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.

Selection favours the children of informed and organised parents.
Those are the parents who will go to church for X years beforehand, or will dig out info on 11+ and arrange tutoring or practice for it, etc.

With the 11+, by removing the top set of children from the other school (whatever you call it) you are potentially reducing the numbers of children at the other school academically able to take e.g. triple science or 2 languages to unviable levels. This then means the children at those schools who are capable but just missed passing the 11+, don't get the opportunities they need.

Children with a skewed profile, eg ace at maths but poor at English, also end up at the non-grammar, but with fewer peer group children in their maths set.

Super-selectives which only cream a few off each remaining school are much less of an issue as they don't impact the remaining schools.

Any sort of selection skews the intake to engaged, involved organised families. As a poster once said on here-if you had two schools in the same catchment and one took all comers and one required parents to learn to juggle the second school would get better headline results.

Super-selectives which only cream a few off each remaining school are much less of an issue as they don't impact the remaining schools.

Nor does a relatively small grammar surrounded by several much larger comps, both faith and non faith. Our local grammar has an intake of only 140 per year (30 of which come from a different town and 20 are borders from all over the country). The two faith schools have a combined intake of around 500. The remaining comps have an intake of maybe a thousand between them. The 90 locals at the grammar are pretty insignificant when there are a total of 1,500-2,000 in the area - spreading those 90 across the other local schools won't change anything in them - say 10 per school, 2 per form - irrelevant.

Kazzy If that really is the case, then the grammar sounds effectively like my understanding of a super selective? (Which as I understand it is the terminology for a school that takes the best performing regardless of distance, as opposed to the closest who get above a certain pass mark.)

Kazzy If that really is the case, then the grammar sounds effectively like my understanding of a super selective?

Why would you assume I'm lying????

But how can it be super-selective when it has relatively few entrants for the 11+ test (around two or three times the number of places) and has a 11+ entry mark of around 70-80%. That's nothing like the usual criteria for what people regard as super-selectives - people talk of 10 times applicants to places ratio and pass marks of 90%+.

Hey! I'm not assuming you are lying. I'm trying to understand the situation and the terminology.

What is the grammar's 'unique selling point'? It seems it isn't that desirable as people aren't clamouring to go there, and isn't that academic either? What would people miss out on if it closed or became a comp?

What is the grammar's 'unique selling point'? It seems it isn't that desirable as people aren't clamouring to go there

It's relatively unpopular because of several factors. Firstly, it's got very old buildings so dark and austere looking, few modern facilities (no new sports hall, no new theatre, no new sixth form centre etc). Secondly, it's got no bus service, so inconvenient to get there by bus meaning long walks etc. Thirdly, the other schools are far more modern and had money thrown at them in Blair's era with new buildings etc so more attractive to kids. Finally, the other schools are mostly rated good/excellent so lots of people are actually quite happy to send their kids to the comps (particularly the faith ones!) hence why generally people don't tutor their kids as if their lives depended on it! As for academic, it's actually highly academic and regularly appears at the top end of the state school league tables for GCSE and A levels each year - very high percentages of top grades in external exams.

“it's actually highly academic and regularly appears at the top end of the state school league tables for GCSE and A levels each year - very high percentages of top grades in external exams.“
Well, it will have, won’t it? Grammar schools do-by definition!

Well, it will have, won’t it? Grammar schools do-by definition!

I was responding to the poster who suggested it wasn't academic!

Getting excellent results from selected pupils does not necessarily equal being an academic school.

Bertrand - what are “excellent results”? Examination results?

In this particular case “excellent results” are exam results. That’s what Kazzy was talking about.

@BertrandRussell - ( selection ) It is the main driver of good headline results for a school. Which is how many people judge a school. Yes - yes - but also Ds's school had a really good way of dealing with those with SpLd - not all choose a school simply because - results. Results are fine but if they are not your DC's results well - great but .... I know I sound a little selfish here & I probably am. But a school which can deal very well with Spld etc I like. Because my child is in that field. Lucky those whose children don't have to deal with it.

Bertrand and presumably you're making the incorrect assumption that the only results the leading grammars get are academic results. I suspect that the HTs of those grammars would recoil at being in charge of the sort of sterile environment which concentrated purely on the academic. Which is why there's much more on offer at the leading grammars than purely grade 7-9s.

Which is why there's much more on offer at the leading grammars than purely grade 7-9s

Exactly, good academic results are a given. It's the "added value" where they really come into their own such as the wide range of clubs & societies, the sports teams, extra-curricula, alumni, ex-pupil events, etc. - all the things that comps could do if they valued them, but many don't bother.

“Bertrand and presumably you're making the incorrect assumption that the only results the leading grammars get are academic results”
No, I’m not. I was responding to a specific point made by Kazzy.

all the things that comps could do if they valued them, but many don't bother

To be fair to the comprehensives - my DC, in an academically semi selective faith school, does clubs and options (choir, debate, art, dance...). It is the preserve of the most school-loving students to commit to lots of extras.

“all the things that comps could do if they valued them, but many don't bother”

I know schools of all types with loads of clubs and few or none. I know a grammar school near me with no non sport after school activities and another with about 6 every day. Ds went to a very good History club at his secondary modern. My nephew plays the oboe in a comprehensive school orchestra. Ds’s best friend does amazing robotics at his grammar school robotics club. I honestly don’t think it’s a grammar/non grammar thing.

I honestly don’t think it’s a grammar/non grammar thing.

Ditto. DC's comprehensive has a VAST number of extra-curricular clubs, both at lunchtimes and after school, covering all possible fields of interest. My understanding of the nearest grammar is that they have very few after school clubs, due to the transport arrangements, though there is a reasonably active lunchtime programme.

It's very much a 'culture of the individual school' thing, and can change with time and with staffing changes, as staff-run clubs are largely voluntary and in the staff's own time, and as pupil-run clubs will depend on the nature of each year group.

Yes- my dd’s 6th Form had a Feminist Society for the two years she was in it....

Frankly I do find the characterisation implicit in “if they valued them” a problem. Writing off, as it does, the schools that the ovweqhelming majority of children in this country go to.

I think you also have to consider the nature and timetables of staff, physical facilities, and what staff are doing with their 'non-lesson' time, when considering why a school might run a club or not.

So if the school has a part-time music teacher, who teaches 3 mornings a week to accommodate all academic music, then there may well not be an after-school orchestra.

If many of the sports staff are also involved in the pastoral / behaviour side of the school - IME many seem to end up in roles like heads of house / year - then the availability of sports clubs may be affected by the number of child protection conferences, inclusion meetings, meetings with parents etc.

If the school has a single hall used for everything from exams and assemblies to parents evenings and careers fairs, then rehearsals by the drama club may be constantly disrupted.

Equally, if the staff are already straining every sinew for every child to get the grades needed, and all the pastoral care required for a challenging intake - food, clothing, places to sleep, removal from domestic violence, investigation of abuse, substance abuse etc etc etc - then it is quite possible that the extra extra overhead of a club may just be the bridge too far for some. Cubs are, after all, an optional extra. Safeguarding is not.

At my dd’s grammar school they had a long lunch break and a later finish so that clubs could be at lunch time. But they didn’t have academic “interventions” as they did at ds’s secondary modern so teachers had time and energy to run extra curriculars. As I said the comprehensives can’t be bothered narrative is deeply depressing. Of course some can’t. But the generalisation is awful.

It's probably worth making the point that primary schools - most of which are comprehensive in intake [in that most reflect the socio-economic and ability range of their catchment, though schools with faith-based admissions criteria of course do not] - differ wildly in the clubs they offer.

Some have almost none.

Some have a few.

Some have many running each day.

This is NOT because of their 'grammar; ''secondary modern'; or 'ciomprehensive' nature, just because they are different schools with different cultures, different pupil groups, different staff and ultimately different calls on their staff's time. In some schools, all teaching and some support staff run a club every week, in some schools, head s make the call that this is an unfair imposition on staff and have virtually no staff-led clubs. It just depends.