The Times article about selective schools

[Rags]

Yesterday's article in the Express discusses Grammar Schools too. Interesting to compare and contrast.

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expres ... ar-Schools

(No subscription required.)

[Amber]

Some parents tell me that they have dinner parties and all sorts of things that are going to prevent their students from focusing on eleven plus.

Am I missing something? Is there a link between parental dinner parties and eleven plus success?

[modernista]

There must be.. wrong type of guests...

[ToadMum]

Some parents tell me that they have dinner parties and all sorts of things that are going to prevent their students from focusing on eleven plus.

Am I missing something? Is there a link between parental dinner parties and eleven plus success?

Well, we don't do dinner parties - sound rather 1980s to me anyway - and all three of ours are at grammar school, if that helps. However, nor are our evenings crammed with cramming, so to speak, and surely if you move in the 'dinner party every night' sort of social circle you would either have nannies and tutors for your children or send them away to boarding school. Although I don't think the average parent of my boarder friends at school spent every evening holding / attending dinner parties either.

I'm just confused here

[leanmeamum]

Some parents tell me that they have dinner parties and all sorts of things that are going to prevent their students from focusing on eleven plus.

Am I missing something? Is there a link between parental dinner parties and eleven plus success?

I know lots of children who scramble to do their homework on the day of their lesson and as a result come in with unfinished or poor quality work because they had various parties or social events during the week - not extra-curricular activities

[Jazz-UK]

Speaking as a parent whose child notes several classmates in the GS, who were coached to within an inch of their lives to get in, and then struggle desperately, since they can't cope.

Sadly my dd will probably be one of these children, not because she's not intelligent, but because she's not naturally motivated.

The only disadvantage is the high cost of tutoring.

Tutoring is expensive but I calculated two years worth of tutoring, books and mock papers costs me less than one term in an independent school. This year we didn't go on holiday, but we'll make up for that in the next few years.

[2Girlsmum]

We prepared 2 children for their 11+ using books and downloads bought online, and by spending time learning strategies and pitfalls from other users of this forum. It cost about £300 in all, and they both passed their exams at the schools they applied for. It could probably have been done for about £200 using free downloads and shopping around for the books, but either way it worked out at £150 each. The cost of school trips now they are there is another story....

[Jazz-UK]

We prepared 2 children for their 11+ using books and downloads bought online, and by spending time learning strategies and pitfalls from other users of this forum. It cost about £300 in all, and they both passed their exams at the schools they applied for. It could probably have been done for about £200 using free downloads and shopping around for the books, but either way it worked out at £150 each.

I'm planning to take this approach for dc2, especially now that I know what is expected

[Elibet]

All these articles we read in the media skirt around one basic truth, a school's performance is mostly dependent on one thing, i.e the calibre of the children it attracts.

So is HBS the top performing school in the country BECAUSE 80% of its children are from ethnic minorities?

Any thoughts?

[WhetstoneDad2]

All these articles we read in the media skirt around one basic truth, a school's performance is mostly dependent on one thing, i.e the calibre of the children it attracts.

So is HBS the top performing school in the country BECAUSE 80% of its children are from ethnic minorities?

Any thoughts?

Probably HBS performs well because it has no catchment area,has a large number of applicants who are very motivated and bright so HBS is able to take at least the top 1-5%.

Having said that ,quite a few of the top performers will join other schools or privates. You wonder what the performance level would be if the top 100 all joined HBS.