Things you wished you had known about the 11 plus process

[Goposie]

For me, that the numbers applying are crazy and the sheer odds stacked against getting in.

And if you want to share such kids out comps with their selection by property are the last place you look to.😂Unless you’re thinking of giving parents zero choice, doing random allocations for them alongside offering to spend millions on bussing kids everywhere. Doubt either would be popular in the ballot box.

Yes there are many DC at my DDs school with low wages and split up families, parents who have died and all sorts of stresses (safeguarding) etc.

So to my point Upthread @BertrandRussell how to ensure Grammar Schools don’t just cater for the middle class tutored DC.

You can only take the test if your parents jointly earn less than £30k and you are automatically disqualified if you went to Private School.

Would that work? The tutored middle/upper classes also wouldn’t want their DC going to Grammar with all those DC with lower income parents either, so they probably wouldn’t cheat to get their DC in.

Just kidding obviously 😁

Might be an idea though to make it fairer. What do you think?

Then people could argue that it id unfair that DC of lower income parents have access to the education their DC can’t access.

In the scenario I would see as desiravble, all schools have different effective catchments for different groups, - so one school might have a larger catchment for PP pupils than others, a school in a poorer part of town would have a much smaller catchment for PP children but a much larger one for non-PP children. You could even encompass grammars in the process - as long as the %PP and %SEN was equal to all surrounding schools,using lower pass marks for these groups.

It would mean a bit of reshuffling of school transport, as some children would travel further

“I just think that Comps teach to the middle level and as people have said previously if DC get a 6 at Comp when they are capable of an 7/8 it doesn’t matter as long as the 4 kids are brought up to a 5.“

You obviously don’t know much about OFSTED inspection criteria then!

automatically disqualified if you went to Private School.

That is a move I have proposed before - that any child entering the private system should by that action be placed behind all other children (SEN, siblings, catchment) in the allocation for all state schools, and so would only be allocated a place in a grammar school if there were free places available once all other children had been allocated. The only exception would be transfer to Special Schools, for which different arrangements already apply.

No I don’t know much about Ofsted Inspection Criteria. Do explain?

I do know that DS’s comp was outstanding 8 years ago, hasn’t been inspected since and now like I say prides itself on not setting.

We have two schools serving the same catchmen( which includes areas of significant social deprivation). One school has routinely 0:1 or 2 PP children. The other has 37%. Guess which is the grammar school? And when you’ve guessed, put a spin on that situation which is positive for all children in the area and proves selection at 10 is a good thing.

I just think that Comps teach to the middle level

Um - this is a very, very out of date view. State schools are judged (well, by those who know - parents are slower to adapt) by the progress that ALL children make, not by how many 'pass'. A school currently gets BETTER progress marks by getting an able child to a 9 or 8 (if a 7 was expected) than they do for getting a child of medium ability from a 4 to a 5... look at the Progress8 documentation.

(Though tbh the change to 'giving higher progress marks to children getting the highest grades was, in fact, a way of 'adjusting' the initial Progress8 model, which had a LOT of grammars making very poor progress indeed...something the Tory government weren't terribly keen to see)

But PP isn’t that good a measure from what I have seen. There are plenty of people on equally low incomes who don’t qualify or apply for PP. Myself included.

Maybe there are some DC at the Grammar who would have gone to the other school whose parents are on equally low incomes. Now they have a chance their parents didn’t maybe.

From the link I posted above:
In England, the proportion of A to C grades fell from 68.8% last year to 66.6%. Top A* grades were down from 6.6% to 6.4%.
In Northern Ireland the proportion of these good passes increased slightly to 79.1% and top A grades rose to 9.3%.

NI may have a long tail of under achievers, but so does the rest of the UK. A 12% difference is massive and happens in part because of the diversity of schools, allowing more choice and a greater chance of finding a better fit for the individual child.

Well my DD’s schools progress 8 is a lot higher than the Comps this year. What does that tell you?

That they have a lot of children getting 8s and 9s who made good progress. Had they had a lot of children getting 5s and 6s who made the same amount of progress, their Progress8 would have been lower....

How much is the progress8 changed from the previous year? The previous year's had a 'fairer' step between each grade / mark in general.

From next year, with all numerical grades, the steps become fair again - sill be interesting to see what happens as it is once again (except for a very few legacy exams) even progress steps all the way down the grades.

But why was the Comps progress 8 not good then with the same measure?

borntobequiet, I have skim read the report you linked. It says nothing about the this underachievement being the downside of the selective system. Have I missed something?

The progress 8 was also higher at DDs school the previous year.

Where we are a lot (not all) of the Primaries are a lot lower in terms of Sat results etc than in other places in the country. We have a lot of good or requires improvements primaries rather than outstanding like in London etc.

In the outstanding primary school which gets the largest amount of DC into the Grammar (very posh area), only 5% of DC got exceeding in the gov statistics and only 2% in DDs school and most of the Primaries didn’t get any DC exceeding and much lower numbers than the rest out the country even reaching 100.

Which probably explains why the Grammar School has a higher progress 8. But why is the Comp not the same?

Page 46, 10.3.11
www.ulster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/223409/2000_The_Effects_Of_The_Selective_System_Of_Secondary_Education_In_Northern_Ireland_Main_Report.pdf

Lots of sad things in that report...

Teachers in secondary schools also indicate that have to rebuild the self-confidence and esteem of many pupils who arrive in their schools feeling a sense of failure.

Secondary schools are accorded a lesser status than grammar schools in the eyes of most people.

Greentent

I can understand the sense of failure in the Grammar School areas where 25% of DC go to Grammar but in the area where it is 1 or 2 DC from each Primary why would the other 30 or so DC feel a sense of failure? 58 in my DDs school went to the same Comp, 2 went to Grammar.

I don’t think this applies to the schools in our area. At most 4 to 6 DC take it. 1 or 2 get in. Mostly they take it thinking they are unlikely to get in anyway as it is a SS.

Feeder school for Reeds?
Hi parents!
We are relatively new to the UK and I’m starting to feel VERY stressed by the secondary school ‘issue’ we are currently living in Kew and have found Reeds ( been to the open day - loved it) think it’s perfect for our son entering at +11 plus. How can we secure a place? We are Irish and choosing a secondary school there is as simple as putting your name down and then going for an interview 😓 Is it all down to a positive entrance exam/interview only 😬 or are there feeder schools in Cobham that give more hope of getting in? DS is bright but not that bothered academically but VERY sporty - his heart is set on the place and we don’t have a back up. Any advice would be great!

Tinty Yes I get that. It's the full grammar areas that are more problematic although I still don't agree with the need to have a separate school for …… "specially selected pupils".

MrsOCR You might be better off starting a new thread or checking out the special 11+ forums that exist.

Sorry new to the site and posted to the wrong area! 🙄😊

Tinty,

What are the %SEN and %PP for each school (Grammar and Comprehensive)?

As I will say again: unless the intakes are matched in terms of indices of deprivation (I agree %PP is a poor measure, but it's what we've got - and I have yet to see schools where %PP is high actually have very few deprived students and vice versa - the trends / comparisons are the same even if the absolute numbers of children can be disputed) and numbers of children with special needs, it is meaningless to compare outcomes.

As i’ve said before, I can see the argument for superselectives- although personally I’m not wholly convinced by it- and I agree that they have a minimal impact on their communities. However, campaigners for more grammar schools are generally talking about a more traditional Kent model, which is undeniably damaging. I wish there was a clearer way of distinguishing. That is one of the reasons I object so strongly to Kent High Schools being referred to as comprehensives.

I can see an argument for superselectives in areas of great economic deprivation, and open specifically to children living in such areas, with admission via the same type of system via which children are assessed for Special Schools - ie by need, assessment by Ed Psych or similar.

Those are the children who perhaps most need the boost given by a school designed with their academic needs in mind - not the sharp-elbowed middle classes who pay for coaching, but those living in communities where ambition may be low, where parental levels of education may be low, and where horizons for very bright children may otherwise be restricted.

can'tkeepawayforever that's an incredibly unhealthy suggestion.

Our grammar school takes Dc from a 50 mile radius which includes a number of areas of serious economic deprivation. The school leadership has put in place a series of measures to try to raise attainment at the primary level so that disadvantaged DC can pass the test (at which point they automatically go to the top of the list). The school is actively seeking out disadvantaged DC in the early years because the school has historically scooped up all disadvantaged DC who attain a high L5 (in old money) in Y6 and the exact problem is that far too few disadvantaged DC with academic potential have in fact been attaining a high L5, so there's been a pressing need to identify potential earlier and go in to the schools and support it. But to put those DC in a ghetto - no. They need to be in a school with a healthy social mix and not feel different. Academic ability is a good leveller and works.