seems like sour grapes to me. I'd rather keep those parts of current provision that are working well and then work to improve those that aren't.

The main problem with Tiffin having no catchment area and thus taking very few local DCs is that it takes funding away that should be used for local kids.

Consequently there is now a chronic shortage of secondary places in North Kingston.

seeker, you seem to want to throw out the baby with the bathwater - because some children who attend grammars are coached beyond their natural potential, all grammars should be abolished? That is a huge leap of logic.

A more logical conclusion would be that the tests should be redesigned to be more cram-proof. As someone who writes similar tests for a living, that's a piece of piss to do. Many schools are now looking more in that direction, and varying the tests they provide.

The fact is that - as you correctly state - grammars were set up to help the poor but bright - my family is full of people who fit into that description and to whom grammars made an enormous difference - there was just no alternative that would have given them (well, us - I'd put myself into this group) equivalent life chances.

If you get rid of grammars, you remove that chance for so many people.

If grammaer are going to offer a leg up to the less well off as they used to they need radical reform.

At the moment a lot of gramar school are just a free alternative to private schools for the middle classes.

Eek, grammar, not grammaer!

You can tell I went to a comp!

Abolishing grammars won't solve the problem unfortunately. Whilst I agree they are unfair and would actually quite like to see the back of them, we wouldn't suddenly have a fairer system that addresses the social divide without them. Middle class children will be in the top sets and/or the better schools (the top comps are allegedly even more socially selective than grammars). The class divide starts way before 11: at 5 the poorest 20% children are a year behind the middle class ones and by 11 they don't stand a chance coaching or no coaching.

But you'd probably find that the privately educated/over coached performed worst.

All the thickest kids at my grammar, without exception, came from private schools. And had a miserable experience. They would have been much better off in a good comp.

"A more logical conclusion would be that the tests should be redesigned to be more cram-proof. As someone who writes similar tests for a living, that's a piece of piss to do. Many schools are now looking more in that direction, and varying the tests they provide."

Actually, don't Tiffin do that? I was under the impression that they keep the nature of their tests very close to their chest, and don't publish any kind of support or preparation material. Children can only be "prepared" in a very general sense, which they would be anyway through tutoring for schoolwork in general.

Confidence and Grovemum make good points about the arms race. Probabaly it is the same children that would have got in anyway, but the stakes are raised so they all have to work harder to achive the same end result. The tutors have no magic tricks or inside knowledge, other than the sort of anecdotal stuff you can learn at the school agte anyway - indeed the most famous Tffin Tutors (the 'W's) publish their own VR test books, which are excellent, and all the stuff re different types to identify is available on the 11+ website forums foc. But parents pay money because they believe in the power of a mgic weapon ( a bit like the reason I buy nicely pakaged face cream to make me more beautiful than lidl's own brand - intellecutually I know it is rubbish, but just kinds want to believe paying moeny will make it work better...

Can I just add a personal anecdote? My godson (GS) is at Tiffin (y13) and loves the school, and the ethos and is doing very well.
My son is at the local , well-regarded comp, also in y13. Both boys have very similar GCSE and AS results, both are applying to similarly rated Unis (2 of the 5 are the same), and both have similar offers which they are both expected to achieve.
DS will leave school with 1 AS less than GS, but his is in Geography, whereas GS will have AS in General Studies and Critical Thinking, neither of which are recognised by tthe Uni departments he is applying to - but gee, they look good on Tiffins stats!

Oh and DS loves his school too!

Well said, frumpy!

I think people often look at the GCSE stats for comprehensive and high schools and panic, forgetting that a school which takes all comers on distance criteria is goin to have a lot of kids wil will struggle to get A-Cs at GCSE, so the stats look bad.

The thing to do is look at Value Addeed - our local high school looks dreadful on straigs A-C measures, but does brilliant things in terms of vslue added, and supporting the less able kids - as well as getting the more able ones their A-Cs.

Yes, and would DS have done better at a Grammar school? Prob not.

Would GS have done worse at this comp? Prob not.

But, we have had no angst about 11+, DS does not think he is "better" than anyone elae, and at his schcool all chidren are valued and all talents and gifts are celebrated, rather than a purely academic focus.Must sign off now as am supposed to be packing for hols and we leave in 6 minutes

I know several people who got into Tiffin with no tutoring other than practicing lots of past papers (I do believe you need to do this with nvr/vr if from the state sector as you wouldn't have seen them before). That was this year's intake. However, they all had university educated parents!

We have chosen not to partake in the whole grammar nonsense and are sending dd (hopefully) to our local school. If you don't like it, opt out of that system! It can be done and the more people that do it, te more representative the normal schools become.

Tiffin tbh doesn't skew the local area that much as it takes so many children out of the area imo.

Practising ffs bloody autocorrect on phone

foxinsocks we did do that with our first child. Now we are being told there are not enough children who want to take languages, join clubs, study three sciences and as a result all these things are going to be taken away.

Notevenamouse, that had already happened at our local nonselective schools. Choice of languages, three sciences etc - "not enough demand". So we sent ds to a grammar in the neighbouring LEA where the curriculum best suits his needs. Our own LEA did not provide that type of education for boys (OK, one girls' comp did).
It's not quite so pressurised where we live though - 8 grammars and one superselective all within reasonable travelling distance. Not quite Tiffin levels of anguish and polarisation.

I'm not sure ours has ever had 3 sciences. But I went to school in a country where I did combined science and came back to the Uk and did separate science at a level and was fine. Our secondary schools don't have 6th forms so I am not too concerned about what they can and can't do as long as there is a wide selection, which there is at ours!

Some time ago I mentored a child in our local, then badly failing, comp. She was a very bright child from a large family whose parents had never learnt English, nor been employed.

She was limited to only 7 subjects at GCSE, and the most stretching GCSE math syllabus was not taught. (At the time the school had 93% on free school dinners.) She and her lovely group of friends, most of whom faced challenging home conditions, would have breezed through an 11+ which took the top 25%, and would have thrived in a more academic environment. But the day they entered the school their chances of, say, reading medicine, were lost.

I was told by her Head of Year was that my volunteer role was to persuade her that she should go to University. If she had been in an environment where her some of peers' parents had been to University this would not have been an issue.

Tiffin and other grammars would have already been out of her reach as she could not have afforded the train fare, even if she had known about the exam and had been able to arrange her own tutoring. Better schools tend to be in leafy suburbs. What we might need is a selective school in the inner city which allows bright kids from poor backgrounds to succeed. Talking about it at University level is too late. The ambition and aspiration need to be cultivated, and opportunity, needs to be there at 11.

Yes, similar situation here Needmoresleep. Our comp is actually an excellent school in terms of value added. However, the intake is like the one you have mentioned. They do extra classes before and after school (the teachers do this even though they don't have to) they offer snacks to lure kids in. However, because there is not enough of a mix kids like my dd and her one or two very academic friends are missing out. Apparently, we can take her to other schools if we want to and they will let her do lessons. We would have to take time out from work to drive her to the lessons and then back to school, some people do this. I cannot. It is quite ridiculous we just want a decent comp with a mixed intake. DD would like to be a doctor but with the school problems and the uni fees she is losing hope. We may have to take her out of school. She would have more chance doing evening classes.