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.

Of course, S Asian children do not participate in 11+!

LOL

How many nations you mentioned above are S Asian? Bingo.

Whether overseas or legitimate UK residents, I see no point in some middle-class, who don’t want to pay for private school but wish to take advantage of, or at least believe in, a certain kind of education in the state system, pretending to be, or representing, a poverty family when they have no idea what that truly entails.

There are a lot of cultures around the world where education is seen as THE ticket out of poverty. Despite years and years of push through our education system, it seems some indigenous Brits still do not believe that education will be their children’s ticket out of poverty. That needs to change! The question is how.

The reason people are very driven in eg India for their kids education is because there are NOT enough places in unis in the first place. To get in you need to be a top scorer. So if people with these educational values live here, their DCs can do very well. And many are very bright in the first place. Same applies to eg Chinese, South Korean, Japanese educational values.
You just need to look at the voters’ attitudes towards education overall in this country. It is not top of people’s agenda as mattering to society as a whole when in reality, it is the foundation of a successful society 20 years on, particularly in an economic sense.
We cannot grow this country if people do not change their attitudes towards education and its importance.

God knows.

A lot of people, especially on forums like these, are blind to how huge swathes of this country live as well.

When parents see school as the enemy, something to fight against as that’s what they did, that’s what their parents did, when they see working as the enemy too and have no aspirations in life, other than to hang out of windows shouting about who is shagging who, then children have no chance. No respect for anything is instilled. When you see your parent shouting at a teacher, you aren’t going to have any respect for education, or the people who who want to help you succeed.

One of my DDs friends is such a lovely girl. Really bright, such a funny, witty, kind little 11 year old. But her mother’s aspirations for her? Oh, she will be her carer. She’s 31 and already never worked due to a bad back (which isn’t so bad she can’t carry on as normal), she’s already got one eye on the mobility scooter though, just like her mum, who is 47, two years older than me and acts like an old woman. So that’s what this little girls mother has in store for her. Saying she will have kids young and end up at home with them, on the estate all her family live on, looking after them and her mum. And so it will continue.

That is the norm where I live. Few of the children in dds class will go on to be anything other than like thier parents are now. Why would they? There is no push. Life is comfortable doing nothing. It makes so sad.

You have to remember that for some people, they don’t want a different life. I was shocked when I moved here. I’ve always lived in a little middle class bubble. Call me a snob all you like, but the world of weed, big dogs, peeling wallpaper and never doing anything is completely normal for so many people and they don’t want a way out. They love it.

The reason many children of immigrants “do well” is because they are the children of intelligent aspirational people who know how to, or know how to learn how to function within a complicated system. Who want to “better” themselves. Who are often well educated. Because if they were not all of those things they would not be immigrants. They are the same sort of people whose kids pass the 11+ whatever their origin. It is showing massive misunderstanding of the situation and borderline racism to say “Look, brown kids can pass the 11+ - so underprivileged working class white kids can too”

@CurlewKate - if the system wanted to help the bright little 11 year old girl that @Mydogisamassivetwat describes, it could do so very easily. Every state primary school in this country has a ton of data on every child - we could easily use that data to give grammar places to such children, if we wanted to do that. If free transport were offered as well, then such parents may be persuaded to let them go. You just need to start encouraging a few to do so, in the first place.
Instead, the system underestimates these communities and keeps them trapped in poverty and on benefits. Away from work opportunities because politicians are focussed on 5-10 years max.
And the Tories replaced cheap EU Labour with cheap labour from other countries instead, many on eg carer visas who will never support themselves taxation wise either.

God, this in spades.

I am half Indian. One of the not so nice remarks made has been, “of course X is going to a grammar school, her mum is a P*ki, they all do.”

I was actually called in to school over that one by my dds lovely head. It was said to a teacher by another parent, with lots of other children in earshot and joining in laughing. He wanted to assure me that it had been dealt with and that any comments to dd would be nipped in the bud and dealt with immediately. Which I know they will, I have an excellent relationship with my children’s school, I respect them and in turn, they respect me.

My children have never had any racial abuse as they are all blonde haired and green eyes, you’d never guess thier heritage. So it’s me, and it makes me feel awful for them.

I’ve also had a parent say to my face they aren’t surprised that dd is going to the grammar she’s going to “as most of them are P*kis there anyway.” Yeah? I wonder why, mate. Maybe because the Indian parents aren’t sat in the park smoking weed, drinking can and screaming at their toddlers. They are, in general, instilling good morals into their children and supporting them to have the best lives they can.

Besides “underprivileged working class kids” whose parents are gaming the system for benefits surely have quite smart parents too, who understand how to work this system for their communities. How is that any different from smart immigrants who come here too?
The donkeys are the middle classes pushing their kids to work hard and pay into the system for everyone else. That is why a lot of their DC are now going to other countries, where they are more valued and where they will be able to build up a better quality life for themselves long term and have a family and buy a house.
The real assets Western economies have are young educated taxpayers. Every other country seems to realise this. Harvard university is upping the threshold for financial aid to 200000 USD - if that will include British kids, rest assured many will be going there.

Isn’t that setting up a child to fail though? I have no experience of these schools myself so don’t know how they work but surely the teaching and curriculum are geared to these supper clever children who gain top marks in the exams. If a child isn’t up to that then doesn’t it become obvious once they start attending and are bottom in every test? It’s abit like when people lie about their experience on job applications without seeming to have any consideration that they will need to be able to do those things if they get the job.

Many other families, not just south Asian, are also instilling good morals in their children and supporting their lives. However, many of them choose not to send their children to 11+ grammar schools, and I always wonder why. Many of their kids still go on to have happy and successful lives.

Yeah, I’ve just waved my 23 year old son off abroad for his career. I’m happy for him. Why wouldn’t I be?

He could do that because I supported his education and him. He couldn’t have done it jobless and on on UC.

But actually, you have a point. I sometimes look around me and the ones who play they system to do fuck all do actually seem happier in thier lives than me. They seem to have no worries, apart from who has shagged someone’s sister or that carol gave them a filthy look in Tesco, but even then, they revel in it.

And before I get called a horrible snob - this is one of the areas they used to get Jeremy Kyle participants from. First day dd started school when we moved here, one of her classmates mum couldn’t wait to send me the video of herself on it, screaming about the paternity of DDs classmate as a baby. She’s proud of it, it was the highlight of her life.

@Araminta1003 and @CurlewKate you may well both be right.

I agree that many immigrant families are here precisely because they are aspirational, believe that emigrating will offer them greater opportunities, and by definition they have the get-up-and-go to have made it happen. However, I’m not sure that the Indian community here for example, is necessarily representative of India as a whole and that the same high value is universally placed on education and on using it to improve your lot (appreciating that this is a massive generalisation and that India is a huge country made up of many different communities and cultures).

However I think there are countries, particularly in SE Asia where as a whole much greater importance is placed on education and on working hard at school - Hong Kong is an obvious example, and China, Japan and S Korea have also been suggested. There are also countries closer to home such as Finland where again the education system is much more respected - teaching is seen as a much higher status profession than here and unlike here teachers are paid properly, acknowledging the importance to society of their roles.

So I think it is a valid question to ask why there are sizeable swathes of white British culture where families teach their kids zero respect for education, are abusive to teachers etc etc, and to ask what if anything can be done about this.

Oh fuck me, this is why I keep saying “generally.”

I don’t know every single person in the country. I can only speak from personal and work experience.

There are plenty of really good comprehensives that set really well and if you can afford the catchment, then of course that is an option many people choose. Especially if you live in a nice middle class area like Cambridge, Winchester or St Alban’s or somewhere like Richmond in London. There are loads of schools like this too all over the country.

Crux of the matter is that no parent with strong educational values voluntarily sends their DC to a school full of kids from households lacking in educational values. Whether they send to grammar or high performing comp is neither here nor there.

With boarding going up 20% it would be at least £500k to board at a majority of private schools. I can understand why families would rather all relocate for a free state that might be getting similar results.

It is the grammar school system results in a school filled with children who lack educational aspirations.

No, for that to happen, there would have to be grammars in every town in the country. Only a small portion of children go to Grammar school.

At least for grammar school you need some brains to get in. There is zero requirement for brains to get into an outstanding leafy comp, money alone to buy in catchment will do the job.

It is the left liberal elite who have created a system for themselves via private schools and leafy catchment comps to keep the poor bright kids out of any hope and keep them trapped on benefits and in poverty and unable to escape that fate. It does not need to be like this. Like I said, every teacher knows the bright kids with potential who could get out. They need to get out as early as possible, ideally before reaching teen years. It does not need to be based on a random test taken on 1 day age 10. It could be based on years of data instead.

“With boarding going up 20% it would be at least £500k to board at a majority of private schools. I can understand why families would rather all relocate for a free state that might be getting similar results.“

There are good private schools in places like Mumbai too, with excellent results like Ambani and they take in poorer kids on full scholarships as well. Schools and unis are improving in China as well. Singapore has always had good schools too. The pull to the UK with the declining economy is far weaker than it used to be. The Chinese/Middle Eastern/Indian/Singaporean schools are catching up fast and feeding into the top US unis now, not UK anymore. The US knows this and wants those kids. Trump will be gone in a few years. As usual, the UK politicians do not seem to understand what is going on or what is importantly. In their arrogance, they are always behind the wave.

But my lived experience shows that they aren’t gagging to get out of poverty.

I see it eveyday. I speak to people all the time. They don’t want a different life, they are having a great time. So much so that sometimes, I think I am the fucking chump in all this, they seem happier than I do.

I see it through work and so does dh, we both work for the local authority we live in.

They don’t see themselves as being trapped in poverty. I’ve never, ever spoken to anyone who is upset by it. I work in the local community so I speak to a lot of people, i volunteer at two local schools as a parent advocate, I see a lot.

Honestly, it’s easy to think that people want to “better” themselves. IME, they don’t. They wouldn’t accept help. Most of the parents at my children’s school went to the same school themselves, people don’t leave this area, so they see it as the enemy still.

There is a massive underclass in this country and people can’t accept that they are happy being that way.

@Mydogisamassivetwat - I think humans are very adaptable and it sounds like these communities have strong values of their own and have settled themselves into a culture that makes them happy in other ways, not based on money alone. They have accepted their lot and are simply making the most of what they believe they can aspire to. They see no point in aspiring to “more” because it is out of reach and exhausting for them to get there. And a life on benefits seems to be easier.
Just like a middle class person may have the inherent value of sending their DC to uni ingrained and it is given in the cradle, whether it makes financial sense or not.

We also have estates like that in London, quite a few close to my house and the Uber drivers living there will constantly complain about the concept of a underclass and what they get up to. However, here a lot of the schools and head teachers are doing their level best for these kids and as it is easy to get around and see an alternative life in person, many of the kids are getting out. The way out is just more visible for them and they get taken by school to the Natural History Museum and to the Bank of England and these things do help.

So this is actually close to my heart as I have a 10 y.o. who is very bright (but not a genius). I'm not a Brit or Indian and I cannot make up my mind, just sitting on a fence at the moment. We are considering for our son to take 11+ exam next September. There are 4 grammars in our area and our local comps are truly dire, so we have no choice really. It's either this or a private school which will be very difficult for us to afford.
We joined some 11+ groups for the closest superselective (90% of parents are SE Asian) and they proposed this kind of study regime for half-term: Wake up at 7am, breakfast, study from 9 am till 9pm with breaks for meals and 1 hour for outside activity. I'm just wondering what type of 9-10 y.o. would happily submit himself to this kind of study regime without a cane or belt hanging over their heads? What I mean is that most of Europeans/Brits would consider this kind of life for a young child verging on abusive to say the least. Our closest superselective comprises of over 90% SE Asian students, so now I'm really wondering whether this is what we really have to do with our child in order for him to get there. And would it be really worth it for him later in life?
I've tried to find on LinkedIn what this school's graduates do later in life and it looks like most of them are doctors/engineers, but nothing extraordinary really. What I mean is, not CEOs making big money or scientists, famous writers/politicians or generally people I might have heard of. I've spent a lot of time in SE Asia and have many friends there and it looks like most of the kids' futures and careers as well as their private lives (wife/husband choice) are dictated by their parents and the main topics of discussions with parents seem to be: 1. food 2. education (esp. maths) 3. cricket. I would rather for my son to have a more rounded education/development, and to be more open-minded in life.

So, honestly, what is the reason that some superselectives comprise of over 90% SE Asian kids? Is it thanks to this educational regime? And is it really worth it to drag the child through it? I would like to make the best decision for my child's future.