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 ).

At the time my kids went to secondary, I was a single parent living on a rough council estate who had left school at 16.

I put them over some practice papers but I could not afford tutoring.

they got FSM the whole way through grammar (all 3 of them) and are now in their early-mid 20s with degrees in competitive disciplines.

They wouldn’t have done as well if they had gone to the local secondary and I hadn’t had the support in the form of a council house to give them stability.

No good putting it on page 2 when your opening speech ends in some kind of divisive minority disadvantage speech telling them the grammar system is trying to ‘eugenic’ them.

I will be honest you lost me there OP so have a nice day.

Anyways… we are in an AI tech arms race so nobody in their right mind will be closing any London superselective grammar schools, any time soon. Have you even bothered to look at how many of the DC there are achieving top grades in Maths, Further Maths and Sciences including Computer Science? And then bothered to look into the fact that the Government full well know that Tech is an important area and are throwing Oxford Cambridge corridor left right and centre and extra funding at Sixth Formers doing 4 A levels including Furher Maths?

Literally, nobody gives two shits about the collective white middle class male guilt. It is a bygone phenomenon. And funny how the white middle class male suddenly gives two shiny shits about the working class white male, and only once, he has been surpassed by the female and the ethnic minority. Yet still you are taking a swipe at the posh men above you? Give it a rest and actually tune in to what is going on.

Exactly. Yet again OP is honing in on something insignificant in the context of the current educational + social landscape and crisis. They never ever talk about the real issues.

Unfortunately men have throughout history done precisely that. Felt anxious about something affecting them or their own DC somehow, not dealt with that anxiety in a healthy way and then gone out to war! It is so bloody toxic and predictable.

Toxic masculinity. OP demonstrates it regularly through shutting down anyone who disagrees with them on these posts.

"it was a useful way to identify bright children from poorer backgrounds who would benefit from a good academic education."

Yes grammar schools are socially selective but that is in part selecting those who place a high value on education from those who dont. I dont personally think tutoring matters that much, a little familiarity with the type of questions may do so. Most parents could manage that as virtually everyone has an internet connection and you can find practise papers online and sometimes in charity shops.

Did you start you child playing games where they count from an early age, things like snakes and ladders, dominoes, cribbage? Ever played scrabble or internet logic games like parking jam?

If you havent supported your child's education that's a shame. If they are a late developer some grammars have a second entry later.

It is so deeply ironic though, trying to cancel some bygone dude who pretty much represents yourself. It is fascinating really. Seems to be the rich white man has realised his chums in the white working class man and vice versa, yet the white middle class male is boxing into thin air trying to work out his identity, completely lost in colonial and historic guilt, and utterly confused. Unfortunately these persons and their thinking still dictate our daily lives so it is important to call it out when obvious even on a pointless social media waffle post.

🎯

In practical terms, I think the 11+ age was purely expedient because it was administered before children moved on to their secondary schools. Why we decided on 11 as the starting point for secondary, I don't know.

I suspect it wasn’t so much decided as a starting age as a school leaving age.

OK but they then introduced KS2 SATS and a compulsory national curriculum and compulsory GCSEs for all. I still fail to see how at a real common sense level this is any different? The kids are being prodded and tested from an early age all in the spirit of progress etc. but really as a parent, I fail to see any big difference between an 11 plus test and the KS2 SATs.

They are either too young to be tested and stressed out at 10/11 or they are not.

In Scotland they aren’t tested so you have no idea of progress until they hit their secondary exams.

The flipside of “progress” is a massive data gathering exercise on your child since almost infancy though with the DFE keeping the data until 25 (I think) and a whole industry of supposed experts studying the data in an abstract sense. The amount of data the State has on my DC via NHS and state education is mind boggling and now with all these ID cards coming in (which I was pro, originally at least, if used for work purposes) - well I can increasingly understand why disengagement with the entire machine/apparatus at the FSM level may be far more than meets the eye at first. It is a system invented by the educated middle classes for the educated middle classes primarily. Call it what you like, a spade is still a spade.

Not having any data also means lack of understanding of the impact of educational initiatives and lack of accountability by teachers, schools and government. Which might go part way to explaining why Scottish education has been deteriorating so badly.

Well exactly…

Where I am originally from in NE England they abolished hgrammar schools entirely in about 1970 just before I might have done the 11+ (although I went to private school from age 4 anyway). 93% of people are white in NE England. I do think that removing the grammar schools there did make it harder for the brightest of 11 year olds to move class and come out of poverty - sometimes it meant the child was taken into a different kind of world and caught between new friends and the old life at home but it opened opportunities which I am not so sure are available in the comprehensives there today eg my father's old grammar school used to send some boys to good university including my father and his brother to do medicine but that does not seem to be the case today.

And now the NE consistently ranks as lowest performing region for GCSEs and A levels.
So it's safe to say the comprehensive system has totally failed the DC in the NE. Lowest outcomes plus least likely to go to the best universities etc.

Oof 👏

@Araminta1003 You compare criticism of the 11+, backed by historical facts and well-documented current research, with... men going to war? Some previous nonsense was even funny. This is just sad. You need help. Seriously.

@Araminta1003 I fail to see any big difference between an 11 plus test and the KS2 SATs.
They are either too young to be tested and stressed out at 10/11 or they are not.

You really cannot see any difference between the 11+, which determines the next 5 years of their education, based on a one-off test, and the KS2 SATs, which are part of a continuous assessment?
In many secondaries, sets are determined based on a combination of SATs, other tests, and how the child performs at the beginning of Y7. Some schools only put kids into sets at Y8.

Also, unlike the 11+, SATs are a useful way to assess schools, not just students, and to identify if there are primary schools or areas where the kids not reaching the expected standard are much more than the national average.

See the difference?

@anyolddinosaur I dont personally think tutoring matters that much, a little familiarity with the type of questions may do so.
I disagree. If you were right, this gigantic tutoring industry would not exist.
If you were right, psychologists wouldn't be forbidden from administering IQ tests too often (because familiarity with the test biases the results)

Thanks for raising this @ParentOfOne . The discredited Cyril Burt is a stain on our educational system and his lying and subsequent legacy should be be better known about.

@twistyizzy I don't "shut down", I respond to nonsense with data and facts. Those who cannot reply then attack me. It's a tad different.

You, @Araminta1003 and others have the textbook behaviour of a toxic internet troll: you attack me personally, eg comparing me to a racist charlatan of the past who had falsified his research, then try to deflect away from the issue, eg talking about white guilt, or saying that other problems are more pressing. That's one of the oldest dirty tricks on the book: when you are cornered and cannot disprove an argument, attack the person and shift the focus away. By this logic, nothing should ever be discussed, because there will always be a more pressing matter.

Talking about "white guilt" is laughable. You don't even know my race, and, frankly, what relevance would that have?
The white guilt you mention is what caused leftist extremists in California to cancel advanced calculus classes in secondary schools, because not enough black and latino students were taking them (mostly white and Asian). That's madness, and I have already criticised it harshly. So, no, my attitude is the exact opposite.

I don't want to "level down". I advocate a system where comprehensive schools, based on continuous assessment (not a one-off overtutored test), channel kids towards what is best for them, which will be vocational qualifications for some, and more advanced academic subjects for others.

@Araminta1003 How on Earth would Cyril Burt "represent me"? He thought that having studied Classics at Oxford gave him the right to study areas he knew nothing about, wanted to prove his racist hypotheses, and, when he failed to do so, he falsified his research.

And no, I don't want to "cancel" anyone. On the contrary: I want Cyril Burt and the story behind the 11+ to be studied, acknowledged, remembered. That's the exact opposite of "cancelling".

Just like we don't cancel the dictators and monsters of the past: we study them, to learn from past mistakes, and try to avoid them in the future.

Again: if Burt's hypotheses had been proven eventually, it would be different. they were not.
The 11+ was rooted in eugenics, it was born to distinguish the genetically "superior" children, its author falsified his research because he was unable to prove his hypotheses, and, to this day, there continues to be no scientific backing for that approach.

You seem to have completely ignored everything I said, and gone for the lazy cheap flawed approach of assuming that whoever opposes the 11+ must be some kind of cancel culture extremist. Ironically, in so doing you have shown a level of text comprehension skills far below what is typically expected at the 11+ !!!

@twistyizzy And now the NE consistently ranks as lowest performing region for GCSEs and A levels.
So it's safe to say the comprehensive system has totally failed the DC in the NE. Lowest outcomes plus least likely to go to the best universities etc.

What makes you think that grammar schools would have made a difference?

Why do you think the comprehensive system works in other parts of the country?

Couldn't it be that maybe there may be other factors at play?

Also, it's not like the whole of the NE performs poorly.
Ofqual has interesting interactive charts: https://analytics.ofqual.gov.uk/apps/GCSE/County/

If you search for "English" and "4 and above" (the GCSE pass grade), you'll see that North Yorkshire has a % comparable to Greater London. Same in maths: 59% vs 62%

The picture changes when you look at the top grades, 7 and above (which you can see at the previous link and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographic-gcse-results-2024/infographics-for-gcse-results-2024-accessible ), where indeed London tends to outperform the NE.

This could be due to a number of factors. It could well have to do with London having more families with that combination of higher income, higher education, and cultural attitude which values education.

As has been said on the thread, the system is failing white working class kids (boys more than girls). And there's more of them in the NE than in London.

@Araminta1003 Anyways… we are in an AI tech arms race so nobody in their right mind will be closing any London superselective grammar schools, any time soon.

And yet the partially selective intake at certain schools, like Graveney in SW London, was reduced a few years ago. I.e., after a popular backlash, the school now admits fewer students based on a test result, and more by distance. Odd, no?

I do not quite understand what the "AI teach arms race" has to do with the 11+

Comprehensive Future has a summary of grammar school myths that need debunking: https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/grammar-school-myths/

Studies which compared 11+ results with GCSEs found that the 11+ misclassified ca. 1/4 of the students (you passed the 11+ but not the GCSE, or viceversa). Again, that's why a better system is a continuous assessment at secondary, to then divide kids into sets.

A 2028 study on the British Journal of Sociology of Education looked at differences in the socio-economic background of students, and found that

results from grammar schools are no better than expected, once these differences are accounted for

Now, let me guess: will you present contrasting evidence, data and studies to support the opposite points, or will you deflect and attack me like you have done until now? Is there any cliché you haven't resorted to yet? Have you used "champagne liberal"?

@ParentOfOne - you entered your own DC for an 11 plus state school test in London, one of the most competitive ones. A “partially” selective school.

It is a bit like when Diane Abbott sent her DS to City of London (a competitive private school).

At least Jeremy Corbyn refused to engage with the 11 plus.

If you are going to preach anti 11 plus consistently on MN, which is a chat forum, we do expect you to follow through in real life.