Latymer Grammar - how clever do you have to be?

[runningpram]

We are thinking whether to put DD 8 through 11 plus. I know north London grammars are incredibly competitive - but trying to work out if you have to be some kind of genius?
It looks like you might have to be for QE Boys and HBS and clearly you need to be very bright for the others - but how bright? I noticed that Latymer's GCSE grades were 67% 7-9 - so clearly over a third of entries were a six or below.
Obviously these are perfectly decent grades but don't suggest that everyone has an off the scale IQ. Could someone give me a sense of what the reality is and whether a top 10% bright kid at a state school that is definitely not a grammar feeder would stand a chance at getting in without insane levels of tutoring?

For an academically selective school, I really would not look at GCSE statistics. Instead I would consider what proportion achieve high A Level grades (A Star or A). I would also look at University Destinations: which subjects and at which universities?

For 2025, Latymer achieved 34% at A Star and 64% at A Star or A.

For universities: Economics at LSE requires AStarAA; English Lit at York requires AStarAB; Psychology at Durham requires AAA; and Maths at Cambridge requires two AStars, an A and two 1s at STEP 2 and STEP 3. In 2025, out of 192 leavers, 30 went to Cambridge or Oxford, 5 to Durham and 1 to LSE.

I think that's pretty good though @Dido2010

I know when we were looking at other 6th forms, Woodhouse and LAET which are two of the most selective in the area, had lower stats than Latymer.

Just spotted that Latymer has just had a slightly underwhelming Ofsted (‘Strong’ in most categories but only ‘Expected’ for Curriculum and Learning, nothing rated ‘Exceptional’). It was also downgraded to ‘Good’ last time round, having consistently been ‘Outstanding’ when I attended and until fairly recently.

Wonder what’s going on there - coasting a little, perhaps, or is the school just not in favour at the moment with Ofsted? I think it is quite difficult to achieve an ‘Exceptional’ rating under the new framework, but a leafy comp and a previously failing but now much improved academy local to me have both achieved it in several categories.

They've got a new head @TempsPerdu - he joined a year ago so there has been a change in leadership, the previous one has been there for a long time. Not sure what he's actually done. He made a few noises about stricter uniforms but that seems to be it.

it's strange that they say they don't stretch the pupils under curriculum and learning when they get such consistently high grades. I guess it's harder to stretch higher achievers.

The previous time, they were told they had to improve their well-being so have now put lots of things in place to that end. The sixth form still got outstanding in the last one.

Hasn't OFSTED changed its ratings method after sad events a few years ago. While I'm not a fan of superselective education, surely getting Expected for somewhere like Latymer isn't bad, it would be unlikely to Exceed its reputation year on year...

I find it mildly depressing @Dido2010 that one of the priorities for end of Year 6 is developing a work ethic!

I think it is rather a good thing that Latymer isn’t driving kids so hard that they are all turning out grade 7+.

I notice they have a pretty good progress 8 score at around +0.7 , but other selectives can achieve above 1 (eg QE Boys).

Truly most kids need some coaching to sit 11+ so if you can’t do it yourself you need a tutor. I know kids who just did a few months of practice papers but it would be cruel to go in “cold”.

My bright dd goes to a good comprehensive with a progress 8 school above 1; she really didn’t want to practise for exams for our local super selectives and wouldn’t have passed. She had absolutely NO work ethic at age 11!

But now she is at end of y10, she is preparing for 11 GCSEs and she is expect a clutch of 9s, rest 8s and maybe drop to a 6 in English as she has an awful teacher for gcse. She has never had a tutor and a badge of pride for her is “doing it myself, not leaning on someone coaching me.”

I do feel sad that the “late bloomers” are often stuck when it comes to 11+ but if there’s no decent comprehensive alternative you probably need to tutor your kid to get into a grammar school, and then you can rely on the school to drag them up to scratch.

Kids who are not geniuses at age 11 can still be remarkably successful and happy without tutoring at secondary.

@Stowickthevast Thanks for the intel. Possibly needs a bit of a shake up under the new Head after years of the previous one - although I doubt that uniforms were the main issue (we were a pretty scruffy lot when I was there!)

@elkiedee Not a disaster by any means; I’m just interested in the apparent mismatch between Latymer’s stellar outcomes vs. what Ofsted seems to think, as their obvious local ‘competitors’ (places like DAO and QE Boys) seem to get much more glowing reports - will be interesting to see if this remains the case under the new framework.

"Not a disaster by any means; I’m just interested in the apparent mismatch between Latymer’s stellar outcomes vs. what Ofsted seems to think, as their obvious local ‘competitors’ (places like DAO and QE Boys) seem to get much more glowing reports - will be interesting to see if this remains the case under the new framework."

I think Latymer's context - especially location (Edmonton) and intake (social class) give it a different dimension. I think OFSTED has a bias and some inspectors seem to find it hard to give top ratings to schools which don't have attainment outcomes to compete with schools in places like Muswell Hill. Schools are often coming from such different places.

Just to say thank you for these responses. I really appreciate them and they are quite refreshing compared to the 11 plus madness I see around me.
We have a very good tutor for maths and now for English and for a bit of verbal reasoning but we are definitely doing tutoring extremely light. Most certainly not the 3 hour plus sessions a couple of times a week that others are doing.
We will aim to up the game and do some past papers in the months before it.
My philosophy that it is worth investing in learning but I'd rather focus on things that are useful for later life and whatever school she goes to rather than drilling endless random and very boring reasoning tests.
I think it is worth DD trying the test with a reasonable but not extreme level of prep and seeing how she gets on.

@Cioccoholic my youngest dc is similar. Was never likely to get in to Latymer in Y6 as didn't have the concentration, but now is thriving at local good comp and will probably end up with similar grades to their sister.

@Stowickthevast That’s lovely to hear too.

Don’t get me wrong; if dd had tolerated the extra work for 11+ prep I’d have put her in for the exam! But as it turned out she ended up exactly where she needed to be. She’s had a happy time in her comprehensive and has a really wide group of friends. She wants to become a primary school HT - a tough career choice these days! - and go and live off-grid in a rural location, somewhere dark so she can enjoy her pastime (amateur astronomy). I cannot imagine that being her destination if she’d been hot-housed in our local STEM super selective!