*Miggsie
If you need to do 2 hours work a night to prepare for the 11+ then automatically your child should not be doing it./
DC1 spent much the same time. By the time Y6 state primary sratred, sailed through and attained 6s and 5s. Did no work, and just played on the PS4 for hours on end, everyday.
*OneMoreMum
Surely Portico is (if genuine) just demonstrating why the grammar system is so damaging for children, and not just those who don't get in.
Her poor kids are spending huge amounts of their time desperately trying to prepare for an exam that will shape their whole future, imagine the expectation riding on them in that exam! If they fail it will be crushing, plus it leaves them with the apparently undesirable school as the only fallback unless they can pull some cash out and go private.
Clearly not all children have access to either huge amounts of input from their parents, funding for a private education or indeed above average ability at age 11 so this is not equitable, the only equitable system is a good comprehensive school available to all, where all children are taught according to their ability.
This is not a judgement against individual parents who have no choice but to operate in the system they find themselves in, but an argument about the system as a whole as being wrong.*
I agree but there are no decent comps near me. That being said, a Super-selective Grammar is by far the best.
*anothermakesthree
I really don't want to sound too critical Portico, it does appear you have already stirred up quite strong emotion on this thread.
However, I think it is important to present an alternative and perhaps (as I see it) more rational approach to sitting exams for the super selectives ( my ds is at a super selective in Barnet..bit of a give away).
Notsuretoday is absolutely correct in that the schedule you describe is not something all families embark upon. Some families take the view that a small amount of prep (2 hours a week, spread over the week) will suffice, if the child is naturally bright enough to gain entry to the school. If they don't 'pass', so be it. It was entirely my sons decision to sit for the school, he loved it and knew he wouldn't be able to go to our local school (not of the required faith).
What I have come to realise is that those parents that talk of grammars being 'hot houses', tend to be those parents that tutored their children so heavily, the momentum needs to be continued once the child was at the grammar. Homework that is supposed to take 30 mins, takes that child 60 minutes.
I do actually agree with some of your comments Portico, however I'm afraid you lost me when it became obvious that you are not actually in support of grammar schools, as they were originally intended, but what some have become.
Couldn't give a s### if I have stirred up a hornet's nest; it would be very boring if we all agreed.
I am in favour of grammar schools for what they become. Unashamedly so!!*
*farewelltoarms
Whilst Portico's schedule is completely bonkers, I do disagree with those who say 'no tutoring' is needed when said by parents with children at a private/prep school. If your child is a class of 15, mostly academically above average children then surely that's a form of long-term tutoring in comparison to my children in a class of 30 with some very tricky kids. I often hear prep/private school parents bragging that their children had 'no tutoring' apart from a 'few hours' of past papers with their parents as if they're morally superior when all tutoring in our case is trying to do is to even the playing field a bit. And then there are the prep school parents who are tutoring on top, sometimes at the recommendation of the schools themselves.
My ds is doing some independent school exams in January. I'm now terrified that, despite his hour a week with a general tutor, he's going to fail because he doesn't do 45 mins every morning with a word list and then working from 4 until 9.30 (with some breaks, the slackers) every night. He doesn't even do that total in a week with under a month to go...*
Don't worry. It is easy to prep for an Independnet School that it is for a CEM 11+. So, calm yourself down. 
farewelltoarms
Please don't worry Another - I certainly never use the word 'fail' in this house. Am exaggerating in response to Portico's rather amazing revelations. Quite frankly if that is what it takes to get into a selective school (private or otherwise) then I want no part of it. It's amazing how all the children I know in rather normal comprehensives seem to manage to compete for university places at all and yet they do and in fact seem to outdo all the ones I know in selectives.
Which rather amazing revelations?????????????