Pulling out of 11+ (poor mock results)?

[fedupofit1234]

Hi. Wondering if anyone in a grammar school area has pulled out of doing the 11+ at the last minute and if you/your child regretted it?

My daughter has done 4 mock exams between May and this week. Scores have improved steadily (from very low on the first attempt) but she is still under what the provider states is probably a pass (she scored 71% this time, a 'pass' is classed as 75% or above and the real thing is generally considered to start somewhere between 76-80% although nobody knows for sure).

Some of her wrong answers are silly mistakes which she can spot straight away, especially in maths where in theory she could absolutely excel. But she also has weaker points that we just can't improve on at this stage - mainly comprehension and vocab. Yes we are practising but she just finds it inherently hard!

Her friends have been scoring 80% plus since the spring and some are now getting ridiculous scores of 95% and more and I just think she is so behind this level, what's the point? Would it be a mistake to pull out at this late stage (real test is mid September)? Has anyone done this and regretted it or ended up with an upset child afterwards? She is bored of the work we are doing (although gets on with it and we are not doing ridiculous amounts) and has often said she doesn't mind if she goes to the grammar or the local secondary school but I don't know if this opinion would stay if I actually let her drop out.

We are in Trafford if that's relevant.

Thanks 🙂

We are quite lucky - we have 7 grammars in our area but a lot of the non-grammar options are still nice schools (in the Altrincham/Sale/Timperley area at least).

But yes, two of the grammars also do local reviews immediately after results are published where I think you provide past school reports showing greater depth in core subjects and letters from primary teachers basically stating they believe the child is grammar school material. I think the numbers who 'pass' through this method are usually surprisingly high too.

Definitely worth trying then. In our area (Bucks), the headteachers have to mark each child's suitability for grammar, they have to do be done before, so the result is honest (we get a lot of out of county candidates, where they don't indicate suitability. and whilst they include it on the review form, it is not given as much weight. I don't know if your area does this?

If your child has GDS and supportive teachers, it's definitely worth it, especially with a review as a back. Even more so if the non-selective schools are good, as you have nothing to lose.

Just try not to make it too important, I know it's hard, but it's just a little test, same as SATs (I'm assuming they still do them? DD would have had them in 2021, but they were cancelled due to COVID).

There is a brilliant forum called 11 Plus Forums, they have some fantastic posters on there, who helped me a lot.

How did your daughter do? My daughter just missed Sale. We got urmston and Stretford. Hope whatever the result she was proud of herself!