11 Plus Exams Forum

Does anybody have information on how many primary schools are potential GS feeders in south Warwickshire, and also if there are schools that consistently send more children to GS?

Not recent ones - there is some old data here for the Eastern area, but it predates the introduction of the dual priority area. You could try asking admissions for more recent South and East feeder schools data (and do share it please!) as I'm sure it is something they'll have.

Ironically I do have this data for the Birmingham schools, but not the Warwickshire ones!

I'd be very interested to see that - especially the breakdown for a particular private school locally that teaches weekly 11+ classes throughout all of Year 5 and does an intensive test taking practice week, the last week of the summer holidays (not to mention the amount of private tutoring that also goes on) and, I suspect, still does not get statistically significantly more children into the state Southern Grammar Schools!! I do think it is a shame that state primaries are not encouraged to say how many children got through, in the same way private primaries produce lists in papers etc - our state primary has a great record - 7 kids year before last, 5 kids last year and at least 2 this year (it's a one stream entry school and most classes run at between 25-28 kids).

I'd be very interested in seeing the B'ham data, is it something you can share?

Yes, but it's a h-u-u-g-e spreadsheet and would take too long to convert in its entirety to a format which I can post here.

My small village primary claims over a third of children are offered places in South Warwickshire grammars. This year 7 out of 19 children were offered places.

However it's really important to say that cohorts vary a lot. If you choose a primary school for your 4 or 7 year old based on what the results were this or last year, a lot can change in 4 or 7 years.

kenyancowgirl wrote:I'd be very interested to see that - especially the breakdown for a particular private school locally that teaches weekly 11+ classes throughout all of Year 5 and does an intensive test taking practice week, the last week of the summer holidays (not to mention the amount of private tutoring that also goes on) and, I suspect, still does not get statistically significantly more children into the state Southern Grammar Schools!! I do think it is a shame that state primaries are not encouraged to say how many children got through, in the same way private primaries produce lists in papers etc - our state primary has a great record - 7 kids year before last, 5 kids last year and at least 2 this year (it's a one stream entry school and most classes run at between 25-28 kids).

Emily, does it matter if they are tutored since the claim is the 11+ test is resistant to prepping, or is the view the claims made by Durham University and WCC are false? I have never seen any evidence to substantiate these claims. Perhaps, someone should put this to WCC so we can see the evidence. Are you allowed to name this school? I would love to know.

With a DS in Year 4, I would be interested to know which primaries have the best success rate in getting boys into KES and what is so good about them.

thirdgeneration wrote:With a DS in Year 4, I would be interested to know which primaries have the best success rate in getting boys into KES and what is so good about them.

Notwithstanding any indies that might offer 11+ prep in school! surely the success of any state primary getting it's pupils into GS is far more to do with the parents and what they do for the child out of school, than in it. Given a bright child and the right sort of coaching (by which I mean minimal to understand the exam questions and to back up curriculum work done at school), success in achieving a GS place is much more likely, but has very littles do witht he school. In our primary, roughly half the small year group of 17 got GS places, but the year before it was much fewer. In a small school statistics for how many get through in each year group are meaningless as with such small numbers the percentages can vary widely.
I think you look for a school with good added value scores, then back up your sons primary education in year 5 with minimal coaching and practice to be familiar with the exam. I don't think you can pick a school more surely than that.

I think its more a question of there being some state primaries to avoid at all costs with the rest being much of a muchness.
After that its down to the cohort - some classes just have a lot of clever pupils and the teacher can do so much more with them and others can have a number of behaviourally challenged pupils who ruin the progress of the others (and, NO, I don't mean disabled before the usual culprits emerge self-righteously from the woodwork, I mean naughty). Then again, some primary school teachers have a different agenda to others both politically and educationally. Many primary school teachers will struggle themselves with year 6 maths which is necessary for the warwickshire 11+ exam. Others will only have a 2:2 degree from an indifferent institution and their english will not be the best. So you need to choose school, teacher and rest of class insofar as it is possible to do so!