Son won't attend tuition for 11 plus

[confusedinlondon]

My ds is refusing to attend tuition classes for the 11 plus. The first class was last week and he is refusing to attend any futher classes.
He is a bright, hardworking boy so his reaction has some as a slight surprise but he won't pass without the tuition.

I don't really know what to do and the exams are getting closer and closer. Any advice or suggestions

I still think hours of extra prep and tutoring means there is something wrong with the tutoring or self-directed learning..it'd be much more efficient and kinder to the kids to work out why it was taking them so much effort to progress, and go from there. Some of the biggest learning gains come not from hours at the coalface grinding away at boring test papers and the like, but from working on metacognition skills.

No, that's nonsense. Although I guess if your kid needs hours of tutoring each week to pass something as straightforward as the 11 plus then maybe they will also need to do hours and hours of homework each night as well.

This. I went to a grammar and it isn’t just about intelligence - you have to have to right work ethic (I didn’t). Are you sure he’s actually bright and not just nicely average? Just do a few practice papers with him at home and stop projecting your own aspirations onto him.

My DS enjoyed his tutoring because he shared a one to one session with a friend. There was a lot of friendly rivalry between them and I think that made it more fun. Is that an option for you?

Complete nonsense and very unhelpful. Even kids at prep schools (where they get so much help) have tutoring outside of school. If you go to a bog standard state primary you have no chance without tutoring unless the child is a genius. That tutoring could be by a parent or by a professional tutor - either way, it is tutoring.

Having a go at a few practise papers isn't really tutoring and should be all that's needed for a bright child (presuming the whole of the maths syllabus has been covered which can be an issue for state school pupils).

You always get lots of people saying that they didn't tutor. Mostly they mean they didn't pay for tutoring, not that they did no extra work at all.

Based on comments in other forums, the typical range in terms of quantity, seems to be
(1) literally do nothing
(2) start in the summer before Y6 and familiarise the child with the test format and materials. Can be anything from less than 1 hour a week to 1 hour a day in the school holidays.
(3) start during Y5 and either send their child to a tutor once a week or DIY tutor using bond books, Atom and other resources. This includes filling in minor gaps in knowledge. Probably about the same or slightly less time/effort as piano lessons. (This is the style most often recommended on specialist forums)
(4) start in Y4 or earlier, sometimes this is because they have realised that their child is unlikely cover all the relevant material in time or because they were a late reader. Again, about the same or slightly less time/effort as piano lessons.
(5) do a lot of work of extra work from a very young age, such classes plus 3 hours a week additional HW from Y3

Depending on the child, I personally think that any of (2),(3) or (4) is likely to mean that most children would have a decent chance of performing reasonably well for them. Doing (1) probably means that you're relying on your child being very bright and having an instinctive grasp for eg NVR. Doing (5) probably means you are relying on your child being very compliant and not burning out over a 3+ year haul.

Whether any child gets a place depends on their natural ability, whether they've had "enough" preparation for them, how well other children perform, and random chance on the day of the exam. All you can control is the preparation, and you only need to do "enough".

Drop the long sessions, and pick it up again in a few months. Maybe try a different style of preparation. In the meantime, encourage as much varied reading for pleasure as possible.

First of all, maybe an obsolete question, but does he want to take the 11+ exams? Or even better put, does he want to go to that school?
And if yes, are you sure he can’t pass without extra help? Maybe he’s self-motivated enough to be left to his own devices.

Just to compare with my very own experience:
When I was told (by my teachers) at the age of 10 that I’d be a “great material” for our local prestigious grammar school, my parents were excited about that prospect (because my father and my grandfather also went to that very same school). I didn’t want to hear about it because all my friends were heading to different schools. I wanted to go to the school my older sister was attending that time (funny enough, she joined me in that very same grammar school in the later years instead - my parents didn’t want to put her at first through the entry exam stress in the early years - I guess I was testing the waters, because they later have my younger brother to go for the same exams at the earlier age, just like I did).

And that’s not the whole story. As I wanted to respect my parents’ wishes, I was preparing for the exams and was willing to take them - but I did the prep in my own ways. Never have I ever attended any classes of tuition for the prep. I only self-studied for a couple of months mainly from past papers/sample papers. And I got the second best result of all the applicants when I took the exams. (So great results can be achieved without any external help.)
And actually one more classmate went for the exams as well in the end and got there too. So since then I started to look forward to attending that school. All ended up well and I spent happy years with pleasantly challenging academic curriculum.

I think this experience also helped me to connect better with students in similar situations - when I tutor, I try to help, advise, mentor - and mainly, ask and discuss as well.
This can apply to child-parent relationships too.
So perhaps have a chat with your son to find out what’s his view on the whole matter? Maybe it’s just the fact he might not want to attend group classes if that’s what he’s signed up for? Could one to one be a better solution? Or is he self-driven and simply doesn’t want any help? Is there any anxiety - either about the prep specifically or about the whole “going to the grammar school” thing? Are any of his friends going to take those exams too?
The best thing really might be discussing this all together in a friendly atmosphere to get to the bottom of this and find the all-round best solution.

Totally disagree. If you need a tutor, you won't thrive at a grammar school. If he's bright enough all he needs to do is familiarise himself with the tests and do some practice papers.

@reigatecastle I imagine @confusedinlondon is talking about SW London. It was certainly the case when we were there that almost everyone had tutors. We opted out entirely, so no skin in the game - just an accurate observation.

@reigatecastle that's just not true for superselectives like Tiffin. No one gets in without at least some tutoring. It's not just familiarisation, it's strategy, which is also teachable and really helps speed up the process. There are so many pupils for each place. I don't know anyone who got in without a tutor. (Again, we didn't apply, but know many who did.)

Yep @BuryingAcorns one of the brightest kids I knew didn't get into Tiffin bc her parents didn't think she needed tutoring. By contrast another kid had two full years of tutoring, got in, and then missed his A level grades for first choice uni. No problem though because the Tiffin 'failure' achieved a first at her first choice uni, and got the job of her dreams.
Obv anecdotal. But in our open day visit literally every boy we asked said they'd had two or more years of tutoring. We decided at that point not to play that game!

No one gets into the London grammar schools without some form of tutoring. It's impossible because the competition is insanely high (higher than to get into Oxbridge). The hardest part about most grammar schools is to get in though. Once you're in, it's actually not that high pressured.

I think people who live in places where grammar take the top 25% are not understanding the competition to get onto the few superselectives in SW London.

Exactly this. Henrietta Barnett (I know it's NW but same principle) has 3000 applicants for 90 places

If that's the sort of highly competitive school you are aiming at, and your child is balking at extra homework/tuition before they even get there, then quite possibly this is a rather large sign that it's not the right school for your child ...

I wouldn’t push it, OP. If he’s feeling like the exam tuition is an extra burden then he’ll only resent it and it could potentially cause a rift between you too.

It doesn’t sound like he’s overly fussed about any of it, which makes me think he wouldn’t enjoy that environment.
I was a bright and hardworking kid, loved school and had great results, but if you’d told 11yo me to take extra exams or go to a selective school I’d have told you to fuck ALL the way off.

I was sent on ‘gifted and talented’ days in Primary and was just angry and bitter that my friends were playing at each others’ houses on a Saturday whilst I had to go to ‘school’.
I’m in my 30s and still don’t look back fondly on it!

It’s not for everyone.

If he’s otherwise doing well and has a secondary school in mind that he’d be more comfortable going to, crack on!

@sheepdogdelight you do have a point!