How to know if my child is grammar school material?

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Hello

I was wondering how you knew whether your child is ‘grammar school material’. I live in Kent and in my town there is a grammar school everyone is trying to get into, one secondary school with a good reputation that everyone is also trying to get to and then all the other secondary schools with very dire reputations for both academics and behaviour. We are on the borderline of catchment to get into the good secondary school and I would say it is possible but chances are slim. Looking at the past years data both the grammar school and the good secondary school have similar number of applications per one place.

My DC is still pretty young, Y2 so I cant figure out for the live of me whether the grammar school is the right setup.

I have however friends strongly recommending to sign up my DC to 11+ Yr3 group tutoring then Yr4 and Yr5. I have some friends who put their DC in Yr5 and said in retrospect it was too late and should have done in Yr4 at least.

I personally feel if someone needs 3 years of tutoring then perhaps the grammar school wouldn’t be right for them and even if they get-in they would struggle. However I was told this is not as much about abilities as the fact that the primary school doesn’t necessarily prepare for 11+ exams and starting early means there is a smaller gap to close ie my DC would be learning and progressing at slower peace, making it more comfortable.

I also feel this would be kind of ‘stealing’ their childhood asking to do extra tutoring from Yr3 but at the same time, the alternatives are pretty dire and we are very unlikely to move due to finances. The secondary schools around here had a bad reputation for years now, so I don’t expect that to drastically improve by the time my DC goes to Yr7.

My DC doesn’t really like doing any homework, prefers watching TV and playing as expected, but when does has no issues at all with absorbing knowledge. The feedback we are getting from the primary school always is the same that my DC meets expectations, never exceeds or below.

I am not sure what to do here, if there were some average schools around my area, I wouldn’t consider this at all but with the choices that are available I am really 50/50 what to do.

Btw if your child is learning English as a second language it's very common to be a bit behind and then suddenly shoot forwards when things "click", so in that case the comments about being GD from Reception don't apply so much.

It's fairly easy.

If your child is exceeding expectations consistently they are grammar material.

If they are meeting expectations then for places like Kent it's kind of down to you.

You can teach a child and improve how they are doing academically. When you think about it, it's the whole purpose of schools. Most children improve much quicker 1:1 than they do in a big group of 30.

So if you are the kind of parent who wants their kid in a grammar then you start reading classic children's literature with them a bedtime, start doing maths games and puzzles at weekends and enrich their experience.

The kids that the tutors are talking about spotting easily are the "exceeding" at all times kids.

We live in Kent
DS went to a Superselective in West Kent.
He knew his colours by 18m, could count to 20 by 2 ( as in how many blocks are there ? and reliably get it right to 20), he could recognise numbers by 3 and had an understanding of 3 digit numbers, simple addition and could tell the time before he went to school.
He knew all his times tables (to 12) by half term in yr2. We were taken to one side by his yr 3 teacher and told we should be thinking of grammar and potentially superselective school at 11.

He had a year's tutoring in yr 5.

Dd was more "averagely bright" but was GD across the board all the way through primary. We started her tutoring in yr 4, she missed the superselctive score by a few marks. She is doing well in a " normal" grammar school.

Not sure if that helps you.

I'd agree with this. I'd also say the child must be someone who cares about getting things right and fighting for every single mark.

Lord knows I have a bright boy that ticks all these boxes but does not go for gold so keeps dropping points through carelessness.

DC don't need to be particularly bright to get into a superselective grammar, let alone a non superselective one. The term superselective is slightly problematic. It simply means that there's no catchment area but the word suggests some kind of intellectual superpower.

All of my DC went to a superselective (not Kent) and they varied in ability. None showed an early passion for the Classics or STEM or anything very much and they all enjoyed knocking off after school and watching tv or playing on the xbox rather than poring over homework (tbf they were never given much homework at all in primary school).

People massively over estimate the standard required to get into a grammar school and a previous poster was spot on: many grammars, especially in Kent, provide no better an education than many comps.

Had our local grammar not been an isolated superselective I probably wouldn't have signed them up for the test.

(The youngest showed no interest in Classics until Y12 but did go on to get a double first from Oxford in the subject last year so ignore all the talk of precocious interest - let them relax and do whatever they want to do. Please no-one shout stealth boast because I really don't need to boast - stealthily or otherwise - but this is really to say save yourself the angst what will be will be and quite right the poster who said that tutoring won't make an ounce of difference. Just let your DC enjoy their primary years).

Year 2 are 6/7 years old. Even yr3 are only 7/8
It's sad that the grammar system leads to this & almost forced people to join the race. But at £££
It certainly was never supposed to.
I'm not Kent but am in another LA next to an LA with grammars

Do you even have to be incredibly 'bright' to get into Oxford these days? Or do you just need to know your stuff about the subject you intend to take?

It's all relative. Even the most selective schools can't be that selective because when it comes down to it, very very few people are truly gifted and top 5-10% is commonplace really

I know a lot of 'bright' kids but only one who taught himself to read fluently (as in chapter books!) before he started school. His parents are so incredibly down to earth that they never even mentioned it and certainly were not pushing or tutoring him, just enjoying stories together....he came over for a play date and sat and read detailed instructions to a highly technical toy for much older children. It was at this moment that I realised my own child was by no means a genius 🤣

Probably pretty bright to get an Oxford offer. On the Oxbridge threads when people talk of 'genius' of course that's bollocks. But to get into a grammar school is not a big deal at all. It matters, obviously, if the impact of the grammar is negative on other local schools - but isolated superselectives don't really affect the rest which is why I was glad that that was the system near us.

Being down to earth is far healthier with very bright kids I'd have thought than being in awe of the little prodigy/ies.

I think these posts about needing to be a noticeably super bright child who challenges themselves all the time are misleading somewhat, there are a wide range of grammars where I am and some you can get in by scraping a pass and others you need to pass with flying colours.

I live in a grammar school area. The issue with the 11+ is that it includes content that the school curriculum hasn't covered when the exam takes place. So the only way a child has a chance of passing the 11+ is to be tutored.

It's a sad state of affairs. The whole purpose of the 11+ was to give bright children from all backgrounds a chance to attend a grammar school. Because the 11+ and curriculum aren't in synch, only children whose parents can afford a tutor are sitting the exam in my area.

So in answer to your question, you will need to get a tutor for your child to have a fair chance at passing the 11+ exam.

Another sad knock-on effect of tutoring children for the 11+ is that they're totally bored in Y6 and can then disrupt other children's learning. We also had a problem in DDs school with the 11+ children bragging that they'd be going to a 'better school' which was really horrible behaviour. I hate living in a grammar school area!

Grammar school entry, at least in our area of London, is not what it once was. It’s not about intelligence it’s about hardcore preparation. The children that got in from DD’s school had intense tutoring, no holidays, and cut back on other extracurriculars to study. DD, who has been working at GD since year one, and had tutoring but not intensely, didn’t even make it past the first round. She went on to get offers from two independent schools, one with an academic scholarship.

It’s a sad state of affairs but it’s the brutal reality. 3,500 applications for 190 places says it all. That being said, if we hadn’t gone for it we would always have wondered what if, so we don’t regret it. But we weren’t prepared to ‘play the game’ as we knew DD would hate it and there’s more to life, so we have accepted we did what was right for our family. Nothing wrong with giving it a go but go in with your eyes open about what you’re up against.

One thing to add, its one day of exams.
If your child has a bad day, panics or just isn't great at exams they won't do well. Its not necessarily a reflection of their abilities in general.
DD likes exams so did well, other DC just as academic as her didn't and one girl who nobody would have expected it from absolutely smashed it. Apparently she just spend hours on past papers every week for a year.

I live in a county without a single grammar school. I'm always told (by dsis who lives in London), that DD would have aced a grammar school place.
It feels unfair this wasn't an option, but if she'd needed three years of tutoring to get a place I wouldn't have done it. Her GCSE grades were all 8/9s with no tutoring and she's predicted A*/A in her maths, physics and chemistry A levels. I figure if she can achieve this from an average Northern secondary, it puts her in good stead against other students who achieved similar grades in much more academic backgrounds.
At your DC's age DD was exceeding in all subjects.