How smart do you need to be to pass 11+

[Mumofgirls12341]

My 9 year old is in year 5 and preparing for 11+ and I was just wondering how smart does a child actually need to be in order to secure a place? We’re aiming at London super selectives Latymer, HBS and Woodford County Girls School.

DD has always been exceeding/greater depth since reception but I wouldn’t say she is exceptionally bright - does she have a decent shot? I have heard of people saying it’s almost impossible to get into these schools so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My DD is very bright, excellent vocabulary and reading age, great at logic puzzles, loves maths and science, very advanced in both cases.

She did not get the required cut off mark for local super selective (by 2 marks- I kid you not). I only put her in for one school too as I didn't want to pressurise her into doing lots of different tests.

I started informal prep in y4, got a weekly tutor in y5, did daily practice from Jan of y5 using cgp online tests, did one full practice test a weekend from summer term y5. We also did 2 mock tests at the school. The tutor thought she'd get in but she didn't!

She was competing against thousands of other girls, many of whom attended private prep schools and/or has more sustained tuition for a longer period of time. She was getting 80% on average on her test papers and the feedback from her mock tests said she'd get in.

BUT she is a September born so I had not factored in that the paper would be age to adjusted. She would have dropped marks because of her Sept birthday- bear this in mind, I wish I had. We actually had to aim for 90% really!

In the end, she got a place at a fantastic comp and loves it, and gets so much praise from teachers... which really boosts her confidence!

Two of mine got into a super selective. The first one scraped in with no tutoring. The second one had a tutor for an hour a week. She helped him work out and practice how to do the verbal and non verbal papers as he hadn't come across those before. She also taught him the bits of the maths curriculum that would come up in the test but were not taught at his school. Both got A and A* at A level. My third is very dyslexic, was tutored like his brothers and didn't get in. He did well at a less intense school.

However bright a child is they really do need to practice the styles of questions asked.

Yes you’re right by the time they sit the exam they should be scoring 90% and above. The assessments dd did were taken place at the beginning of year 5 to help gauge if she is suitable for the 11+ exam.

No. Both natural aptitude and tutoring are important. The tutoring covers topics that the kids haven’t done in school yet, teaches them a few tricks on nvr, familiarises them with the papers and gives them enough practice to be able to do it under very strict time conditions. However, children who are not bright do not get in, especially to the super selectives (this is not the same as saying that children who do not get in are not bright). I suspect that the people who try to claim that the pupils in super selectives in particular aren’t bright but just tutored are either jealous or making very grand and very misguided assumptions. I taught in a super selective and whilst there was certainly a range of abilities, these things are relative- bottom set of 8 would still all get A*s and no, the vast majority were not tutored once they got into the school. There were children in there who were more natural natural scientists and struggled more with English, there were others who were natural English students who found Maths more difficult. But not a SINGLE child in the school was not naturally bright.

OP's question is proper 'length of a piece of string' stuff.

Obviously private tutoring can make a big difference, as can parent-led tutoring, as can good quality private primary education.

A genius [say 150 IQ] kid who's been almost literally raised by wolves, with very poor primary attendance, no books/reading at home and so on, will fail any 11+, always.

And not all 11+ exams are created equal, e.g..

(a) To 'pass' the 'entrance exam' for a non-selective private secondary, if we're talking about a very basic test which is only intended to weed out kids with reasonably serious additional needs, the kid probably only needs to be in about the top 90% academically [i.e. not in the bottom 10%], even the top 95% might be enough... strong primary prep and/or tutoring might well get in even a kid who wasn't quite at that level talent wise in.

(b) To get into a Northern Irish grammar school, which take about 40% of all kids in NI, a kid would in theory need to be in the top 40% for attainment... but in practice many kids don't take the test so it's easier than that... and there are several different way of getting there, e.g. a kid who was in the top 5-10% talent-wise, provided they were entered for the test, would doubtless breeze in even with well below average primary schooling and no tuition... and an upper middle class who barely scraped into about say the top 80% talent wise would very likely make it too, if they'd been to a private prep school and/or been tutored...

(c) Kent grammar schools take in very roughly the top 25% of kids by attainment... but again many kids don't take the test... [you can see where this is going]...

(d) etc

(e) etc.

Just to weigh in with my opinion .My son passed for 2 Grammar schools but because we out of catchment he's been put on a reserve list .The one we really want he is too far down the reserve list .The way it works in Lancashire is that if you in the catchment area and pass the required mark you get offered a place and the rest go to people out of catchment with the highest marks in order .
Our son has always been very bright and had tuition since year 5 .The reality is that your child is unlikely to pass unless they learn the type of questions especially Verbal Reasoning that they will not have been exposed to at School.Also the Maths is often tougher than year 6 so won't have been covered at most primary schools .
As someone alluded above the marks are age adjusted so unfortunately our son is a November Child so say if he got a few marks higher than August kids they are given extra marks so would finish above him in rankings.
This year the Lancashire 11 plus which is Maths , English and Verbal Reasoning they decided to throw 10 extra maths questions and 8 extra English questions in the test . Obviously all the cohort got the same test but when you see the time restrictions for each test you will understand how this type of surprise can potentially affect the kids on the day .It is very much the day of the test that matters and I'll bet kids could get different results same test depending on how they are .Kids need to be bright and learn to be fast and exam technique.The tests are miles harder than KS2 Sats ,my son did mocks for them last year in year 5 and got high marks then .

But no poor kids whose parents can’t afford the tutoring?

Similar to my dd1 who is an October born child.

Of course there are. Atom provides free tutoring materials to pupil premium kids and they’re also the types of parents who will sacrifice whatever they have to to give their kids the best opportunity they can. There are also kids who are so bright no tutoring is necessary at all, just some practice papers. Largely, though, yes most of the kids who go to that school are tutored as there are about 3000 people applying for 180 places. My post wasn’t about the rights or wrongs of this. It was to correct the misconception that there are kids who aren’t naturally bright in those schools. Actually, the kids are amazing and all of them are clever. They don’t deserve to be belittled.

My DS was always in the top 1 or 2 at primary,(and was competitive enough to know that, even though it wasn't really a thing to share results in tests etc). I put him in for the exam for a super-selective without any tutoring, other than working through a few VR/NVR booklets I got from Amazon. He was a few marks below the threshold for getting in, which was fine because we were very sceptical about the idea of an all-boys school. He went to a mixed comp instead, where again he was always in the top 1 or 2 in tests. When he got to Year 11 he got straight 9's in his GCSEs (though in 2020, so didn't actually do the exams), and got a place at the super-selective for sixth form. Once there, he was always in the top third of his classes. There were some super-clever kids, and some super-hardworking kids, plus a lot like mine (clever, competitive, but strategic with their time, so relatively laid back), then a lot of kids who are pushed and tutored to keep them in the game.

Pleased to say I never spent a penny on tutoring in my DS's entire education. He is now at a top uni, and has a very good job lined up for when he graduates next year.

I think it depends entirely on the school you are applying to.

My DD is top of her class in all subjects. Had two years of tuition. She just scraped in for one school and passed by a significant amount for another school.

But your previous post admitted BOTH aptitude and tutoring are important. Which we all know in reality that any kid that has parents without the means to pay are only ever going to be in tiny numbers and the overall intake is heavily skewed towards the middle classes.

At least that needs to be acknowledged.

These schools are not selecting kids just on their merit.

This is why excellent comprehensives are a godsend over any grammar system.

Of course both are important and yes, they’re skewed towards the middle classes because they cover content that hasn’t actually been covered in school yet. They are a group who are far more likely to be aware of that. It also isn’t the poorest who miss out either- they can get the same materials that the middle class parents are paying for for free. It’s the ones in between who miss out. The tutoring is far more about the format of the exam than anything else though. Again, you’re missing my point. Of course it’s an unfair system which in reality ends up with schools being 90% Asian (many are not mc) because they’re so bloody brilliant at Maths which some of the superselectives are very heavily geared towards with a few other middle class kids thrown in. You could literally pick any demographic and say the ss are unfair towards them and you could build a sound argument for it. I WAS NOT responding to that. I was responding to the assertion that the kids there aren’t bright. I suppose that may be true of some kids in grammars in places like Kent where there are lots of grammars of varying academic rigour and a large proportion of the population attend them. However, it is categorically not the case in a super selective so whether you agree with it or not, the schools are happy because they are getting a 100% naturally talented intake who may or may not have the added bonus (for them) of already knowing how to put extra effort in and not being fazed by the significant homework load that the school will give them.

Exactly! the following seem to be important factors:

1. parents understanding the system
2. parents having the time and understanding to prep their child
3. having a bright child

Some parents work shifts, have multiple jobs, are single, have mutliple children, know nothing about the grammar schools (some parents on my dd's class hadn't heard of the 2 in our borough).

It's hardly a level playing field.

This. I was going to say 'smart enough to engage with the tutor your middle class parents are shelling out for'. I can't stand the whole concept of grammar schools - they're basically free private schools.

I don't think anyone was implying the children don't need to be bright. I wasn't at least. What most of us are saying is that you need to be bright and tutored. Being clever in itself is not going to get you in.

If parents can't be bothered then surely it's not the system's fault? It costs nothing and requires no time or effort to google the schools in your area but parents from your class didn't do that. You can't really drag everyone to grammar schools if they're not interested.

where did I say the parents can't be bothered?

If they don't know about the schools in your area, then clearly they were not interested to know. These days any information can be found in three clicks.

OK, so in my examples, they only knew of the schools nearby by reputation. They did not know of the SS grammars because they are not in our town. We are in catchement and are in the same borough but they had not heard of them because they are in "Town A" and we live in "Town B".

They also didn't know what a grammar school was. I.e. who it is for, what type of children should apply. The primary schools do not give out this info, they do not say anything like "your son/daughter would be good grammar material, this is what a grammar school is... this is the name of our nearest grammar... why not prep them?".

How are parents without this knowledge supposed to search for something they don't know exists?

The schools and the borough do not advertise the grammars in any way, they are just listed in the borough's directory of schools.

I should also note that the parents at my daughter's school had a briefing about secondary schools at the end of y5. This is when the info was given to them by the head about applications. The advise was to look at catchments and go to open days in y6. As I am sure you know, this would be far too late for prep of any sort... and actually, if they were not in the know, they would miss the application for the tests which had to be submitted in y5.

Agree ^^. It is all very well saying the information is 'out there' but if you don't know what you don't know, then you don't know to look. Why would some parents know to start prepping for 11+ in y4 a whole 2 years or more before transition?

Of course it’s an unfair system which in reality ends up with schools being 90% Asian (many are not mc) because they’re so bloody brilliant at Maths which some of the superselectives are very heavily geared towards

It's more about arithmetic practice rather than mathematical reasoning.

Part of the reason some schools end up with 90% Asian students is because the 11+ applicants you mentioned are predominantly Asian to begin with. These families often believe that grammar schools are the only acceptable option and invest heavily in preparation to secure a place. Which clearly indicate it can give significant advantage, otherwise why would they do it?

Some of the kids might be bright, but they aren't necessarily brighter than other kids in comprehensive schools who didn't get into grammar schools because they didn't receive enough tutoring or because their families don't believe in the grammar selective system in the first place.

I agree with you, think you quoted me by accident.

I don't think any particular swathe of people are naturally better at maths than another. I do think that some cultures invest far more heaviliy in their child's education than others.

How are parents without this knowledge supposed to search for something they don't know exists?

They just go on Mumsnet, obviously?

The picture you're painting is showing people who are not that much interested in education matters. And it's fine really, they're not bad parents for that and their children will be happy in a local school with friends next door.

Thats a good point.
DD did well in her 11+ for Grammar (non Grammar area but a couple in the next town) but she would have lost points for being a December birthday AND for distance from the school.
We actually decided against The Grammar but by the time we did the 11+ was looming so she still sat it anyway