Could any child get into SW London Grammars with tutoring?

[GeorgeSpeaks]

My child recently got a place at a grammar school in SW London. I'm very proud of her and she worked hard to pass the exams when none of her friends were sitting them

The thing that pisses me off is that when I tell people which school she has been allocated (I only mention when asked) they always ask if she's been tutored. One even went as far as saying she hadn't put her kid in for the exam but they would have passed if she had.

Do any kids get places without tutoring? Our primary is a state and achieves below average results compared to others in the local authority. The tutoring was an hour a week plus a few past papers in the run up to the exam.

Am I wrong to feel pissed off at this attitude? I'm probably being over sensitive!

@BonjourCrisette "actually, though I don't really understand why anyone would do that"

Maybe some want to keep the advantage for themseld? Maybe they don't want to talk about it because afraid being judged? It was dicussed at length in this thread. Parents are not open about this process and only take them a lot of efforts and navigation to the information they need.

The discussion up-thread was that people (including me) felt able to be open on MN, but not irl. Which indicates that people on here are more likely to be telling the truth, as there’s no gain in lying.

IRL they might either be trying to disadvantage or psych out direct competitors to their DC. Which would be odd behaviour, but some posters do think it happens, so I’m willing to accept that it probably does.

Its an interesting point about Tiffin. I wonder if it means ‘only work they will have covered in school by the time of the exam’ or ‘work they will at some point cover in Y6’. It makes a big difference to the need for extra tuition. And it also depends on primary schools all having covered the same things by the time of the exam. I know they follow the NC, but I got the impression they do things in different orders.

Agree! So true. Why underplay all that effort?
I met a brilliant 9 years old pianist, whose English father said he plays a few minutes daily. Whilst the African mother jumped in and stated he is playing a few hours daily and is on diploma with music college junior programmes for gifted. He is good and works hard and she is happy and supportive of his effort. She stated that it is unfair to downplay his effort since other kids and parents would think a few minutes a day is all it takes.

@HighRopes Its an interesting point about Tiffin. I wonder if it means ‘only work they will have covered in school by the time of the exam’ or ‘work they will at some point cover in Y6’.

I don't know about other primaries, but essentially ours didn't really cover any new content past the end of the autumn term, during which the Tiffin tests took place. The spring term was all revision and past papers and endless tests (it was unbelievably dull). So I guess most of the Y6 curriculum had been looked at by then and they'd obviously covered the Y5 stuff already anyway.

"The discussion up-thread was that people (including me) felt able to be open on MN, but not irl. Which indicates that people on here are more likely to be telling the truth, as there’s no gain in lying."

Didnt mean up-spread specificly - MN is a online platform, it is easier to tell whatever it is and get away of it. Compared to irl it is easier to convey the information.

Of course it might be a platform for people openly telling the truth too I accept that (including me I hope) . But it is by no means that info in MN is more creditable than irl.

Specific for 11+ topic, the information is quite mosaic. Even some of the example some poster shared here or there in MN was real or might be representative, it is for parents gather pieces both online and irl in various ways to see the full picture.

@BonjourCrisette From the tutors, online forums. It is in person e.g. at a local school where they function on daily basis and that is where they are not open about it. Anonymously they absolutely talk. I have been on various 11+ forums. I heard that from people when I was selling load of 11+ books. I also met quite a few people who moved to the heart of catchment

The children talk about it to your children. And your children generally don't think it worth mentioning. So you only find out by accident (e.g. DD says that friend X is arriving late for their meetup as she has maths tutoring earlier).

Surely by secondary school stage you don't tend to talk to other parents that much anyway? And I imagine it's something that parents don't advertise for fear it suggests their children are less bright (as OP has done on this thread with her comment that tutoring didn't make her child's score artificially high).

@HighRopes

In my son's school, Y5, the NFER tests and other parts of curriculum are not at the same level as Sutton mock tests as the school tests and national tests are much much easier. Even the Bonds, CPG and other 11+ tests are more difficult than what they do at school in Y5. I even don't compare it with the level of tests provided by our tutor as these are targetted also at private schools.

@redskylight

I must admit I a bit lost here in your thought process...This particular thread ia about getting to Grammar school. The 11+ exams, the exams to get to grammar are not in the secondary school but at the beginning of year 6. Hence the parents who apply on behalf of their kids are not secondary parents but still primary.

The children talk about it to your children. And your children generally don't think it worth mentioning. So you only find out by accident (e.g. DD says that friend X is arriving late for their meetup as she has maths tutoring earlier).

I have actually asked DD following posters on other threads suggesting that tutoring throughout secondary was very widespread. So unless they are all keeping it a secret I honestly don't think it is happening at all in the schools I know about. Some children did have tutoring for the 11+, with varying levels of efficacy.

The post I was responding to was about students who need tutoring "to keep up" once they got a place in the selective school. A PP said that no such tutoring happened at her DC's school. So by that point, the parents are secondary school parents.

So summing up would you say the following if some kind friend asked for advice when their DC is preparing for the 11+?

"Well I don't know much about it but I heard you can get lots of advice from online forums such as MN and the elevenplusforums".

Sounds like a taboo subject not to be spoken irl!!

I imagine if one collects all the posts on here they could write a good selling book. They can even sell a new edition every year with flavours from the perennial SW London girls 11+ thread!!

For me there is a distinction between helping someone in a lower year group in pointing to useful resources/what I have learnt, against dealing with parents in the same year who have made their choices already. I’ve talked several state school y5 parents through what I’ve gleaned.

For the latter there is no mileage in engaging in discussions about relative merits of schools - if they say “well my Dc would have passed if they had sat it” or “I don’t believe in selective education” or “all the kids who get in there are tutored and miserable” or whatever I smile and nod and do any eye rolling inside my head.

@redskylight
Ah I see now what you mean. Makes sense now.

Remember that primary children have brothers and sisters in secondary schools. I talk to 3 parents with older kids ( one just left to uni) in Sutton schools.
How it is in the secondary school when it comes to contact with other parents - I don't know but knowing my approach I will be in touch with many of them ;)

@ igglo

So summing up would you say the following if some kind friend asked for advice when their DC is preparing for the 11+?

The "guarding" in the discussion here was not about keeping preparations a secret but about if they attend tutoring. Having said that, I observed that some parents don't want to talk about preparations. Probably to avoid conversations in case their kids didn't succeed

IRL when people ask for my advice/experiences I am pretty open about it to be honest. When I was going through the process I only knew a small number of other parents doing the same IRL but we were all well aware of what the others were doing and we did discuss it. IME people seem keener to support one another than hide anything. I don't think I posted much, if at all, about it here as my main sources of support and information were real life friends and acquaintances.

The poster earlier who thought that parents might be trying to gain an advantage for their children by not being transparent about what kind of preparation they are doing strikes me as somewhat strange and definitely atypical from what I have seen.

Yes, this could be it too. I always thought that parents might not want to say irl because they do not want you to prep as much as them (your dc is competition). But it could be exactly like you say, they do not want to disclose it, in case their dc does not do as well as they wanted). Never actually thought about it like that.

I am always honest about it with whoever asks irl, even if they are in the same year group as my ds. I explain what my dd did and say even though she was successful, if I had known we would do 11+ earlier I would have started prep earlier (would not chance it waiting until last minute on purpose!).

@SamPoodle123

It is easy to be open post factum when your child succeeded. The attitudes of many are different before the exams.

Yes, but I am open to others who are doing the 11+ in my ds year group now. And I was open before my dd took the exam with the ones I knew from private who also had dc taking the exams. One dc who was applying the same year as my dd I gave a lot of info to the mum because she was like me and not from here. I basically told her everything I learned, gave my tutor contacts etc.

My ds is in year 4 and I have had a couple parents ask me about the prep and for tutor details, which I have passed on no problem. My ds has not taken the exam yet, but he will in year 6.

I did exactly the same @SamPoodle123 - if people asked I told them (same now). There are hundreds and hundreds of children sitting these exams. The idea of deliberately disadvantaging/misinforming just one (or a few) of them in case they do better than your DC just does not sit right with me.

I do think that I had one advantage which was that I went to one of these schools which was the one DD was most interested in so I was very confident that DD was clever enough. Possibly that made me feel more relaxed about it all.

Yes, exactly this.

I did not go to school here, so I had no clue if dd would get in. I know she is bright, but everyone irl scared me about the schools saying how super academic they are and impossible to get in. Even though my dd did well, I still have the same feelings for my ds, not sure if he will get in. He is bright, but the boys schools seem even more difficult to get in!

Best of luck to your DS. Like everyone on this thread has been saying, having supportive parents is at least half the battle so he is starting in a good place.

In MN or irl, you will hear more successful stories from parents be more open, particularly naturally bright DCs who succeeded in the process in the post factum.

You will hear less parents talking openly about their bright DCs not being succeeded or the efforts required during the course. You probably mostly hear these stories from second hand. This is the nature of sample bias problem.

However every case is representative, yet every child is different, knowing the context and have enough samples from parents that can correlates to your DC situation is important - there are a few aspects to consider for the experience that shared when especially for 11+

London or not?
Grammr or private selective?
Superselctive?
Current year? Past years? Or 20 years ago?
How academic the child is it? Every child is bright, but you need to have some relative benchmark, how others with similar level did or does?

If I hear story about school students have no tutor at all, while other say the a lot of tutoring, I will do some more dd work for find out.

FTR, anyone reading this now or in the future, I am very happy to share info on getting my DS into Tiffin. It’s the only one we sat for so can’t comment on anything else.

@Mangotime that is very kind of you. Somewhere earlier up the thread someone said that for Tiffin Boys the head teacher said only material up to the end of year 5 is needed to be successful in the entrance exam - is that your experience? Others seem to suggest that knowledge of year 6 maths and English is required - hence the need for tutors?