If your child is at a grammar school what did you do to get them in there? And when did you start? And do you have any tips?

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Ds is 9, will be 10 in October and is about to finish year 4 and go into year 5.

We are in catchment for a grammar school. I really want him to go there.

So, what do I have to do to get him in? Happy to sell my grandmother, soul etc to do it.

Am I too late already? Is tuition to get him through the 11+ a good idea? I think he's probably bright enough so I don't think it's a risk coaching to get him in and then him floundering but all and any advice much appreciated. Thanks.

We started in a very low key and unobtrusive way in the summer holidays before the test i January. The big problem for a lot of the children is time - you have to work very fast indeed, and you have to learn to leave the questions you don't know and try to come back to them later. That's very difficult. Also, most of them won't have covered all the necessary maths in time, so a bit of work there is needed. I took the view , though, that it dd needed tons of coaching to pass the test, she wouldn't have been able to handle grammar school anyway, hence the low key approach.

So fewer grammars in grammar areas than there were say in 1960 or 1970 then? That still surprises me because I thought grammar areas had retained all their grammars and those areas (most) with no grammars got rid of them all. So the competition should be the same as ever. Perhaps it was always as bad but as children posters never realised.

My parents went to grammar schools in about 1940, both of them in the state sector. I wonder how different our lives would have been had they failed the 11+.

There is a catchment area for our grammar btw.

most areas abolished completely in late sixties especially if local authority labour controlled
the area where DD goes to school had several grammars plus the secondary moderns now just two - one for each sex plus lots of very good comprehensives

No, Xenia, fewer grammars overall, so grammars in eg. Kent and Bromley will be importing children from over the borough boundary, with people being prepared to travel much further than will have been the case when grammars were universal. And in fact the grammars in the less salubrious parts of Kent are not always massively oversubscribed, generally taking the top 25-30% of the age group.

The places where the over-subscription and hence the competition has got really out of hand are areas where there are one or two grammar schools set in a huge swathe of indifferent to mediocre non-selective schools, eg. QE boys, Henrietta Barnett and Latymer in North london, Tiffin Boys' and Girls' in south London. For schools like that you really do need to be in the top 1-2% of the cohort to be confident of getting in (and staying afloat once in).

If those areas politically like grammar schools why not make a second tier then in Kent/those bits of London. My ex husband went to a grammar school - most children did in that area - there were 4 of them. Some of them were really pretty appalling schools and I suppose they probably had a pecking order.

Discussion about the number of grammar schools: In Birmingham I think there are 8 left - 3 for girls, 4 for boys and a mixed one. I know that a lot became comprehensive in 1977/78 (because I was in one at the time that became a comp), and these are all we have left. Competition for these places is very strong - much stronger than it was in the 60s - it has to be as there are fewer grammars and more kids.

Anyway, I digress. I have 2 kids at grammar and we had a tutor every other week for about 8 - 9 months before the test in November. She was a little old lady who had been a primary school teacher and she was lovely. I did the maths and English with the children and she did the verbal and non verbal reasoning, because I felt she knew more about it than me. In Birmingham most children have tutors to get into grammar school, so I wouldn't worry about it. If everyone else does it, you feel you have to do it yourself to level the playing field.

We used Bond books and also NFER papers.

By the way, neither of my children struggle at the school because of the tutor. They are both quite near the top of the class. It makes you feel that you didn't need a tutor, but I think having employed one just gives you a bit of extra peace of mind.

Good luck - and no you are not too late!

What absolutely stuns me, looking at all parties' attitudes towards grammars, is that they are all calling for the status quo or for abolishing grammars when parents are fighting tooth and nail to get their child into the remaining few. Why can't the politicians see that, where they exist, grammars are absolutely the school that parents want for their children, so why try to get rid/stop further creation of them??

And I really don't understand the argument that high schools "support" grammars or that grammars take funds from high schools. As far as I am aware, all schools receive the same funding per capita and we would always have the same number of children in school (regardless of what school they attend), so how does that work?

The grammars don't have any stage 1 or 2 special needs which cost extra in learning support staff but do not attract extra funding, there is no need to provide such a wide curriculum post 14 as there is less call for the practical subjects which comprehensives provide for their less academic children.

There are very few children with behavioural problems with unsupportive parents so less need to spend out on this.

Overall the cost per child therefore less

But many of the high schools have had extra funding thrown at them to boost their profiles. I know this is true of our local high schools. The equipment they have is just amazing compared with what the grammars have.

DS1's school many years ago was underperforming and consequently student numbers dropped. There was talk about merging it with one of the girls' grammars. However, they decided to turn it around, but pro rata over the years, because of the very low student numbers (down to only 40 at its worst), it has had very little money and what they did have could only be spent on teaching staff. So the fabric of the building and the equipment available to students is very much poorer than that at local high schools. But still parents fight to get their children into the school because of how it is performing now.

dayofftomorrow I am a Governor at my DSs Grammar school and we do have SEN pupils, plus pupils with behavioural difficulties (incl my DS3 but we won't go there ). We have also just acquired a large number of EAFL students as well.

In my ignorance how does a child with SEN pass the exams or are their needs very specific,

and most people I know with EAFL have much better english than my dyed in the wool english speaking neighbours

Find out what 11+tests they do
In our area they only did non verbal reasoning which ds1 aced.
We moved into the area with no coaching a week before the 11+
but we had the luxury (?) of an excellent tech college high school as well if he did not pass.

WWW am about to email you re where you live...

also would like to arm about too much coaching to just get in

DS is about to start yr 9 and several boys have fallen behind since halfway through yr7 and are now really struggling, many of these were coached for the exam.

Familiarity with the test atmosphere and ask teh school what prep if any they do with the children? Ds1's school did no pressure mock ups

dayofftomorrow it depends on the SEN. A lot of the kids with HFA spectrum disorders do well at tests and have high IQs but struggle in a classroom situation. Our EAFL students are from Nepal and a lot of them arrive with no English at all.

At DS's Grammar there are a few children with Aspergers (one in his class who he is friends with).

They have just had an (Outstanding) Ofsted report, and I was surprised to read that they do have SEN children (below average numbers) but have GREATER than average numbers of children with English as a second language. There is a large ethnic mix.

Tonbridge Grammar school has 25 places reserved for out of area students, the rest go to children living in Tonbridge. Ive looked in to this because we live in East Sussex & TGS is the only one my dd`s have a chance of getting into. TWGGS is only 25 minutes away, but they virtually never take girls from our area.

There are children with SEN in DS1's school. In his class alone, there are 3 boys with severe dyslexia and one who is profoundly deaf.

i live in an area where there are 3 good grammar schools - and very hot competition to access them. the 11-plus system here has recently been shown up as a total sham: only 8 different question papers recycled year after year, tutors also acting as invigilators, a headteacher of a prep school instructing his secretary to photocopy the papers, pupils who haven't finished in the allotted time being given extra time in prep schools, pupils leaving the exam overheard to say 'i did that paper yesterday'.

the whole thing is a shambles, and for many years local primary heads have challenged the lea to address these problems. nothing was done until the local paper was involved in a expose.
(meanwhile, creaming off kids who do best at this sort of exam reduces the local comps to the status of secondary mods)

who could have confidence in such a system?

can't read all the posts to answer original question - but we had a tutor once a week fo one hour for one year - to ensure he had covered material asked in 11+.

Closer to the test we did bond assessment papers to improve his speed.

BTW ds1 is only boy from his state primary to get into a selective school without tutoring I don't think he would have made it - simply the competition from private preps is very tough.

my elder two go and the third is due to take 11+ in september
our grammar schools are small and very high achieving academically thus huge demand for places and stiff competition
i do not believe in tutors but do think they need to know ow to do papers particularly non verbal reasoning which can be hard (shocked at papers and still cannot do some questions)
my experience is that they ARE worth the stress
I know league tables are reviled BUT...... our boys grammar is something like 20th or 19th in the country and for many children the opportunity to be in such a fab learning environment would never arise...
also its about behaviour/attitude/ethos and i truly believe that a school with amazing academic results echoes the amazing results in these areas

sorry about the essay - buy the test papers - work through the summer before!

also private prep kids often dont cut the mustard - over prepared but under achieve

Minor distration: does anyone know how you find out where a grammar gets it's primary pupils from, ie which schools dominate?

distraction.

Oops, obviously didn't go to grammar school then!

no apostrophe in 'its' either Walnutshell!

I asked ds's school what percentage of its pupils went to the local grammar but I don't know how you'd find out the other way around. It would be intersting though, wouldn't it?