The 11+ was a eugenics test to weed out genetically "inferior" children, created by a classicist who falsified his research

[ParentOfOne]

I had already made a post a few months ago about why I think the 11+ and similar tests are flawed.

Since many families have just gone or are going through the 11+ drama now, I just wanted post a short but timely reminder that the 11+ was born as a eugenics test at the beginning of last century, when eugenics was all the rage. That meant looking for pseudo-scientific ways to improve the genetic "quality" of human population, by identifying "inferior" races and individuals, and "improving" the other ones.

The father of the 11+ was Cyril Burt, a posh t*at gentleman who studied classics at Oxford and then took an interest in psychology, without any training in medicine, psychology, mathematics, statistics.

He became convinced that intelligence was innate and not affected by the environment, and therefore wanted to find ways to identify the innately gifted and intelligent children, with the not so subtle implication that everyone else could go f* themselves was better suited for other, less academic pursuits.

Before dying, he burnt all his records and notes, and the current academic consensus is that he was guilty of scientific misconduct (falsifying data).

A campaign group against the 11+ and selective schools summarises his story here

If that seems too partisan, you might want to read what the British Psychological Society has to say (spoiler: mostly the same things).

To recap:

• the 11+ was created by a posh t* who had studied Classics and lacked any training in psychology, statistics, mathematics, the sciences in general
• the ideology behind it was the (now debunked) idea that intelligence is innate and unaffected by the environment
• the gentleman in question had fabricated a large part of his research
• there is no scientific study on the reliability of these tests, on how better or not the kids who ace these tests do vs the kids who do not, on why answering those questions in 30 seconds makes you more intelligent than answering them in 45, etc
• the very concept of IQ is controversial
• when similar tests are used by psychologists, they cannot be administered too frequently, otherwise the results are biased. This alone proves that the notion that there can be no tutoring is utter bs, as proven by the huge industry that exists around tutoring for the 11+
• it is well known that selective and partially selective state schools are hugely SOCIALLY selective; the % of kids on free school meals at those schools is always much lower than elsewhere (e.g. only 5.8% at Henrietta Barnett in London). Cyryl Burt would have said that richer kids are inherently more intelligent; I call bs and say those schools select the kids whose families can either tutor them themselves or pay for tutoring

So, if you are non-white and/or non-British and/or working class, remember that these tests were conceived with the explicit aim of weeding out undesirable and obviously genetically inferior people like you (if any artificial stupidity censor reads this, that was sarcasm ).

Unfortunately the OP completely misses the point anyone they disagree with makes.
They are the person who came on here with the headline grabbing “11+ tests based on Eugenics” knowing full well the attention that would get.
Yet they are blind to the contemporary nuances of how ethnicity and cultural values are important factors within this debate.
Perhaps you should look up the Sutton reports yourself on ethnicity, educational outcomes and FSM.
But of course, they know what’s best for everyone else. Ironically, they have much more in common with Cyril Burt than they realise…
I’ll not partake anymore in this thread as they seem to be the kind of troll on here that relishes arguing, but not listening.

@makavelicoffee This point has already been addressed multiple times.
How many decades ago did your father-in-law go to grammar school?
Presumably tuition wasn't then the big industry it is now?

If he were to apply for grammar school today, he'd be competing against kids tutored to an inch of their lives.

For the nth time: tutoring won't double your score but it can increase it enough to make a difference. Like I said, a child who scores 70% untutored would be penalised vs one who scores 65% untutored but achieves 75% after a year of intense tutoring. That's the unfairness.

And perhaps this might clarify the nuance that the OP is missing - the attainment gap between FSM and non FSM pupils of Chinese heritage is 3% (according to the Sutton Trust) so blithely ignoring ethnicity and shouting ‘straw man!’ at everyone just highlights their own lack of understanding

@Notamarxist
Unfortunately the OP completely misses the point anyone they disagree with makes.
They are the person who came on here with the headline grabbing “11+ tests based on Eugenics” knowing full well the attention that would get.
Yet they are blind to the contemporary nuances of how ethnicity and cultural values are important factors within this debate.

Again:
I said that the eugenicists who created the 11+ viewed white people as superior.
I never said the current system favours all white people.
In fact, I have said multiple times that white working class kids (boys more than girls) are the most penalised at the moment.
With respect to the 11+ today, I made it about class and income, not about race.
Did you make it about race just so you could accuse me of racism? I don't quite understand...

Perhaps you should look up the Sutton reports yourself on ethnicity, educational outcomes and FSM.

I struggle to follow since you made it about ethnicity, not me. How would a report on ethnicity and free school meals affect what I was saying about the links among class, free school meals, tutoring and 11+ results? Can you enlighten me?

But of course, they know what’s best for everyone else. Ironically, they have much more in common with Cyril Burt than they realise…

Right: so pointing out that there continues to be a shocking lack of scientific backing on whether 10 would be an adequate age for testing, that this test penalises those who excel in one area only, that it penalises the academic kids who don't get support at home, pointing out all of this means I know what's best for everyone. Yours is some twisted logic

I’ll not partake anymore in this thread as they seem to be the kind of troll on here that relishes arguing, but not listening.

Translation: your nonsense has been debunked and you have run out of arguments.

“So, if you are non-white and/or non-British and/or working class, remember that these tests were conceived with the explicit aim of weeding out undesirable and obviously genetically inferior people like you (if any artificial stupidity censor reads this, that was sarcasm”

hmm, you never made it about race did you - with you incredibly patronising first comment above? And if you can’t see how this sarcastic comment is patronising you really need to wake up…

Well it was an interesting read up until non white - non British disadvantage.

You do know the most educationally disadvantaged cohort is working class white British boys.

@Notamarxist And perhaps this might clarify the nuance that the OP is missing - the attainment gap between FSM and non FSM pupils of Chinese heritage is 3% (according to the Sutton Trust) so blithely ignoring ethnicity and shouting ‘straw man!’ at everyone just highlights their own lack of understanding

Didn't you say you wouldn't partake any more? Oh, well, since you are still here, could you please kindly help me understand what this has to do with my main point that the current system penalises a child who'd score 70% untutored vs one who'd get 65% untutored but 75% after intense tutoring?

You might say that if this hypothetical child scoring 70% is in a white working class family, they are less likely to have external support and tutoring, whereas if they are in a British-Chinese or British-Indian family they are more likely to get that extra support, but that is precisely my point: the impact of external support is high that these tests end up measuring not "raw talent" but a combination of talent + external support.

hmm, you never made it about race did you - with you incredibly patronising first comment above?

Is it so difficult to understand the difference between past and present? Is it such a complex concept to grasp?

I said that these tests were conceived by racists who considered white people superior. That's a historical fact.

I also said that the main discriminant now is class (or socio-economic background, or family environment, whatever you want to call it) because of the huge impact that family help and tutoring have on these tests.

Yes! Which is why I have said it multiple times in the thread!
Already on page 2 I said " I know that white working class boys are being failed by the system."

I failed the 11 plus. Got segregated to the ‘thickly’ school. I’m a senior lecturer now in a RG university. It’s a divisive measure weighted against children from lower socioeconomic economic backgrounds. Oh and also weighted against girls!

Nobody really wants to face the fact that intelligence is largely inherited and this has implications for so much of what we experience in life.

Just denial and cope all around. When will people just accept reality and work from there?

this discussion is so strange, i'm not yet certain what the op is trying to discuss.
the history of the exam and the school and workplace options at the time means that in 1944 and (most likely for a short time following) the system "worked" regardless if it was based on race. young people entered a workforce clamoring for manual laborer's, a small number of middle managers and an even smaller number of university educated individuals.
as the op keeps saying she questions the validity of testing at 10, well historically with the education system at the time and the concept that by age 15 they were for the most part finished with education (the school leaving age was increased from 15-16 in 1972) and were ready for work at 15-16.
but the workforce, workplaces and workplace options have drastically changed since the end of ww2.
move onto the current educational system as a whole; it's very unequal, the same provision is not available in all regions of the uk, and the population of the uk is equally unbalanced not every school has the same representation of socioeconomic background, race or family level of education.
right now some schools are big and oversubscribed and some are at risk of closing one thing for sure though is the proportion of children with special needs either educational or emotional who in 1944 would not be in the class.
as much as the grammar process is unfair i'm of the impression the entire secondary system is flawed and malfunctioning at this point (needing strict military type discipline shows something is not working well).
grammar schools do work at separating some of the students who do well within the academic model and for the most part the exam pick out children who are biddable.
at this point; why are children on fsm under represented; that would be a good topic on it's own. location need to take a bus or added fuel for the car, uniform cost, time again location might mean a student gets home to late to take care of other responsibilities, family dynamics and family friends unsupportive (getting ahead of yourself), fear of not having friends at the school/feeling out of place (remember that people generally like to socialize with people of similar income) zero desire for attending university and various other additional costs real or perceived like tutoring. then there are deeper issues related to poverty (not all people on fsm are living in poverty) such as drug and alcohol use, mental illness, and poor nutrition.

My parents both passed in the 1950s and went to grammar schools. My dad's dad was a turner, my mum's dad worked in a ahop and her mum was a packer in a factory. They both lived in two up two down terraces in Manchester. It was certainly a deeply flawed system but the local grammars had plenty of working class kids.

Pseudo intelligence aside, this thread takes the biscuit in illustrating parental anxiety around waiting for a DC’s result, following an 11 plus style tests, and where their mind may go!

Relax OP, I am 99% certain your DC will get into Latymer. I can generally tell. Do not ask why! And if not, rest assured they have a massive 6th form intake so you get a second chance later and none of it makes any difference long term.

@RingoJuice Nobody really wants to face the fact that intelligence is largely inherited and this has implications for so much of what we experience in life.
Just denial and cope all around. When will people just accept reality and work from there?

Nonsense. No one is saying that there is zero innate ability, but that it's a combination of nature and nurture.

For the billionth time, the current system penalises the child who scores 70% untutored vs those who score 65% untutored but 75% after a year of intense tutoring. See the difference?

Not to mention all the other points that there is no scientific basis for testing at 10, that it penalises those who excel in one area but not another, and that it doesn't account for the peaks and troughs which are normal in pre-teens and teens.

@Araminta1003 FWIW my child has already been admitted into a partially selective school. To be precise, they cannot legally guarantee the place, but the only way they wouldn't get in is if the school received 200 applications from children with a care plan (or whatever the bureaucratic term is). We are awaiting another result. These two schools are our top 2 choices.

Make of this what you will - you are welcome to notice that my post is consistent with other posts I wrote in the past, or to think I am lying and it's all anxiety or sour grapes. I genuinely do not care.

Congratulations @ParentOfOne to your DC for passing the Wandsworth test. It is as intense as all the others though, so exactly how is partially selective even relevant, given your very strong feelings on the 11 plus?
Although I personally thought results come out mid October?

@Araminta1003 There are schools which are partially selective, use a test which they (not the council nor an external entity) administer, and which have already shared the results of these tests, so families know if they are in, or where they are on the waiting list, or if they didn't meet the pass grade.

The indication in these cases is more solid than with the Wandsworth test, because there you can get a sense of what the minimum score required to get in was in the past years, but it can move a little bit from year to year.

For the billionth time, the current system penalises the child who scores 70% untutored vs those who score 65% untutored but 75% after a year of intense tutoring. See the difference?

Of course tutoring helps, that's the point of tutoring. Also, the A level system penalises kids who don't revise.

Describing someone as a posh tw*t doesn't make you look very balanced and put me off reading the rest of the text.

If you don't like 11+ don't enter it.. simples

Our local grammar school provides online tutoring for kids on fsm and the majority of children are Asian. Whites are a minority..

@Underthinker Irrelevant comparison.
Kids who take GCSE and A-levels should be mature enough to understand that revision is important, and should be able to revise even if their family doesn't care about education.

Not so if you are 10 years old. That's why family involvement makes so much of a difference at the 11+.

See the difference?

@MrPickles73 Describing someone as a posh tw*t doesn't make you look very balanced and put me off reading the rest of the text.

Maybe if I rephrase it as "a posh gentleman who felt he was entitled to study psychology even though he had only studied Classics and lacked any training in psychology and science, and who decided to falsify his research when he couldn't confirm his hypothesis", would that sound better?

If you don't like 11+ don't enter it.. simples

With all due respect, this is one of the most nonsensical replies.
I was commenting on why it's flawed and why it penalises kids from certain socio-economic backgrounds, and your reply is... don't enter it????

By the same logic, you shouldn't complain about a school or an employer which discriminates because, well, don't go there? I am speechless...

@MrPickles73 Our local grammar school provides online tutoring for kids on fsm and the majority of children are Asian. Whites are a minority..

I have already answered this point multiple times

Not so if you are 10 years old. That's why family involvement makes so much of a difference at the 11+.
Family involvement makes a huge difference at any age and you can't escape that. Kids whose parents invest tons of money and/or effort into their education will obviously have a huge advantage, whatever kind of school they're at.

@ParentOfOne like I said .. put me off reading the rest of the text..

@Underthinker Family involvement makes a huge difference at any age, but all the more so at 10, for the reasons I described.
But if you want to keep burying your head in the sand and denying it, you do you...

@MrPickles73 like I said .. put me off reading the rest of the text..
Oh, no, a random stranger found my choice of words offensive and decided not to continue reading the text... How will I cope? My life is over...

Interesting points OP. I wasn't actually aware of the origins of the test.

I have 3 children at grammar school. I'm a huge fan of the 11+ as it's given my children a chance to go to an incredible school with impressive results and very low levels of bad behavior/exclusions. We would not have been able to afford private education so for us this is the next best thing. It's great that academically minded children and parents have this option.

My husband and I are from poor working class backgrounds and went to local - terrible - comprehensives. We've put in some serious effort to support our children with their education.

@ParentOfOne I'm not burying my head in the sand. You seem to think the 11+ is unfair because it's not 100% meritocratic, I'm just pointing out no system will be.

It's completely reasonable to argue that you think a fully comprehensive is better than a grammar system, I dont have a strong opinion either way, but wanging on about eugenics makes your case less convincing.