Tutoring for 11+ or not?

[MacaroonMama]

Hi All,

First post on this board so apologies if it should be on another board.

DS1 is just 9, in Y4 of a SE London C of E all-through school. He is exceptionally bright (from teachers not just me being doting mum!) Also I am a secondary teacher (on extended mat leave) and can see how he is way ahead in many subject areas.

So anyway, we are thinking of applying to a grammar school, probably just one as otherwise distance will be too much (no car). Just wondered if we should tutor or not? I think we should go through some past papers to familiarise him with the style of test, but surely if he needs masses of coaching, he shouldn't really be thinking of grammar school?

Any thoughts? DH and I both went to (and have taught in) comprehensives so we are unfamiliar with the system.

Thanks for any suggestions

Oh and if you believe the "everybody does it so you have to too" argument then clearly you would not score highly in a test of critical thinking, though I do appreciate how the angst tends to get in the way of that......

That’s very interesting whatwouldrondo, and helpful. Parents at our school start tutoring far too early, so i’m going to take that on board.

Agree about the Valium in tea too.

Wow everybody is from Birmingham-so am I. My DD passed the grammar school tests. No tuition but 1 hour every Sunday on Bond/CGP books for a year. Plus a few timed tests. You can do it yourself if you have the time,

I further support the need that it is about technique and exam skills, not ability if your son is able. My State primary DS had Mum and Dad 'tutoring and passed to go into a selective independent. Not super selective and not London or a grammar school area, but selective all the same, ie we know of kids that didn't pass. We stated the obvious- read the question, write clearly, think clearly, move on if you are stuck. We used Bond papers for VR and NOR as this isn't something a state primary kid will ever have encountered before. The main advantage to us 'tutoring ' over paying for a tutor(apart from the cost, obvs) was that we could fit it into his week when he was most receptive. If he just had a slot every Saturday, some sessions would have been a waste of time, he was tired, grumpy, just not in the mood. We had a gently emforced understanding that he shoukd aim for one VR practice, one NVR practice, a set of maths questions and one comprehension a week in the 6 months up to the exam. Some weeks this worked some weeks this didn't. But he passed, and we all became closer actually and have a better understanding of how he works best, hopefully useful for later exams. He also wanted to go to the Indy school and realised early on how working hard can help you achieve your goals. As you are a teacher, and your DC is a bright kid, I'd home tutor if you can get one on one time with him.

You know best how your child will react. DD would have hated having a tutor and it would have made her feel under more pressure. She was however a child who sometimes chose to do maths questions "for fun" instead of eg reading at bedtime so it was relatively easy to drift into 11+ practice books.

So she did lots of practice questions in Y5, with DH or I occasionally having to explain concepts she hadn't met at school, then a few practice papers the summer before tests.

She could probably have got slightly higher marks if professionally tutored but I did not want her to be the one who just scraped in due to tutoring. It seems to have worked as she is top half of class.

Thanks everyone for all your thoughts. Lots to process here!

Yes we are just over the border into Bromley (i.e. A couple of streets away from Lewisham borough which is where ours are currently at school) so we have St Olave's to look at (someone mentioned area).

I hate all the competitiveness! Have already deflected lots of playground questions with 'oooh that's a long way off...' etc.

As DS1 is the kind of boy who does maths problems, sudoku, scrabble etc for fun, I think I may start by going through the different kind of tests with him and looking at the textbooks - thankfully he likes learning with me (well, at the moment!) so perhaps we will begin with this and then maybe find a tutor for just a few sessions nearer the time. I can see how someone experienced would be valuable. And also how money does make the situation unfair. I currently wrk as a tutor but for GCSE/A level so I guess every hour I work could go towards his tuition!

Again thanks so much all, and hello to the lovely Brummie moms and dads

I think I live down the road from you! My ds is currently in year 7 at Wallington Grammar where he is very happy. We used the Bond and CGP books at home and did a really good 11+ summer school for a week in the holidays before year 6, plus some tutoring from mid year 5 (although I booked the tutor 6 months earlier as she had a waiting list). He was the brightest in his year at the state primary but still didn't pass with flying colours - only just got by! PM me if I can help.

I love the people saying they didn't tutor, but they "prepared" the children and got them going to summer schools, mock sessions, went through papers at home for a year. It's all tutoring, whether you pay a tutor or do it yourself. Tutoring is just another word for teaching.

Do you think children shouldn't work for things they want? It's OK for kids to work hard at their music, rugby, gymnastics, but there is some kind of weird stigma against working at academics.

My sons got into a grammar school (Wilson's School) from state primary and the tests contain maths done at the end of year 6 when the exam is at the beginning of year 6. Of course they need to be taught it rather than trying to figure it out during an exam. Even the children at the top of the class won't necessarily have covered the work. We did a mixture of working with us and a paid tutor.

Yes, I do think you should work with him if you want him to get in. St Olaves is hugely competitive. Wilson's is a similar school and my sons are doing very well there so the "anyone tutored is always at the bottom of the grammar school" is rubbish. Lots of children are tutored and don't get in. It's not magic. They still need to be intelligent.

St Olave's is very competitive. After the bad press they got in the papers, this year's 11+ exams became crazy difficult, much more so than previous years. You will need tutoring AND a very bright child to get in AND a child that will not lose a single point through carelessness.

My dc fall down on the last hurdle, if not the second one. If you have a child who is prone to making careless mistakes and not checking their answers or not reading questions correctly, no amount of tutoring is going to help.

Gosh it is a minefield!!! We are only considering St Olave's as it would be best journey wise, and I am thinking of going to this June's Open Day, as if we think it not suitable for DS1, we don't need to do tutoring etc in Y5 only to find in the summer of that year that we don't like the school!

I know from GCSE and A level teaching that technique is important - and I guess even more so for the 11+. That is what a tutor would help with that I would feel inexperienced to teach. Part of me thinks I am bonkers even considering the whole thing now!

Helpful to have the opinions on St Olave's, thank you.

Mrs fantastic, it’s absolutely true children need to be prepared to stand any chance. I would still say myDS was not professionally tutored, because 1) I could not access the inside track on the specialist grammar school tutors and there is a degree of secrecy and exclusivity in accessing them and 2) We did not have a huge amount of disposable income and it appears some of these tutors can command up to £40 per session.
Therefore we did our best as a family, I swallowed my pride and asked a teacher ( not tutor ) friend to take him into the sessions she was doing with her DD, I read the 11 plus forums, spent over £100 on bond, CGP books etc, did SGS the mock test etc. It’s still accurate to say he Wasn’t professionally tutored and yes I’m proud of what we achieved and I think others can do the same as long as DCs are able and motivated.

Yes, go to the open days in yr 4 so you can decide if it’s a path you wan to go down. I’d go to all the schools so you can compare and get a feel.

I didn’t employ a tutor as such, but a friend who is an ex-teacher did an hour a week with each of mine, so they were still tutored. I wouldn’t put a child into the exam without prep and I would highly recommend sitting at least one mock exam simply for the experience of queuing up, going into a room full of strangers - and for you too. I admit I wanted to cry handing DC1 over.

Preparing for the day itself is really important. It doesn’t NEED to be stressful, but parents get so bloody worked up about it. I see it in year 2/3 parents.

Keep calm, keep a lid on it and step away from the hysteria is my advice.

Mrs Fantastic There is tutoring and tutoring though. I have no problem with children having appropriate support to prepare them for the exams tailored to what is actually required. My own DD had a cosy 1 to 1 session one night a week with her Year 5 teacher for the two terms before the exams with biscuits and cocoa to help her with the bits of the Year 6 curriculum she hadn't yet covered. She enjoyed it and it was a positive and inspiring experience. Given the exams she sat for private school she thinks that doing those lateral thinking IQ puzzle books was probably as helpful as anything else she did. The test for the superselective was then only reasoning tests and she easily scored exactly what you would have predicted her to score from her previous reasoning tests done with Ed Psychs and got in well up the rankings. It would never have even occurred to me to put her through years of repetitive practice for the tests, please explain what educational value there is, apart from boredom, in putting your child through that. Reasoning tests are for evaluating ability not developing useful skills / educating. In the end the schools introduced tests of Maths and English as well because they were getting pupils who having spent years preparing for the reasoning tests instead of focusing on their education, were behind with their literacy and numeracy skills. The school also has an issue with pupils needing ongoing tutoring, and with mental health issues in pupils who have been subjected to long running pressure. It fails to represent not just the socio economic profile of the surrounding community but also the ethnic profile because middle class parents from certain ethnic groups were more prepared to subject their children to that sort of intensive mind numbing preparation.

At this end of London a tutoring racket has grown up around the supposed requirements of the entrance exams of the superselectives. Tutors actively encourage an air of mystery around their supposed ability to tutor to the exam. Their names and telephone numbers are given out by a hairdresser in a particular row of shops and then passed around secretly between parents. They actively encourage Chinese whispers about the requirements of the exams and then fill up their kitchen tables as tutoring factories. It used to start in Year 5, now it is Year 4 and even 3. They have been known to be waiting outside the schools after the tests in order to get fresh feedback on the questions which all helps cultivate the air of mystique around their abilities. That they test pupils before they accept them makes it a self fulfilling prophecy. How many of the pupils would have scored highly anyway because they have the raw ability the tests are designed to measure? In vain the schools point out that their tests are designed to minimise the efficacy of tutoring. And private prep schools come under pressure from parents to do practise papers ever younger. It is frankly bonkers and much more a product of parental angst than the requirement of the tests themselves. However the fact remains that subjecting your child to the pressure and boredom of these tutoring factories can to put it kindly not be a positive experience for your child, and I know many parents who regret it.

So of parents are actually thinking about what is actually required and then finding a positive way to support their child either themselves or with a friend or good teacher that is a good thing surely? Rather than blindly following the Chinese whispers and angst ridden competitive pressures cultivated in the playground at pick up, or wherever parents get together (my husband even found it happening at work) about how soon you have to start, which tutor you have to get etc etc

He will need prep for the non verbal reasoning, and for exam techniques to build up speed and confidence.

I used to invigilate for 11 plus and the kids were very much in two camps. The heavily prepped and tutored who champed at the bit when we went through the rubric and the practice questions then sped through the paper like greyhounds, (some of them turned up in school uniform to get themselves in the mood) , and the ones whose first sight of a non verbal reasoning paper was on the test morning. Panic in their eyes poor little things.

There are tricks and techniques to many 11 plus papers, if you are going to put your child through it then they need to be prepared otherwise they are not starting off on a level playing field with the tutored ones , who might not be as bright but have been taught to the test.

I agree with viques.

Please do not enrol your child to take a competitive exam hoping the child will by some miracle wing it only to end up being the deer in the headlights eating the dust of the greyhounds sprinting down the track (borrowing vique's expression and mixing metaphors terribly).

It is not fair to the child. 11+ is so tutored that there is almost no chance of a child being able to make it on raw intelligence. It does not have to be a professional tutor just so long as there is some past exam paper practice. However, tutors do add value in teaching which exams test on speed and techniques on how not to get stuck. Even just practising filling in that tiny answer grid helps.

viques *
There are tricks and techniques to many 11 plus papers, if you are going to put your child through it then they need to be prepared otherwise they are not starting off on a level playing field with the tutored ones , who might not be as bright but have been taught to the test.

This is the mystique I highlighted in my post. There may be tricks and techniques that you could use to do better in reasoning papers but they are not rocket science for a person / child who has the reasoning ability, that is the whole point of the test in the first place. I have worked with the psychologists who develop these tests for years on their use in our recruitment process, any person / child who is intelligent enough will work them out for themselves. Anybody can go through a practise paper with their child and discuss the questions they got wrong and how they could have got to an answer. Tutors do not have any secret weapons not available to a parent working with their child on a few tests.

The tutoring industry (and I wonder how many posting here have a financial interest) seek to undermine parental confidence.

I don't know what part of the country you are in viques but I cannot believe many if any children go into a test having never seen a reasoning test. The schools advise you to do a sensible number of practise papers (single figures). The question is only if parents have the confidence to do that or give in to subjecting their child to years of them and giving ££££s to the tutors? It might make a difference at the borderline as a result of the grammar schools not investing in making them rigourously unpredictable but if your child is bright enough no tutor knows a magic secret that will make the difference between success and failure........

I bought DS a practice test book with 8 tests, which he worked through over a few weeks untimed. He sat the late test in March as we had just arrived in the UK, and was offered a place in May.

He had some previous experience as he had sat a similar test in year 4 for a year 5 and 6 selective class, he worked through a practice book for that too.

Oh my goodness, I feel I have waded into a minefield!

The secret tutors, the stuff outside the school gates - wow! Crazy! I also feel guilty as I actually AM a tutor but for GCSE and A level, so not this level of crazy...

I think we will be lucky in that I am not many at our school will be doing the grammar stuff. When DH reads this thread, I am now not sure we will either!

So in essence - we need the boy to feel prepared but can probably do this ourselves (DH is an ex-teacher too), and then maybe we could get a tutor for a few sessions to make it a bit more interesting for DS and for some top tips from a pro.

I feel sick already! He is the kind of kid who could remain oblivious to the hype if we really play it down. That is probably the way to go. 'Just a title test, darling...' Also - if he doesn't get a place, he has one at his current school as it is all-through (state not private) and lots of his current classmates and friends will be going there. It is def not the be all and end all. Thank God!

Little test not title test, sorry...

We are in Bromley and prepping for St Olave’s with a tutor. I honestly don’t know how anyone would get in without tutoring, it’s massively competitive and the standard is ridiculously high. Apparently most children will get close to 100% in the stage 1 maths paper and the level for the English is also very high. My son goes to a well regarded prep and although they do prep them for 11 plus it’s mostly geared towards private school tests which are slightly easier.

Just as a matter of interest these are the sample papers for St Olaves. This is what is required and OP I see nothing there that a bright and motivated 11 year old would not lap up in terms of the challenge, or that a parent could not support them with with. Bearing in mind that the harder questions that require the problem solving skills / creativity that can't be tutored and that bright children will especially enjoy (and the school is very clear that is what they are testing) will attract more marks.

These schools must feel like they are talking to the hands

eg

The first and most important thing to understand about our Entrance Test in English is that
there really isn’t anything that can be done to ‘cram’ or ‘revise’ for it. The things it tests are,
on the whole, skills and habits rather than factual knowledge - things, in other words, which
a child picks up over a period of years rather than weeks. And this is quite deliberate. We
want to see what candidates are capable of without any special preparation.
What we don’t want, however, is for good candidates to come unstuck simply because they
got lost in all the instructions or panicked at the sheer unfamiliarity of the tasks. Hence this
sample paper, which has the same format as the real thing. Your son will almost certainly
find it useful to work through these ‘taster’ questions. This will familiarise him with the
procedure, and thus, with any luck, reduce the anxiety and confusion - thereby making it
easier for him to do himself justice on the day.

The Mathematics Test Paper will consist of around 30 questions of generally increasing difficulty.
The paper will last 1 hour. The basis of the syllabus will be the concepts within the National
Curriculum up to and including Level 4 standard. However, the problems set will often involve
manipulation and application of these concepts in what may be unfamiliar situations. Such
questions seek to test candidates’ problem-solving abilities.

www.saintolaves.net/uploads/ckeditor/attachments/278/Sample_Questions_2015_-_Maths_and_English.pdf

For St Olaves, the most recent math test (i.e. 2017 paper ) was exceptionally difficult compared to previous years. My ds said he wasn't even taught the concepts at his school, which is not a prep school but an academically competitive independent. The top boy in his year, who is a whizz at math, said the same.

I agree with what surpriseeggs said. 100% for math for the first round sounds about right to make it to the next round - there are 2 rounds of tests.

I reckon for St Olaves, for the math section at least, the child needs to do lots of practising and extension work outside of the syllabus, whether with a tutor or a committed parent. The boys who get in must be phenomenally bright and motivated.

However, the problems set will often involve manipulation and application of these concepts in what may be unfamiliar situations. Such questions seek to test candidates’ problem-solving abilities.

I am no slouch when it comes to math but some of the harder questions like in www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk/downloads can also stump me or throw me off because I did not read the question correctly. However, I can see that with practice, it is easier to get into the head of person who devises the questions and work out a pattern to the mental tricks and strategies they employ.

Try the questions in the link, if only for fun. It is not the St Olaves test but still challenging for me, who could be rubbish afterall