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?

@Rewindpresse this is nonsense If there were more good comprehensive options and as a parents we could exercise choice about which our children attend then we wouldn’t be talking about this.

People who can't afford private or don't get into grammar don't really have any choice at all..it is all based on where you live and if you're lucky enough that your preferred school has space for you after they look at all the applications based on their admissions criteria which can vary quite considerably.

If you are lucky enough to live in a school with good grammar and good non-grammar schools, great, fantastic.
However, I suspect there aren't many such areas, and I suspect it's more common to live in an area where the presence of a grammar has a detrimental effect on the other schools. That's the practical point which your theoretical argument seems to ignore.

Using our most able children as a human shield to try to drag up the results of less able children by forcing them into a one size fits all dysfunctional school system where nobody achieves their potential (even if some end up with good exam results) isn't the right answer.

My whole point is that the problem isn't the existence of schools that focus on rigorous academic study targeted specifically towards providing that for children for whom it is appropriate. The problem is not having an appropriate range of other schools available that develop the different talents of other children appropriately so that they can benefit from their own abilities and gain the right skills to move on to lucrative careers.

Making children who aren't academic sit through academic study almost exclusively until at least 16 obviously causes disruption, mean they are turned off learning, wastes their other talents that should be being developed and simultaneously wrecks any prospect of academic children learning to their potential as well. This benefits nobody. To support this system that isn't optimal for the majority of children simply because academically able children being given a chance to thrive is deemed "unfair" exemplifies all that is wrong with British culture. What would be sensible is re-establishing grammar schools throughout the country (with adaptions to the 11+ assessment e.g. those I suggested in my first post on this thread) and ALSO establishing appropriate educational provision through a much wider choice of schools for other children, focusing on their main talents and interests plus core subjects. And with strong links to industry and employer apprenticeships that lead to careers in those fields.

This is not beyond the wit of humankind and exists in other countries in various forms. It's obvious that the current system does not and will never work for myriad reasons and children of all talents and skillsets and abilities are being completely failed.

Yes, a proper education system would cost more. It should be the number one priority for Government funding before any funds are allocated to anything else. I'd happily see funding cut for any other Government department in order to fund this. Without it the UK has no future and managed decline (or unmanaged decline, as we've experienced more recently) will accelerate.

There's also an assumption that all grammar school pupils are brighter than all non-grammar school pupils in the same area. There are lots of kids in the top streams of the local high school who do better than some of the kids at the local grammar.

That's the problem with segregating kids on the basis of a test taken when they're 10yo, the results are not necessarily predictive of academic ability.

@privatenonamegiven

“People who can't afford private or don't get into grammar don't really have any choice at all..it is all based on where you live and if you're lucky enough that your preferred school has space for you after they look at all the applications based on their admissions criteria which can vary quite considerably.”

I agree with you and I think you have misunderstood me. I am saying that we don’t have choice in the current system and I personally think that’s wrong. My simplistic answer is we need to improve standards in all schools, recognise that one size doesn’t suit all, and give parents more choice in the right school for their children so they all have the best chance to succeed. I know that’s pretty simplistic and utopian as there’s no new money for public services or consensus for reform in education.

But while I think the current system is wrong and unfair, I don’t think the answer is to fiddle with grammar schools. Nor is it to pretend that all children at private school are at Eton and Harrow and intent on being the next generation of the Bullingdon Club. I can’t fault people for doing whatever they can for their children just because not everyone can do the same.

Using our most able children as a human shield to try to drag up the results of less able children

But that’s the point people are making, many of the Grammar school children are NOT the most able naturally. If they were the most able why would they need to be tutored for years in order to gain a place? The answer of course is because they need to compete with all of the other middle class kids who have also been tutored to within an inch of their life to help them pass the test.

Billy who lives in Tower Hamlets could be naturally academically brighter than most of the kids, but poverty has prevented Billy from having access to such a test to prove his ability.

The problem is 10/11 is way too young to establish a pupil’s path. You miss the late developers and there’s more of those than you think, you also have those that are ahead of the game at 10 and then come out averagely. There’s no good way of deciding at 10 what path that should take.

I have to say if you’re going to have selection then it really needs to be at 14 - where there should be a range of options - vocational, academic and a third which is a bit of mix of the two which is decided by the school/parents and child in a three-way conversation. (No one size fits all test.) Now pupils need to be in education until 18, there’s no need for GCSEs and a pathway which could be reasonably flexible from 14 as in you could swap between pathways for another two years would solve a lot of problems. The vocational pathway could encompass apprenticeships as well as a variety of other pathways and include functional maths, English and anything else considered necessary. Similar to the German system but with later selection.

Apologies for misunderstanding. I’m still not convinced that private schools or religious schools for that matter are a good idea. But essentially I think we agree.

NVR tests the ability to do NVR, not overall intelligence.

There's a difference between being elitist by accident and by design though.

As I posted a couple of pages ago and @comewhinewith and @Ionacat have said here, the problem is that 10 is far too young for academic selection, too much changes between then and 16, let alone 18 or 21. There is literally no data supporting selection at that age.

There will be a small percentage of children who will get top grades throughout their schooling (I think it is c2%) but the vast majority experience peaks and troughs and deciding which school will suit them for the next 5 or 7 years via a single, non-curriculum based test taken on one day is a terrible system.

NVR tests the ability to do NVR, not overall intelligence.

Can you suggest a more accurate measure of the particular type of academic intelligence that grammar schools are designed to cater for (i.e. the ability to grasp concepts and relationships and inferences between different things quickly and connect different ideas) while mitigating as much as possible - as such tests do - for confounding factors such speech and language issues, variances in the quality of maths and literacy teaching at primary schools, and levels of general knowledge which - in children that age - generally arise from circumstances beyond their control and have no bearing on their innate academic ability?

But that’s the point people are making, many of the Grammar school children are NOT the most able naturally. If they were the most able why would they need to be tutored for years in order to gain a place? The answer of course is because they need to compete with all of the other middle class kids who have also been tutored to within an inch of their life to help them pass the test.

Billy who lives in Tower Hamlets could be naturally academically brighter than most of the kids, but poverty has prevented Billy from having access to such a test to prove his ability.

This is precisely why grammar school provision needs to be expanded, not contracted, per my earlier post about this. When it was available in every catchment area it was a huge engine of social mobility for some of the poorest children. Now that it is available only in very limited areas only those with significant funds can pay the house price premiums to live there and only those with very education-focused parents who also have money to fund this will do so, and then because so many of these people descend on these areas as a result competition for places becomes extreme hence tutoring etc. When they were widely available in every catchment area none of these factors applied so the reason these schools have become more scewed to more wealthy demographics is because there are fewer of them. The answer is to expand provision again to every catchment so that academically able children from every part of the country and every demographic have an opportunity to reach their potential, and meanwhile to sort out the shitshow that state education has become so that those who are not so academic have meaningful and useful education tailored to their needs and skills and with a proper system to gain useful and marketable skills, qualifications and industry-linked apprenticeships that actually lead to careers in the areas of their own talents.

Trying to pretend all children are the same and bully them into submission, destroy their love of learning regardless of whether they are academic or not, ignore their particular talents and skills and interests and crush their creativity out of them has been catastrophic for all. We now have huge skills shortages, a mental health crisis in young people, huge disruption in schools, and very few people reaching their true potential at all. Endless amounts of talent being squandered and a country in decline.

Reforming the education system to make it fit for purpose and designed around the children, and their skills and interests, is the only way to fix this. It's depressing that so few posters can take a wider view on it and still support a system that has been proved to be a complete failure and - based on regular threads here - apparently still appear baffled as to why this is the case.

My daughter is straight grade 9. She went to a comp.

We don’t need more grammars where we split people into cans and cants. We need more great comps where children can be streamed at various points as they develop or by subject. That’s the fairest way.

Yes and it’s same with the other elements of 11+. You learn the algorithm for doing codes in verbal reasoning and then practice for speed and accuracy. None of this tests absolute intelligence or potential and it’s silly to pretend that there is an absolute way of doing that for 10 year olds. I say this as someone with daughters in grammar school and which I am very happy about!

You might as well just apply a lottery to children with the top 20% of CAT scores (I think you can only nudge those with tutoring/practice) and you’d get just as many bright children going to grammar schools and doing well and the same number of bright children in comprehensives. The aggregate result would probably be broadly the same, which is why I think it’s a red herring compared to proper reform of secondary education. However it could have an impact on individuals including potentially Billy from Tower Hamlets @Rivett who I agree stands no chance in the current system unless he is an actual genius.

I got straight As at one of the worst comps in the country.

However, it was not a nice experience. So much time was wasted and I could have learned far more. Getting good grades isn't the same as reaching your potential.

On paper the school would consider my education a success. I do not. Many children are being failed by the current system because it does not meet their needs at all. Not only highly academic children with no access to grammar skills, but children who are talented in the arts but with arts subjects being cancelled from the curriculum with increasing prevalence. Children who are talented at music or sport. Children who have very strong practical skills and would thrive doing far more design and technology and learning technical skills like electronics. Children with SEN for whom no appropriate schools exist so end up not attending at all.

The system as it stands does not work. The mental health crisis in young people, the number of children long-term absent from schools, the disruption in schools and the skills shortages we have demonstrate this as plain as day. How anybody could assert that it's all working really well is beyond me.

@ThisPageIsBlank Hear hear!

I think you need to split “the system” from individual school management.

These unicorn schools definitely do exist. My kids go to one. Loads of GCSE options, non selective comprehensive, thriving arts and sports communities, masses of extra curricular options, performs above national average on progress 8.

There are simply not enough schools like this though (I fully appreciate how lucky my children are). So it can’t be the system per se if schools like this are possible. We just need to understand what makes school A successful and school B less so.

Why would you let any child sit any exam without making sure they were prepared for it? I bought some past payers and dd and I went through them together. That was all the 'tutoring' she had. She passed well, went to grammar and thrived there.

I think this characterisation of grammar school parents as sharp elbowed hustling MC professionals needs updating a bit.
DS goes to a super selective grammar, top 20 ish in the country. The vast majority of his peers (over 85%) are British Asian or British SE Asian, he has a few white friends who TBF do fit the stereotype but most of his mates live in non desirable areas in not great housing, often with immigrant parents. Out of his five best friends only one has both parents that speak fluent English. Tutoring is intense normally in someone’s kitchen with ten kids crowded round the table. This is not an affluent milieu, there are very few cars in the car park let alone posh ones. It is not about elitism, it’s about sheer bloody hard work and graft from a very young age from cultures almost fanatical about education. The level of pressure and intensity is not something most white British parents would think acceptable for their children.

@titchy Having NVR based tests, rather than content based tests, can be a way of levelling the playing field.

I disagree. I can see the logic for tests based on NVR rather than standard curriculum, but then at the very least kids should practice this type of test in school a little bit. Otherwise, as I said in my original post, the family and social context end up mattering too much. They will always matter, but they matter just too much with the current system.

@ThisPageIsBlank Providing a non-verbal reasoning test that is aimed to look at inherent ability to grasp concepts accessible to all in visual format is a far better measure of intelligence mitigating as mucj as possible for these confounding factors that can scew the results. Not perfect, but better.

My reply is the same as above:

Oh, and many schools use verbal reasoning, too. Again, I dare think that requiring a 10-year old to know what "cogitation" means is bs.

And none of this addresses whether testing at 10-11 is even appropriate (I think it's not).

That's what the old style Common Entrance was like - but you sat exams in every subject at 12. Three papers in some subjects and a full week of exams. They also had NVR and VR alongside.

@Jean24601Valjean If argue that we need to abolish the chumocracy and private schools.
No, we don't need to abolish private schools. I am no fan of private schools, but banning them is the kind of stuff that happens in authoritarian and outright dictatorial regimes. That is a very slippery slope.

If you want to discuss this further, I'd invite you to open your own thread about it, as this is not the topic of my post. Thank you, and goodbye.

@Rewindpresse The children who pass 11+ will obviously be bright, but because it is so widely tutored for it clearly is not a test of intelligence or potential.

Yes. Tutoring is a bit like standing on your toes in the middle of a crowd to see better. No one should do it, but, if everyone else is doing it, you need to do it, too, even if no one ends up being much better off.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft Of course it's elitist (intellectually)- that's the whole point.
But my point is precisely that it is socially elitist, more than intellectually or academically so, for the reasons I described in my first post.

@Notmycircusnotmyotter No more elitist than paying a premium for a house in the catchment area of great comps
Two wrongs don't make a right!

We are in a grammar area. Dd has a tutor. I think the whole system is stupid and unfair. I would much rather she just went to a comp, but the local comps are so badly rated and all her friends will be going to grammar. It's very frustrating!

You definitely need tutoring for it. I think 10-15 years ago maybe not but dd needs not just to pass the test but to get a very very good score. She works to greater depth across all subjects but definitely needs a tutor to help her get through the stupid thing.

@ThisPageIsBlank Using our most able children as a human shield to try to drag up the results of less able children by forcing them into a one size fits all dysfunctional school system where nobody achieves their potential (even if some end up with good exam results) isn't the right answer.

There are multiple issues with this statement.

You are assuming the 11+ is a reliable assessment of academic ability. It's not. it filters out those children who are not well-rounders and/or who develop later. How do we know that someone who doesn't do well at the 11+ now won't do better 2-3 years later, and someone who does well now won't do worse?
And if someone excels in one subject but not another, how is it fair to label them as not-academic and deny them better opportunities?
Deciding a child's potential and future at 10-11 is unfair and insane.
A system where children can move up and down sets, and can be in different sets by subject, would be much much fairer.

Your second assumption is that it is best to put the most academic children in one school, and all the others elsewhere. I am not expert so I cannot have a strong, informed opinion on this, but I note there isn't consensus among experts on this. Many believe that schools with a diverse (by ability) intake are better. This is why some schools, even in England, use banding: children take a test, are ranked in 4-5 bands, then places are allocated so that each band has an equal number of places.

@ThisPageIsBlank You talk a lot about re-establishing grammar schools, but, even, if we had 2 grammar schools in every postcode, all the issues above would still remain