Candidates flying from overseas to sit super-selective grammar 11+

[PopcornPoppingInAPan]

A friend told me for one of the super super selectives in London that some candidates who live overseas had flown in to sit the 11+ exam. If successful the whole family was relocating here. (This is foreign nationals, rather than “ex-pat” British families living overseas.) The school has no priority area.

I wondered if anyone had heard this and whether it was credible or if it’s one of those internet rumours?

I was also wondering if it’s even possible to do this. Obviously families do relocate to the UK and assuming they and the kids have a right to reside then the kids will be entitled to a school place. But can you do it before you’ve moved here?

I guess if you can put down a relative’s address as your address for the purpose of sitting the exam and then submitting the CAF maybe that’s all you need. I wasn’t sure if LAs did any more checks on candidates who aren’t already on their books at state primary, IYSWIM.

I have heard of a family moving from Yorkshire when their DC got a place at the same super selective school so perhaps this is just an extension of that.

taking out the highest achieving without catching up from the bottom

Where is the evidence for this? It is actually the opposite.

I've heard all this rubbish many times before, the reality is there upthread, in the post of @JeanPaulGagtier who appears to be a teacher.

"Why are they pulling apart that works and leaving the rabble?"

Why indeed 😏

However, no Government is going to be shutting down all the best performing state schools. It is never going to happen

Labour shut down most grammar schools 30 years ago. Weren't they just better performance because of selection?

You clearly have an obsession with the 11+ system and grammar school education, perhaps because you believe those admitted are genuinely in the top 5% of natural talent, unaffected by family culture or other factors. However, in reality, these factors play a significant role.

The teacher also mentioned "It's worse in many ways than the private cohort because at least the parents are not forcing kids to take places from actually bright children then struggle and pay for tutoring to keep up."

I wholeheartedly agree, you should keep your DD in private sector.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of all of this. Somehow people want to believe that if you mix all the kids up, the educational values will transfer from one kid to the next. It does not work like that for children. It comes from the adults, not peer to peer.
So by all means, mobilise Tory style middle class armies of grandparents and volunteers to go read and do gardening/forest school in primary schools with deprived children.
But the real issue is that the teachers - the middle class ones - they will go and teach in the private sector and the grammar sector etc and the nicest comps. You won’t be able to get them into the worst schools en masse, unless you up pay there massively, increase teacher to pupil ratio, what they are doing is just not enough to make up for the shortcomings of the educational background.
The parents are the prime educators, of course, but much of it is not tiger parenting/tutoring what have you, it is simply passed down as reading habits, talking to your children with respect, feeding them healthy food, having university aspirations, limiting screen time.

it’s extraordinary that so many people still believe the myth that grammar schools
do anything to increase social mobility.

Now you're telling me what I should do with my DD's education.

You really have a problem, don't you.

You are sharing so many story about yourself and your DD. I am making suggestions and comments based on the earlier discussion in this thread.

Whilst I can't be bothered to make suggestions to you about your children or anything else, regardless of what you share or don't share 🤷‍♀️

Nature vs Nurture in terms of cognitive ability

A lot of people have been talking about how grammar schools select students based on their "natural ability" and the tests cannot be coached for.

The closest scientific test that you can administer to test for "natural cognitive ability" is the IQ test and even that is considered a pale indicator at best. The VR and NVR parts of most grammar school tests try to imitate IQ tests (though it is not directly comparable).

If you examine academic studies of IQ tests in children from both twin studies and adoption studies one thing is immediately obvious: the genetic component of IQ variation increases significantly with age. IQ is very much influenced by your genes but only when you reach adulthood.

In adulthood the component of your IQ score that is linked to genetics is >80%. In children of the 9-11 age range the component of the IQ score linked to genetics is only 45%

This means environment plays a far bigger role in how well children do in IQ type tests compared to adults. Extrapolate this to grammar school tests that have even more inbuilt biases than the IQ tests.

This is not a shocking discovery. Of course children are more susceptible to their environment than adults. Family circumstances and educational quality have a far bigger impact on primary age children than adults and this reflects in any cognitive testing.

Only people have completing compulsory education and biologically fully maturing can you actually have a hope of accruately testing their "natural abilities" i.e. the genetic influence on cognition.

What grammar school selection does it pick

1. Parents who value education
2. Children who already have a good foundational knowledge
3. Relatively more affluent families over all

Just looking at percentages of pupils eligible for free school meals at grammar schools acros the country:

Only 6.7% of grammar school pupils are claiming free school meals compared to 28.4% attending nearby non-selective schools (https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/interactive-map-of-grammar-schools).

The adult human IQ by has normal distribution, and the distribution does not change with regards to social economic status (in developed countries).

If Grammar schools were really taking the children who are destined to be the brightest adults - we should have the same socio-economic distribution of children at grammar school than in non-selective schools.

This shows that:

1. The effects of socio-economic inequality on education is not being address in primary schools
2. Grammar schools are socially selective , whether they want to be or not.

Somehow people want to believe that if you mix all the kids up, the educational values will transfer from one kid to the next. It does not work like that for children. It comes from the adults, not peer to peer.

On the other hand, you seem to believe that grouping "not typical" children who pass the 11+ exam together will automatically lead to better educational outcomes. It doesn’t work that way, it's more of a rat race.

Nobody disagrees with your point about parental involvement playing an important role, among other factors. However, this highlights how insignificant a role grammar schools actually play in society; their success is largely a function of resources and family privilege.

So? Doesn't change my sentiment on you based on what you said.

I know of a couple of corner shop owners who sent their DC to grammar schools. Do you call this social mobility or not? Simple question.

Thanks for providing more insight into this. Unfortunately, grammar school advocates tend to ignore such points, choosing instead to believe what they want to believe, all while signing up for tutoring classes in the meantime.

Yes, that's exactly your problem 😁 People having "sentiments" on internet strangers have a problem, I'm afraid.

@bluegoosie - how is the UK comprehensive system, where parents can buy a house in catchment for a chosen secondary school, socially and economically fairer than a grammar system? The former is entirely predicated on the adults actually using their purse.

Well, more precisely, this sentiment is directed at a group of people who typically represent certain views and actions from their comments on the MN, as described earlier by another poster

'It’s worse in many ways than the private cohort because, at least with them, the parents aren’t forcing their children to take places from genuinely bright students, only for them to struggle and rely on tutoring to keep up.'"

@Dtnews - you literally told @Ubertomusic that she can have “privilege” as long as she “pays” for it. So she can pay for private schools or she can pay her way into an expensive catchment as then she has supposedly paid her social dues. But God forbid she has a clever child, how dare she send them to a God forbid FREE grammar school.

FSM data is misleading as being on free meals is a stigma in many cultures and not everyone applies. My DC was eligible for FSM, we never applied, neither in state sector nor in grammar. Top superselective grammars have a very different ethnic demographic than comprehensive, hence the difference in the stats.

We can't directly compare IQ tests and 11+ because 11+ assessments vary greatly across grammar schools, there is no universal approach. Test providers differ and when I tried to find GL test construction methodology and data, I couldn't find anything. So scientifically speaking, we cannot say much about validity, reliability and other characteristics of the tests (unless you have access to methodology).

Research on IQ tests themselves is inconclusive, too.

God forbid—of what, exactly? Are grammar schools becoming a holy grail for you now? I’m simply echo a comment by another poster that grammar schools represent a form of social selection and a public resource that is being misused by the middle class in a way that is worse than buying privileges of using private schools. The government should consider imposing a levy or VAT on such choices.

“The government should consider imposing a levy or VAT on such choices.”

Have you heard of the legal system, per chance? You can try and come across all academic, but when you make such naive statements, you discredit yourself entirely.

a stigma in many cultures and not everyone applies.

The recognition of grammar school applicants is, in large part, influenced by certain cultural and demographic factors, as well as family stigma or ideology. Many other cultures and families don’t even consider applying.

I also agree with @CurlewKate.

I mentioned earlier that my son joined a super selective for sixth form. His grade requirement at GCSE was higher (63 points from top 8) than boys who had joined the school in year 7 (56 points). In fact, due to demand for places, the school were offering on 68-70 predicted points from top 8.

DS was worried that all the incumbent boys would be super bright, high achieving and he would not keep up. Instead he's found that these boys are the minority and that he is perfectly able to keep pace despite "only" having attended the local comprehensive.

He went to primary with a boy who joined the school in year 7 having been tutored for 11+ for 2 years. Now they are at the same school again and DS' friend did no better in his GCSEs than DS did.

The 11+ had 3 papers - maths, English and NVR. Despite there being an English test most of the boys lean toward STEM for A levels with only 12 (out of 150) boys not taking Maths (8 classes) whereas there is only one English Lit A Level class with approx. 15 boys. Rightly or wrongly the impression this gives me is that the 11+ does favour those who are good at maths at 10 years of age.

@Araminta1003

The argument that some comprehensive schools may have a skewed socio-economic intake does not counter the fact that grammar schools are inherently socially selective—it is built into their system of selection. The entrance exam structure, combined with access to private tutoring and preparatory resources, systematically advantages certain families while disproportionately excluding disadvantaged students.

The evidence overwhelmingly shows that grammar schools do not improve social mobility at a societal level. While there are individual success stories, large-scale studies, such as those by the Education Policy Institute (EPI), demonstrate that grammar schools reinforce socio-economic divisions rather than bridge them. The proportion of Free School Meals (FSM) eligible students in grammar schools is around 6-7%, compared to 28-30% in non-selective schools—a clear indicator that grammar schools do not serve disadvantaged students equitably.

Furthermore, the suggestion that non-selective schools also have socio-economic disparities does not address the core issue—grammar schools are designed to be selective, and in practice, their selection criteria favor those with existing educational advantages. This is not a side effect but a structural feature of the system.

Anecdotes about individuals who benefited from grammar schools should not dictate national education policy. State education is publicly funded and should be designed to promote fairness and equal opportunities for all students, rather than disproportionately benefiting those who can afford exam preparation. If grammar schools do not contribute to genuine social mobility, then it is right to question whether public funds should continue to support them.

The real question is: Should we continue to fund a specific system that perpetuates inequality, or should we focus on evidence-based reforms that promote a fairer and more equitable education system for all?

Just to add @bluegoosie - pretty much everything in psychometrics is inconclusive, it's not hard science as we cannot experiment on human beings, isolating variables - denying one twin all educational input for example.

But psychometrics is a very British and American obsession, of course.