11 plus support thread for exams 2024

[ElvenDreamer]

Hi all,
Anyone fancy joining me for for an 11 plus support thread for those yr 5s who are probably just starting a bit of prep now ready to sit exams in September 2024?

State grammar is the angle I'm personally coming from but all welcome no matter if you're applying to private selective, state aptitude tests etc.

This will be my 3rd and final time of going through this and I've found support threads here really useful the previous times.

I am afraid we've got bad news, the twins were short by 5 to 10 points. They don't seem fazed and are okay. We are still waiting for another set of results week of 21st oct

Congratulations @121212YNWA @SquashSqueezee @Danascully2 hope you’re all celebrating tonight! It must be wonderful to be able to finally relax!

Sorry to hear your news @user1490043295 and @TooManyNiblings I hope your DC weren’t disappointed and feel proud of themselves for giving it a go - I’m sure you must feel very proud of them. Hope you’ve got some good second choices and I’m sure your DC will be in a strong position to thrive wherever they go.

According to Sir Thomas Rich’s website, the Gloucestershire results come out by 3pm on Oct 14 Monday.
strschool.co.uk

Interesting how no DCs were tutored this year...

I’m not sure if this is a sarcastic message?!

My son was tutored bi weekly from Easter holidays onwards. From May half term we ramped it up in terms of hours he was putting into practice questions etc and a lots of sacrifices were made - missed birthday parties, some clubs on hold, having to study all over the summer hols and do mock exams on holiday. Also impact on whole family as we prioritised his study over days out etc but the way I see it relatively short period of time and even if he hadn’t of passed he’s got off to a great start in yr 6 and I’m sure the English and maths tuition will have helped him ahead of yr 6 SATs. The only grammar we have in our area is a super selective where need well above pass mark to have a chance so we knew what was required.

This thread is to provide support whilst we are all going through it but to judge everyone will have their own approach.

Yes I told my son regularly that the work he was putting in would be good practice for the homework at secondary and would improve his confidence in maths, exam skills ready for Gcses etc. Although it has worked out well for us in the end I still think it's rubbish to be testing 10 year olds like this. Sorry to hear it's not been good news for some people but I'm sure your children will go on to do well.

Oh and I could say smugly that my child wasn't tutored and give the impression he just rocked up and passed. That wouldn't be the whole truth though because although he didn't have a tutor per se, I paid for a subscription website during most of year 5 to cover the content they don't do at school, bought a load of practice books, nagged him to do practice and had the confidence to explain tricky aspects myself. So it's not as simple as tutored or not tutored.

Clearly loaded intent in this comment. Whether it is intended to be facetious or snide, I can't tell. Obviously there are parents on this thread who used a tutor, some are even tutors themselves! None have hidden it though. It's not for everyone. This is a support thread and I wanted to provide balanced discussion for parents in 2025 reading to know there are other ways to do it. When I did that this year, I was reading threads actively seeking out examples of being able to do it a different way without hothousing as I was doubting myself... especially as the exam approached. Not a single person in our area supported our decision to not tutor our son, stating it was setting him up to fail as he would be one of very few not to be. He's my eldest and it can be scary making a decision that is against the current tide. He had friends tutored from y4. We decided it wasn't for us. noone should be judged for opting not to tutor or not being able to afford to. This is very different to failing to prepare, which would be cruel. We used atom learning in year 5 but small nuggets usually along the lines of what he was learning at school each week. He read lots from the early years onwards. We did exercise books atom and mock test papers but only from July 7 through the holiday. Thats the summer hol of year 5. Just to fill in bits not covered at school. This period was less fun, but we knew short term sacrifice was better for him than years of missing a Saturday morning for tuition or studying extra after a long day at school. Please don't judge when you haven't sought to understand.

Sorry to hear this @TooManyNiblings that’s really close mark wise so imagine must be difficult. Have you looked at any other schools? I’m not sure if deadlines same everywhere for applications but here 3 weeks until the cut off.

@PencilVania sorry I can’t help with this as where we are it’s super selective only so not finally with the different categories.

Just replying to it’s bumped and hopefully someone else who knows this part of the system will reply

@user1490043295 sorry to hear that but it’s good there aren’t too upset and it sounds like you’ve got other options still to play out so fingers crossed

Fingers crossed. Although I think I am more disappointed then them

@SquashSqueezee thanks. Yes, we have been looking at other schools. Lots of church run ones here, which puts us at a real disadvantage as we aren't religious.

Good luck to everyone, we'll be going through this again (DC2) next year.

What I find frustrating, from another forum, is the exam tourism.
People putting their DC through an 11+ county exam process when they live circa 90 miles out of catchment, catchment and how long they have lived in catchment is part of the admissions process.
They are now asking whether they should move house when they have no chance of getting in but have deprived a local child of getting the pass mark.
It's maddening

Am not sure I follow - if a currently out of catchment child has “no chance of getting in” then regardless of whether they move into catchment how would they be depriving a local child of getting a pass mark?

Or is your point that some out of area kids who do well do then move into catchment and bump out a child who has lived there a long time?

Schools don’t select like this where we live so I’m not familiar with the system or its issues.

I think they mean those schools where the pass mark is determined by how many have passed the exam (so the large numbers passing, including those who actually gave no chance of getting in, can push up the mass mark meaning a local kid might miss out by one or two marks)

@BarqsHasBite it's more to do with how the out of catchment DC that live so far out they have no chance of getting in e.g. 90 miles, will have affected the standardized marking system e.g. raised where the median '100' score is and therefore some local DC that scored 120 or 119 could have achieved the magic '121' score.
I think some parents think they might be able to move nearer once they know the score but they can't as they need to be living in catchment before they even take the test.

I can’t think it’s rife ppl applying for schools they don’t live anywhere near?!

I don't think it is 'rife' but it does happen and it tends to happen where the DC are more able so they will affect the median score - even if it's just slightly.
I think some parents put their DC into various 11+ boards to either get them 'exam ready' or naively think they can just move into the area where they have passed or they have missed out on super selective grammars.
The same 'moving house' queries come up every year when the 11+ results come out

Thanks @Pipsquiggle - I’d assumed you would be eligible if you moved before NOD but I can see the deadline would have to be the end of October application deadline at the latest, or the date of the exam if that’s what the schools decide.

But why do the schools allow kids to sit the exam if they are out of catchment? It seems like a massive waste of school resources to be dealing with tests from completely ineligible kids. (Appreciate you may not know the answer!).

The selective or partially selective schools near us don’t have a magic pass mark - our nearest has 50 places available based on test result and they get offered to the top 50 scoring kids, with obviously a bit of movement to slightly lower scoring kids if any of those 50 don’t take up the place.

With a magic pass mark, how does it work - is the pass mark actually determined in the same way as above? Otherwise I don’t understand what happens if more kids get the magic mark than there are available places (or if not enough kids get the magic mark surely the mark has to drop to get the places filled?)

thanks (assuming you can be bothered to answer my rather academic queries!).

It is a really big problem here in Trafford. Its not even the children applying from 90+ miles out that are the problem. There are something like 2.5k-3.5k children siting the exams for schools that offer up 150 places.
A large proportion of those children are “out of catchment” not in Trafford, they could be say 7-9 miles away but unless they get one of the top 20 places they will not be eligible due to distance.
Kids are getting in who are closer by but not in catchment and travelling up to 5miles over an hour each morning and night but then children who live in catchment are missing out on the “pass” mark which is inflated due to all the kids who would never get a place anyway. These Trafford kids are then having to bus over an hour away from their local walking distance schools as they didn’t quite hit the mark. The impact on the environment is probably shocking round Trafford.
Having been through the torture of watching my DC attend these exams, the bus loads of privately educated children rock up from out of borough to get a free place is awful. Then to read comments from parents on social media say things like hopefully they’ll get a Trafford spot else we’ll keep them at fee paying grammars just shows how broke the system is.
I agree with the comments above about not allowing those too far away to even take the exam but the schools want those top 20 kids.
I chose to continue to live in Trafford and put my DC in the exams but I don’t think anyone realises how brutal the system is until you are going through it. In younger years you did it in school and the naturally academic kids got the places, something definitely needs to change.

Legally, children out of catchment cannot be treated less favourably. Therefore any child - wherever they live - can take an 11+ exam. This is per a court decision referred to as the Greenwich judgement I understand.

The papers are blind marked. The pass mark is calibrated a bit to ensure more children pass than there are spaces. We don’t know how this is done but the schools generally rely on past data of how many offers they have had to make to ensure all places are filled. This is not an exact science - so they can be including children who live in eg Hull whose parents either won’t move prior to putting the CAF in or have misunderstood the address requirements that need to be in place as at the date of submitting the CAF.

That means there can be quite long waiting lists of qualified children waiting to hear if they’ve got a place in March as places have been offered to the child in Hull etc who might be a top 20 scorer whose address is irrelevant - it’s whether the parents will commit to moving.

What also complicates things is that some people will accept a place whilst holding a private place and only tell the school in September that they don’t want it. DS started at a grammar school this September and there is a pupil there who was only told the week before term started that there was a space. It’s very unsettling combined with the stress of the exams and the fact that many schools won’t even commit to giving an exact date for releasing results. That means that parents are on the back foot when it comes to preparing children for the results and supporting them in the aftermath. Then the situation drags on until the September of the next year whilst people hang on waiting lists waiting to see if an out of catchment super scorer or someone with a private place will give it up. There’s also generally a hierarchy of schools so a movement in another school will cause movements lower down the chain which obviously causes further delay/uncertainty etc.

@Traffordmum81 This kind of thing is exactly why so many people are against the Grammar school system.

I went to the same Grammar DD is hoping for a place at, as did both my siblings. None of us had expensive tutors and passed the exam on academic merit. Nobody in my cohort lived out of catchment, we were all local kids from local primary schools.

I hadn't really followed the system between my actually going through it and now DD, 25 years later. It's quite a shock seeing what has happened and what goes on to get a place.

We have forked out for two years of tutoring for DD (and DD2 who will be sitting next year). Have to play the game to have any chance of getting in. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford it but so many able kids will miss out.

@BarqsHasBite
In Bucks you have to have lived continuously in catchment from 1st September of the year the DC take the test. This is stop people moving into the area once they know the outcome of the 11+. Still doesn't stop people putting their DC through the process even though they have zero chance of getting in.

Also in bucks it's an age standardised score with a flattened bell curve. I'm not an expert but it's so summer born DC are not at a disadvantage. They know how many places are available and so put 121 at the approx amount they have available.

@Traffordmum81 here here. It's ridiculous. I stood at Alty boys exam looking round thinking I only recognise about 10% of the uniforms. So many out of area kids.