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.

@Dtnews - what is your current experience of your own children at London superselective grammar schools? How many of your kids got in?

Top 25% does not yield 95% 7-9 at GCSEs, sorry. 57% Grade 9 etc.

These are largely at least top 10% kids in the first place. Not sure why you find that so offensive @Dtnews

In any event, top 10 per cent means in the top 2-3 in an average state primary, at least.
In many years of watching the kids get into this type of school, I can confidently state from personal experience that every single child I know fell within that parameter, at least.

I can confidently say top 25% with appropriate tutoring and support can yield 95% 7-9 at GCSEs.

The problem with your statement is that, even if all your kids get in, it still goes against many other opinions shared in this thread. Ignoring those viewpoints doesn’t turn your opinion into a norm or a fact.

@Dtnews - no, the grammar schools in areas like Bucks or Kent aimed at the top 25-30% of cohort do not produce GCSE results at this level.

They select the top 25%-30%, but the same argument holds true in reality: children in the top 30%-45% with extensive tutoring have better odds than those in the top 25% without additional preparation.

Furthermore, in grammar school areas, students who end up in secondary modern schools often experience further setbacks in their academic progress.

Parent Power on Times lists the very few schools in the country including the most selective schools, and 95% of GCSEs at 7-9 is reserved for the most academically selective schools. It is absolutely not top 25% of ability. It is much more selective than that. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, just another jealous cat on the internet.

@Araminta1003 I can only speak as I find. None of the children I know who’ve worked as I’ve outlined and gone to super selectives in the last five years are struggling or unable to keep up or considering moving to less demanding schools. They didn't all get in straightaway, some were waiting list for example, suggesting they had to put in the graft in order to score highly enough to win a place eventually. But they’re happy there now and it appears to have been worth it. I don’t agree with you that tutoring a bright but not genius level child doesn’t pay dividends I’m afraid and I’m at a bit of a loss to understand why you seem so keen to insist otherwise.

Bowing out now as nothing further to add. Good luck everyone.

The rankings also include numerous private schools that achieve these results, some of which admit students as early as age four. The truth is, gaining admission to a super-selective school isn’t solely about being in the top 5% of natural ability. Many other factors come into play.

Cut off score for HBS first round this year was 347.65 for VR, NVR and English. This is not a particularly high bar to clear - DD is not academic and we did zero prep as never planned to apply to any grammar, she did 5 mock tests and some practice on Atom in the week before the exam, nothing else whatsoever. She was 30-odd marks off the threshold, I suspect mostly in NVR.

If an academically average child can do this with one week of familiarisation, an academic child would easily clear that with minimal prep. Then if they are in catchment, they're in.

HBS, QE, St Olave's and Wilson are the hardest to get into. I'm not saying everything else is a walk in the park, but it looks doable without the drill.

OK @smogsville - but where these kids really not likely in the top 3 of a state primary class, on average?

There are CAT tests which show the ability of kids on a line. 125 and above is top 5%. The most selective private schools aim for at least that, typically. For the most selective private schools like Westminster at 11 plus at least, most of the kids getting in will have much higher scores than that.
I am just really not sure why some of you believe you can tutor in another 20 points kind of thing. I do not think it is possible.

Is it because you’re not interpreting the maths properly? A CAT SAS score of 125 corresponds to >the top 8% on the curve, while a score of 110 places a student in the top 25%. It’s quite easy to improve from 110 to 125 with targeted tutoring, but progressing from 125 to 135 is significantly more challenging, in my opinion.

@Dtnews - but we are making the same point. The most selective schools have kids with high intrinsic CAT scores and I do not think you can tutor much beyond a certain point. Certainly not without significant effort. So I see it as pointless. I do not really believe there are loads of kids at the schools @Ubertomusic mentions with CAT scores below 125, prior to tutoring. Having had multiple kids go to this type of school, I really cannot say that the reality was contrary to my belief. They are just very bright DCs, as a cohort. I really do also believe that to be the case with the most selective private schools.

Of course, if anyone ever had any actual concrete data to prove that QE has CAT4 scores from Year 7 proving that they have more of a 110 score on average that would be another matter. I highly doubt it though.

That’s absolutely not the same point. The most selective schools base their selection on tutored, inflated CAT scores rather than intrinsic CAT scores, meaning tutoring has a substantial impact on admissions. On paper, these schools claim to select students from the top 5%-10%, but in reality, they often admit a large number of children from families with resources and support, whose intrinsic abilities are around the top 25%-30%.

I’m not sure what @Ubertomusic mentioned about CAT scores below 125 here. However, she also brought up other points, speaking as an experienced mum who had previously sent her other DC to Tiffin and latymer.

So Westminster School with their 50
per cent Oxbridge rate is that also just all tutored kids @Dtnews - top 30 per cent with pushy parents primarily. So Oxbridge same story then? At what point does it change for you?
Is Oxbridge itself also just fake news? Blame the pushy tutoring parents?

@Mydogisamassivetwat I wonder if you live in Birmingham and your daughter has got into one of the grammars here? Lots of poverty and lack of aspiration but some good grammar schools largely populated by the aspirational second or third generation Indian/Pakistani community. Just being nosey.

Does it seem surprising? If a school like Westminster has a 50% Oxbridge success rate among its students, this applies to a subset of students already in the top 30% of intrinsic ability across the population (based on the assumption).

If every student at Westminster were to apply to Oxbridge, this 50% success rate would translate to 15% of the original overall intrinsic ability pool.
This success rate is already boosted substantially by the highest tuition fees, extensive school resources, and strong family backing you can get in this country.

Oxbridge Success Rates at the overall 13%-16% acceptance rate, the applicants likely represent a highly capable, yet self select subset of the population, one can roughly align with the top 10% of the intrinsically academic capable as well as best-prepared students with the resources

I don’t live in Birmingham, we’re Black Country. The grammar she’s going isn’t in B’ham. She did get a fantastic score and could have got in to a B’ham grammar, but we’ve got an excellent grammar closer to us (20 ish mins away) than going into B’ham everyday, which would be a pain in the arse.

@Dtnews - the group of boys at both Westminster and QE who end up at Oxbridge tend to perform very well there too. There are figures on this.
These boys were always in the highest cognitive ability percentiles. Definitely not top 30% only.
You cannot line up all the kids in the country and send 3 out of 10 to these schools with the “right” parents and then end up with Firsts at Oxbridge. It’s far more like 1 out of 10, often 1 out of 100.

You cannot line up all the kids in the country and send 3 out of 10 to these schools with the “right” parents and then end up with Firsts at Oxbridge

You are deliberately trying to mix concepts, but your point is invalid. The Oxbridge first rate is only around 20% of all students. I also know that school like QE has students who do not meet admission conditions or end up achieving a third at Oxbridge. 7% of private school students account for 40% of Oxbridge admissions. Do you truly believe that this 7% is purely about innate ability, with no connection to resources or right family background?

You're right, they don’t, and I have seen their CAT scores.

The inflated CAT scores are the result of years of tutoring. It is nearly impossible to find the raw CAT scores of these students because they begin tutoring from a very early stage.

@Dtnews - not true for the ones we actually know and have known over many years.
In any event, it is a logical fallacy.

Take a family with a very bright boy but who believes they must still tutor their child for 2 years and pay out thousands in tuition “because everyone else does it”. Does not mean they had to do that in the first place. That is behavioural.

DS has lots of friends who are musically gifted. Think multiple Grade 8 standard age 10/11. Quite a few of them just gave it a go and did get in, some friends who are really good at chess or art etc as well. All very able boys. None of them tutored for years. Yes, the parents could have tutored for years and years, but the outcome would have been the same.
Many of these boys will do things like Sudoku for fun, read complex books way beyond their years. Academically gifted boys, the lot of them. Whatever that means. There is a degree of it and none of them are geniuses.

There are loads of the types of kids in these types of schools.

None of them tutored for years. Yes, the parents could have tutored for years and years, but the outcome would have been the same.

Schools like QE, St. Olave’s typically see students tutored for two years in preparation for the 11+. Tutoring is also common for GCSEs and A-levels for these students. What you’ve described no tutoring is not the norm. Tutoring cannot alter innate ability, it can enhance academic progress and improve exam scores. Otherwise, why would some people invest in it? It’s clearly more than just a matter of behavior.

Your argument contains logical fallacies and demonstrates a preference for biased information that supports your beliefs.

Also I find your argument inconsistent: it jumps from tutoring to innate abilities, Oxbridge, music, chess, and Sudoku. It seems like you are attempting to justify the belief that your sons or someone else in the school is part of the born top 5-10% intelligence in the population and should therefore be treated differently.

The truth is, while some individuals may fall into that category, many do not. What we see on paper result is more often the added product of some innate ability (more like 25%), more importantly family resources, privilege, plus rat race ideology, which may or may not ultimately prove beneficial overall.

There’s no point in continuing this argument in this thread; next time, you’ll just shift to other random points.