No answers to 11+ practice papers!

[Swissmrs]

This is a quick vent.

Why do so many schools put their 11+ practice papers on their web-sites and then don't put the answers as well?

What's the point of that? Are parents supposed to mark them with the children. What if the parents' maths isn't up to scratch, or English isn't their first language or they've never done VR and NVR? Or they're not farming it all out to a tutor, in which case the tutor then has to work out all the answers in their own time, I suppose.

If anyone works in one of these schools I'd love to know the thinking behind not providing the answers! Thank you!

It is probably because according to the schools dc do not need to prep at all and should not be prepping (at least this is what they say!). But they put their papers so you can have an idea of what to expect on the exam. I think they should just give the answers.

I understand for comprehension the marking scheme can be depending on answers and viewpoints. The others should have answers, check out Manchester Grammar sample papers Maths and their answers. Though most London schools don’t give answers.

You can find quite a few answers if you google. Just found the answers to one of the LU maths papers.

I also think it's important to give answers because if a child does do a practice paper, in my experience children like their work to be marked once they've put the effort in, and it's really dispiriting and bad for their morale if it's not marked.

'Top' schools like Dulwich College and City of London School for Girls have the courtesy to put the answers on their web-sites so why can't the others? I have wondered if it's because they actually haven't done the answers and have just bunged the papers onto the website!

Perhaps they only want to encourage people who's parents know the answer to apply to maintain certain intelligence levels?

What a load of bollocks. 2 of mine are at grammar and are much academically cleverer than us.
Lots of the other parents are clever but have poor English or are time poor. Also those English questions are fecking impossible and often inappropriately subjective ime.

Also, not providing the answers on the school web-sites has contributed to loads of Exam Paper websites springing up, offering the original papers with answers for a fee - so more money has to be shelled out! The Parasite Economy. This is making private schools even more inaccessible - sigh. £10.99, please, for the papers, which you can get free anyway on the website, and the answers which should be available free, are chargeable.

If I were all these schools being too lazy/ and or precious to post the answers on their websites, I'd be a bit careful as the numbers of school age children are dropping dramatically https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/national-pupil-projections and they may have to work a bit harder to attract prospective customers. We're not all Chinese and Russian oligarchs!

Schools I've worked with have put them up as examples, but they don't want you to actually do them. It's more to look at what skills are needed and whether your child thinks they could have a decent go of it.

In theory, you shouldn't need to practice to sit the Eleven Plus, so by not providing the answers they can't be accused of encouraging cramming.

I agree that they should share them, to level the playing field. But I do see why they don’t.

Partly they’re looking for things that are hard to express in a mark scheme, such as an interesting approach even if it doesn’t get to the right answer - this is especially true for scholarship level questions. In fact, one of the advantages of private schools is that they can avoid the rigid mark schemes that grammars (and public exams) have to have, and let experienced teachers use their judgement. IME, this freedom makes for a much broader and more interesting KS3 experience.

For another, the level of 11+ focus (to put in mildly) in some parents would latch on to it and use it in ways the schools disapprove of, in the same way as some schools find they get multiple sets of the same pre-prepared ‘creative writing’ from children who have gone to the same tutor.

I don’t know what else would work - maybe exam prep workshops just for bursary applicants? But that would be before the financial checks, so easy to game.

This is interesting.
11+ for grammar schools usually (not always) has no written element. So they are marked by computer and there is no nuance.

So easy to release answers. And for Maths, there is no nuance surely?

Thank you for your responses, I hear you about the schools not wanting to encourage cramming but at least they could give the answers for the maths?!

There are questions on some of the maths papers which encourage the children to use algebra to solve a maths problem, as in: If Ben has double the number of toys Seth has and Simon has triple and so on, but state schools haven't got around to doing that in Year 5, and a lot of parents would either not have a clue - ahem - or have forgotten it, and as someone here said, are timepoor, and maybe would find it difficult to show the child themselves. If the schools just gave the answers then maybe the parents could work backwards from the answer and work it out for themselves.

I've found some of the Bond papers are quite good as they explain why the answer is at it is and breaks it down.

but state schools haven't got around to doing that in Year 5,

they should ahve done it

for general /state 11+ resources CGP are good because their answers not only give the correct answer but also explain why.
I don't know what they are like for the private schools 11+ though

Maths teacher.

You'd be surprised how little the numerical answers help if you haven't got a clue how to do the problem in the first place.

I put together a gifted and talented program based on junior maths challenge questions and frankly I rewrote most of the solutions because I felt that only a total muppet would have done it their way.

Just use the bond 11+ books for maths like everyone else does.

Oh, and most of those questions they would expect children to do by bar modelling these days which is the primary version of algebra. Sort of.

Thank you - that's really useful to know - I shall look up Bar Modelling!