11+ test: I think it's unfair and elitist

[ParentOfOne]

We are helping our child prepare for the 11+ test, to apply for some selective and partially selective state schools (we won't be going private).

She is doing quite well, so, from a purely selfish perspective, I should be happy.
However, I can't help but think that the test is elitist and unfair

• it favours children who are well-rounded, and who are so at 11ish. A child who develops well academically but later, and/or who is stronger in the verbal part than the non-verbal, or viceversa, won't do well
• state schools do not typically prepare children for these kinds of tests, so the family situation becomes a huge differentiator: if your parents are more educated, and/or take you to the library, and/or can pay for tutoring, you'll have a huge advantage. Libraries have books to prepare for the test, but a teenager can go to the library alone, not a 10-year old.
• some of the verbal part is honestly too hard for a child of this age. I am not sure it is appropriate to expect that 10-11 year olds know vocabulary such as cantankerous, recalcitrant, cogitations, etc
• children who speak a Latin language (maybe also Greek? Not sure) have a huge advantage guessing the meaning of the more complex words. French-speaking, Spanish-speaking kids etc are much more likely to guess the meaning of initiate, abound etc even if they are not avid readers

My sense is that the brilliant child of parents who are uneducated, don't speak another language, don't take their children to the library etc stands almost no chance vs a less academic, less brilliant middle to upper middle class child who enjoys all the other advantages mentioned above.

There is of course the separate topic of whether it is even appropriate to separate kids by academic success, but my point is not about that, it is that the 11+ test is a very poor assessment because it doesn't take into account all the other factors.

Thoughts?

There is a depressing flavour of "I'm all right, Jack" to some posts on here.

Sadly always the case on threads like this...statements like "Society is elitist and we don't live in a communist country", I just find depressing and borderline ignorant.

Well of course it is. It’s an awful, terrible elitist system. That’s why I sent my DC to the local comp, and they are doing absolutely fine. I honestly think it is more important to teach your DC by what you do rather than what you say. If you think it is elitist and wrong then have the courage of your convictions.

@Neveragain35???
Too many people on here failed to grasp that we won't be applying to a grammar school, but to

1. A partially selective school, where a portion of the intake is via the 11+ but most is not, and
2. A number of non selective local schools, which admit by distance and banding, so a higher score increases the chance of admissions because the max distance is always higher for the top band

Regardless, if we were in a situation where all the local comps sucked and there were a grammar school, we'd apply to that.

How is it non-selective if it gives preferential treatment to children with a higher score?

Honestly, I would never put my child through a selective test at age 10. If it’s non selective it sounds like not everyone does the 11+. So don’t do it, you have a choice. The more people opt out of this ridiculous system, the better chance there is that it might finally end.

All I’m trying to say is it says more about British culture, lack of aspiration and lack of education focus than anything else.

There are schools like Graveney that have a grammar stream with entry via the Wandsworth Test.

To get a place there outside that you basically need to live within spitting distance.

With the banding tests, that is not the 11 plus (although Camden School for Girls does something akin for theirs) but generally just NVR.

I suspect the higher band may not be so advantageous these days as those parents who previously then opted for the private schools decide to take the state place after all.

@Neveragain35 How is it non-selective if it gives preferential treatment to children with a higher score?

One school is partially selective: some places are assigned to those who do best in the test, regardless of distance, while most places are by distance.

Other schools admit by distance but use banding.
Say they have 200 places. Students must take this test to apply. Then they divide applicants into 5 bands (I forget the exact number) based on the exact result. So they start with the top 20% of applicants, as measured by this test. From this group, they assign 40 places (200 / 5), based on distance. Then they move to the next group, and they assign the next 40 places based on distance. Etc.

It is not selective, to the extent that distance remains the main criterion. If you live next to the school or have a sibling, you'll get in regardless of the score.
BUT the maximum distance tends to be greater in the top band. So you could have something like the max distance being 3km in the top band and 1500 - 1700 metres in the others.

Some schools that do this use only the non-verbal part of the test, some use verbal and non-verbal.

The rationale is that this should allow a more diverse intake, in terms of ability as assessed by this test. I am not an expert and cannot comment on how real or not this is.

I hope it's clearer now.

@ParentOfOne that does sound really difficult and needlessly complicated! Are there no other options?

@Jellycats4life "All I’m trying to say is it says more about British culture, lack of aspiration and lack of education focus than anything else."

No it doesn't. The people who emigrate looking for a better life for themselves and their family have already jumped through the first hoop in the grammar school selection process.

@boys3 tge assertion was that BAME pupils make up the majority of grammar school intakes. I was merely pointing out that this was highly unlikely considering that many grammar schools are in areas with low immigrant populations such as Lincolnshire and Northern Ireland (which has 45 of the remaining grammars alone).

The thing is that it would be totally inappropriate for any primary school to dedicate sufficient resource to an activity that only 20% of the pupils will benefit from, to the detriment of the rest, and where nothing equivalent exists that the other 80% can benefit from.

Really? So sports provision, music provision, drama provision, extra provision for those struggling with phonics or literacy or maths, the pastoral support services and therapy etc schools provide, OT support for those who need it... all totally unreasonable because only a small percentage of the school population requires this to thrive and develop their specific skills?

How ridiculous. It is exactly this type of attitude that exemplifies everything wrong with state education: trying to pretend all children are the same and all need identical provision to be able to develop their own specific skills and support their own particular areas of difficulty. This is why children are being failed. Equality of opportunity isn't achieved by pretending everyone is identical.

And why should some of the class be held back from doing work which they are academically capable of doing because it would "upset others"? Schools need to structure their lessons and teaching so that every child is stretched to their ability.

This is exactly why there should be far more variation in secondary provision specifically set up to suit children with different skills, focusing on art or sports or music or academics or practical skills so all children can excel at whatever their talents are.

Your own attempted counter-argument proves why this is necessary because otherwise ALL children are being failed as they are held back to near the average level of skills and development in every subject and forced to waste far too much time studying many which they will never be interested in or excel at.

@ThisPageIsBlank "And why should some of the class be held back from doing work which they are academically capable of doing because it would "upset others"?"

Because 11+ preparation is nothing to do with more academically advanced work. It's about being coached to jump through a very specific hoop, and would be a complete waste of time for anyone not going in for the test. And, in fact a waste of time for anyone who doesn't pass.

@SuzieNine With education being a devolved matter I'm not convinced that Northern Ireland should necessarily be included in this discussion which seems to be focused on the system in England. Something like 4.5% of DCs attend a grammar school in England; as compared with nearer 45% of DCs in Northern Ireland - proportionately near a ten-fold difference

However you'd be quite right that the majority of overall grammar school intake in England are not from an ethnic minority background - unless something dramatic has changed in the past five years. This research paper indicated 36%, so still well above the 26% figure for non grammars. Clearly, as you inferred there will be a significant distribution rather than a lot of clustering around the 36% mark. Grammars in Lincolnshire (11 in total ?) undoubtedly have a far lower figure than the grammars in London or Birmingham. I'd also imgine, though happy to be corrected, that most London, Brum will be super-selectives; probably not the case in Lincolnshire.

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01398/SN01398.pdf graph on page 8

The research paper was published before the last government agreed with the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities recommendation that the agregate term BAME was not appropriate and amongst other things masks the differences in outcomes between ethnic minority groups.

Unfortunately the CF interactive map though giving lots of data for each individual grammar school does not include ethnic minority background percentage. I've seen somewhere on CF an overall breakdown by different ethnic minority groups, but am struggling to find it again - suffice to say it showed significant differences between different groups.

https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/interactive-map-of-grammar-schools/

@boys3 thanks for the report, it makes interesting reading. I just worked out that our nearest grammar, Tiffin, is 2 hours away by public transport so it's purely academic for us, but an interesting discussion none the less.

Are you really comparing prep for the 11+ with OT and pastoral care?! Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds?!

The Sutton trust said years ago, school need to do more to support all dc who could pass the test to prepare.
In my df day he had zero parental support and they didn't want him to go but his teacher could guide him and help him.

Ie cutting out the need for parents and helping all potential dc.

Re long words my dd definitely had an incredible vocabulary at that age and her reading age and spelling was in the late teens.

I totally agree about being well rounded and one dc maybe crap at English but be Einstein at maths and vice versa with Shakespeare.

But don't they go and help the other schools? Just shows not everyone with so called academic talent can get funneled off to grammar.

Over all we need more types of school at different stages not less.

The grammar schools themselves should do outreach to teach 11+ skills, focusing specifically on schools in deprived communities or those who historically send few children to grammars.

The only problem with the 11+ is that it is only available in only a few areas.
Grammar Schools and selective education should be available to all that would benefit from it. Selective Education could also mean in theory some one selected for a high level Sporting school or Musical school.

A issue nobody on here wants to accept is that about 20% of kids are the problem in any real Comprehensive school and should not be educated among the mainstream 80% .

I think the real problem is that posters believe everybody should receive the same standard of education, when in reality many children don't need it or warrant it.

Who is going to pay for that? While I actually think that could work, I can't see our government paying for that or tax payers pushing for it. Especially when grammar schools only educate about 5% of state secondary school pupils

Also the grammar schools we have aren't neatly placed around the country to offer this opportunity for all etc.

I think what confuses me about your post is that you seem a bit surprised by this? I thought we’d all known for a long time that 11+ is unfair and elitist. That’s why most places got rid of it?

If you don’t want to take advantage of this obviously unfair mechanism then don’t.

How can you say children don't warrant it?? It implies that they don't deserve good quality education?

It really isn't that simple, if only it was...

Then educate that ‘problem’ 20% separately, by creating a whole raft of new high quality excellently resourced large Special Schools (including for behaviour).

Don’t cream 1-20% off at the top, leaving 79-60% in the same school as the ‘problem 20%’ (if that is indeed the figure).