The 11+ process for independent schools: is there a better way?

[IsThisRealLife]

Just: that.

My DC has offers to our preferred schools. I am grateful for that. And: deeply so.

As a result, part of me just wants to put the 11+ behind me - to focus on the 'broad, sunlit uplands' (as it were).

Still: cannot, in good conscience, fail to flag my belief that the process was more brutal, on many levels, than it needed to be.

I might be an outlier; would appreciate the thinking of others.

Ultimately, I hold out hope that the thinking of parents on the other side of the admissions process might incline powerful schools to recognise the need for change - and galvanise them to use their tremendous heft to help facilitate it.

Thus: this thread.

Again: might be alone in thinking this way. But: thought I'd throw it out there all the same.

I don’t think there is a better way, if you want to retain selective schools. You have to weed out the kids who won’t thrive in that grammar school environment.

We moved to a nice town in a non-grammar area, and our secondary schools are all pretty good - eg I know someone whose dc got 9 grade 9s and two grade 8s at gcse at the regular mixed comprehensive. We are in catchment for two small state super selectives which take tutored kids - over 95% Asian. There is also a very good private school if that’s your jam.

I personally think that having only a tiny number of pupils going to super selectives, and everyone else educated comprehensively, is the best way forwards. I would therefore scrap grammars and the 11+

I think the only way is to have more grammar schools and have more opportunities for those academically inclined to attend these schools. I also think the VAT situation for independent has worsened the grammar school situation as there is more competition from those no longer able to afford the fees.

I don’t think scraping grammar schools is in the best interest of those kids that actually want to learn! Perhaps ship out all the disruptive kids to their own school and open more apprenticeship kind of schools so comprehensives becomes a place to learn and others have alternative choices

I think your question is about the admission process for private schools rather than 11+ grammar.

We’ve just accepted the offer of a place at our local independent school for my daughter.

I think it may depend on the school.

The admission process for us was:

• interview
• exam
• assessment morning for specialist scholarship
• assessment afternoon for academic scholarship

My impression is that it was carried out in a manner to put the child most at ease. My daughter is at a state primary, and probably far less polished than children who have been at a prep school. She had nerves before going into the interview and the exam as these are experiences that she had never had before, but it sounds like she settled very quickly.

The things I thought were really good were:

Everybody that we came across each time we brought her in was warm and friendly and made her feel that they were interested in her.

For the interview, they had grouped the time slots consecutively for the very few children applying from her primary school. This meant that they saw familiar faces just before their interview.

They were also invited to bring something that was importantly to them that they would like to talk about, so essentially they had a prop as an ice-breaker to ease them into the interview. The admission staff in the waiting area were chatting to them, and asking them about their prop, so it helped warm them up for the interview itself, and distract them from their nerves waiting.

During both scholarship assessment sessions, there was a short talk to parents and children at the beginning. In these talks, they reiterated over and again what a great achievement it was to get to that stage of the process, regardless of the outcome. Whether true or not, it must give you confidence if someone keeps saying that you’ve done really well.

The academic scholarship assessment was framed as a series of tasks to solve an overarching problem, for which they worked in teams - in essence very much like an escape room. She said it was huge fun, and seemed to have forgotten that they were being observed.

I think it was really skilfully done, and I am very sure that the way they ran the process allowed my child to show the best of herself.

We only applied for the one private school, as we very much liked what it had to offer, my daughter loved it on the open day and taster morning, and it is very local to us. I don’t, therefore, have any experience of the process at other schools, nor what it would have been like if she was having to attend assessments for multiple schools.

We only have 1 child, and so can about afford fees for her. She attends a selective independent school after passing getting offers from her school, another local very selective hothouse of an independent, and passing the state 11+.

it was a lot to put an 10 year old through, as obviously for the independent schools (applied for 2) there were also interviews and additional assessments (not just for the general admission but for scholarships)

At the time, and for a while thereafter, we worried it was too much pressure especially as we’d never known anyone else who’d been through the process and only 1 other child in her class from their state primary was doing so.

Now we’re the other side of it though? I’m for it.

DD is in Y9 and absolutely different person from the meek, miserable from bullies, girl she was by the end of primary.

Her self worth is off the charts and part of that for her was earning her place at the school she’d been desperate to get in to. Having that opportunity to work for something she really wanted made a huge difference for her in her attitude towards it.

I think I know which school you are talking about. My dc received an offer too and we are thinking of accepting. They were very welcoming and my dc loved the atmosphere of the place.

Years ago, the 11+ was just something that children did and the only tutoring was preparation in school. Much of it was not something you could specifically prepare for anyway.

That's not what the OP's talking about though? You're talking about a mass state run selection system and she's talking about a small school or consortium run system for independent schools.

Who are judged by their results, charge a lot and have little interest in making their process less selective as a result!

When there are 700+ applicants for 120 spaces (worse for boys, more like 36 spaces as the main intake is 13) you are unfortunately going to come up against parents who will do whatever it takes and if that means tutoring from birth that’s what they’ll do.

I don’t know how schools can avoid this.

@Needlenardlenoo The OP said that the experience was brutal. I’m merely saying that it wasn’t always.

I suppose there isn’t an alternative; schools will want the students that will give them stellar results.

My child has come out a better person at the end of the 11 plus process: she is so much more confident, aware of her self worth and has learned that hard work pays off.
As a parent, I found the process brutal and extremely opaque. I do not understand why it has to drag on for so long and there is absolutely no feedback whatsoever. They are either through to the next round/interview or not.
Considering these are paid assessments (and not nominal in value!), I think they could do better and faster.
As an adult I despise companies that put you through 3 rounds of interviews only to be told “sorry, we found a more suitable candidate” without giving any valuable feedback. And in my view, 11 plus for indies is akin to that.

Yes, fair enough, but an apples and oranges comparison and I'm not sure those who "failed" felt the same. My sister and I both passed in the 80s and went to a (state).grammar, but imagine if one of us had passed and one failed!

A pp described a (contemporary) independent with a more humane system and they do exist, but the trade off is they'll likely have less stellar results come public exams.

What this process requires is a child unusually advanced for their calendar age, generally.

I think as pp said that how welcoming the school is on the day does make a big difference.

Congratulations on your pupils' offers.

My experience, working in independent schools - both prep and senior, is that most schools will accept any capable pupils whose parents will pay the fees.
That is the bottom line: the bottom line. Keep in mind that plenty of pupils join independent schools without having sat the 11+ or having been coached for interviews.

At the sr school, places could always be found. Pupils routinely joined mid-year with minimal vetting. Entrance exams were mainly used to give an indication which set a pupil should join. Mild dyslexia/dyscalcula and similar could be supported - it seemed like more pupils than not had extra time and many had use of laptops for written exams. ECHP pupils were discouraged but only because that was more than the school could support and that's true of most independents. ECHP pupils are better off at state schools which have the resources to accomodate them.

At the prep, I found the 11+ process to be wildly hyped and some pupils found it brutal, as you observe. A lot of it seemed to be designed to emphasise that these expensive places at independent sr schools were worth paying for. More than once, I saw a pupil not score very well but still be offered a place at their desired school and I also saw sr schools suddenly, in yr 8, offer places to pupils they'd previously rejected! because they needed to bring in the fees.

Since the recession way back in 2008, independent schools have been very keen to accept fee-paying pupils. The recent changes to VAT have only increased that.

The highly organised process described by @FallingIsLearning is pretty standard: they want the pupils to feel welcomed and thus keen to join. At one school, we were briefed by email every morning about who was coming to tour and were encouraged to greet these prospective parents by name.

I could have written this post! I loathe this process so much in the run up - even looked at occasional places in year 6 in the through schools to avoid it. But now that we are on the other side and my DD has got an offer from each school we applied to including her favourite, that was considered a stretch school for her, her new confidence is worth all the hard work she put in and the hours I spent agonising over the process. She has learnt a big lesson early on - hard work pays off! I see things very differently now - and I have a younger DS to go through this with again.

I think it depends on the experience of the dc and how the parents react/support. Went through it not too long ago with 2dc and both experiences were good. They enjoyed the process. And of course there were moments of stress, I think more so for me (quietly). I think it is good for dc to experience preparing for exams, interviews etc. I also gave them the option, as it was up to them if they wanted to get into a good school and do the 11+ they needed to study. Otherwise, they could go to the state secondary options we have. Both decided they wanted to do the 11+ and got into their top choice schools. Will give the same option to our third.

OP I agree the process is brutal. It’s not so much that the exams are awful. The actual prep and exams were not too bad. It’s knowing that there are 900 applicants for 100 places (say) and so a few marks here or there makes all the difference.

I don’t believe in “they all end up at the right school for them”. So much is down to chance on the day - did they like the creative writing topic, did they get stuck on a particular reasoning or maths question, did they click with the interviewer. As I say, with so many similar level applicants, a few marks can make the difference between a yes or a no.

(both my DC got offers at all their schools so I have no personal grudge against the system - but I know other equally able kids who didn’t).

Personally I think it would help a LOT if each child was only allowed to apply to 3 schools. It would help the schools too. This would require information sharing across schools though. There are other possibilities too, such as schools looking at a body of work from each child rather than an exam (but perhaps that just extends the stress?).

Having said all this - given the drop in birth rates plus impact of VAT and CoL - I think things will change a lot over the next few years anyway.

There are lots of signs of schools anticipating that they may find it harder to fill their places in future and (for example) making partnerships with prep schools to shore up their pipeline of applicants. It seems likely it will get less competitive to get into most independent schools. Some may close.

So perhaps no need for any changes to the process - demographics will do the job.

I get it OP, I do. We are in London and the number of extremely pushy parents obsessed with private schools and league tables has to be seen to be believed. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle - the (perceived) top school s want to get the kids who will get the top grades (often with parental pushing) to maintain their standing so they have to select somehow and because they are perceived to be top tier the have a lot of candidates to choose from.

The decline in birth rate and VAT seems to be cooling demand slightly but, anecdotally at least, that is impacting the lower tier schools far more.

I'm sure lots of schools would love to find a way to have tests that can identify top talent without being tutorable but that is so hard to achieve.

Honestly this is a contradiction in terms. You wanted superior options for your kid but what, you wanted them to be nicer about it? What happens to the kids who don't have the advantages? Sod them?!

You could have just sent your child to a state school if you didn’t want to put them through all that, you know. I’m not sure why you think anyone should feel sorry for you.

As a state school family who only did a month of atom learning prep (about 10 mins a day?) I don’t think it was particularly onerous. Annoying that every school (state, selective, independent) had a different test meaning (most of them the same thing) a lot of mornings spent out of school.

spending a brief time on these forums I think it’s the competitive parents that make the process so onerous. The years of tutoring and extra lessons and intense prep is exhausting to read about and makes me feel bad for the kids.

Gosh, you mirrored my thoughts exactly @IsThisRealLife .
It is a brutal process. I think it’s worth saying that I entirely recognise I am very privileged/lucky to:
a) have a child that is academically bright
b) have a situation whereby we can afford to offer him a private education.

The 11+ has been mad, I often think about whether there’s a better way but I think the whole education system needs reform in a way that I don’t actually think is possible.
People will play the game with the rules set and in the UK, it’s a highly capitalist system that allows this process to work.
I don’t think there’s a huge difference between paying for private or paying to move next to a highly performing state school. Essential most people who can afford to will use the resources they have to benefit their families.This leaves those who can’t afford it fewer options and worsening “poor” schools
Personally we have poor state options nearby.

In many other countries, everyone just goes to the local comprehensive and it means that whole schools come up together and “dump schools”don’t exist in the same way. This is the only way I see it working well. But I can’t see any government looking to abolish both private and grammar schools so I really don’t see a way forward. Our entirely classist Society is deep rooted in history and therefore inescapably hard to change.

The other aspect I see that is very beneficial abroad that I don’t see here is that teachers are highly respected which helps the whole profession and education system.

Having said this, I also don’t think that learning to work hard for things you want is the worst lesson to learn and going through this process, we’ve ensured that it’s our DC choice to go for them and to be self motivated to do the work.

If you want your child to be part of a handpicked cohort, then you have to put them through the process of being selected. How else would schools select? That said, though, I agree with the PP who said that a lot of the angst is generated by extremely pushy parents.

There are two ways to avoid all this craziness - choose an all through school and join from the start, or spend time researching areas with outstanding state options plus access to lots of extra curriculars, and buy a house within catchment.

I don’t think 11+ for an Independent School will actually be that competitive. They must have falling numbers since the price increase. So presumably unless they have a terrible day it’s unlikely they will refuse children who have parents willing to pay the fees.

I don’t think Independent Schools should be allowed to use Grammar School in their name as they aren’t the same thing.

I imagine the score will only really be important if you are looking for a funded place.

Most of the ones that do that pre date the 1966 White Paper that rolled out the comprehensive system. They're historic names, some dating back to the 16th century.

Although banding tests are a thing (DD said the one she took was very similar to 11+ practice). Quite a few academy chains use them.