11 Plus Exams Forum

"nat47 wrote:
So my question is whether the new English and Maths tests for 11+ being adopted by so many grammar schools are any fairer than VR/NVR even though they look fairer on account of those subjects being taught in all schools? The Bucks report suggests not, but I would be keen to hear more. "

I thought this post from nat47 (in the Tiffin Head thread) should be a separate thread. I am sure we will have a lot of good discussion form it. Who is going to start?

Moderator - I am keeping this here in Surrey region because of the Tiffin School connection / relevance. Thanks.

Yes.

yes maths and english are fairer.

Deleted by user.

Ladymuck wrote: Given the only way to pass these exams is to prepare for them, at least the preparation required for maths and English is something that will have a positive impact on their work throughout year 6 and beyond.

Practising VR may have an impact on some vocabulary, but much of the code-breaking and recognising odd compound words and most of the NVR seem fairly pointless activities to have to master just for this exam. There may be a small short term "brain gym" type gain from the activity, but other than "sometimes you have to jump through pointless hoops in order to achieve your goals" I'm not sure that there is much more to learn.

Exactly my own view LM! I am glad I didn't just sign DS up for Tiffin Boys now, doing English and Maths tremendously boosted his Sats and level. I would have felt a sense of wasted efforts and time if we only did VR & NVR.

wrote:What do you mean by fairer? Fairer to whom?

Now, that could open a whole can of worms!!

Suffice to say that it has been discussed that VR & NVR only tend to benefit the highly tutored students, and also ( or therefore?!) an argument that VR & NVR only test, tend to favour certain Ethnic minority group. Just recalling Chelmsford, Nonsuch, TGS etc stories and discussions here.

Suffice to say that it has been discussed that VR & NVR only tend to benefit the highly tutored students, and also ( or therefore?!) an argument that VR & NVR only test, tend to favour certain Ethnic minority group. Just recalling Chelmsford, Nonsuch, TGS etc stories and discussions here.

VR/NVR ten to benefit highly tutored students …… agree.

tend to favour certain Ethnic minority group …… I don't think so. Even though it appears that way it could be an end result of heavy tutoring/tiger parenting coupled with natural ability.
Until the development of tutor free tests heavy tutoring will continue it's contribution to end result.

I really doubt if there is such a thing as a tutor free test

kateJ wrote:I really doubt if there is such a thing as a tutor free test

Fully agree with you.

I'm not sure! TB should be able to provide some details but to me it feels that over time the mean travel distance to the Tiffin schools seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.

IMHO this is because it is actually more tutor-able; i.e. to achieve the grade you need to be crammed in a wider subject matter and hence bright but untrained locals do relatively worse. So for example, and with a background of a normal state primary, without doing extra English Comprehension and Writing either DIY or via a tutor its pretty impossible to score high enough.

However, overall I think it probably is a good thing, since at least those with a good spread of skills will get the places rather than those just crammed in VR and NVR.

Regards
SVE

How is heavily tutored defined?
Nearly all children that I know have been tutored for all the 11+ tests - whether they be from Public or State schools. But one things for sure the state sector children will suffer, as the (new) test is at the begining of year 6 but includes material that will not be covered until the end of that year.
A friend has just put his son into a local private school (well they call it a hot house) with the aim of getting into a grammar because of the new test. I shall tell him that, perhaps, his child can now be considered "heavily tutored"?