"Were you tutored?" and other scary 11+ interview questions

[Amber]

I can see that there are issues with asking a ten year old which school they prefer or which is 'best'; but what is so wrong with the 'were you tutored?' question? The answer to that would surely help to contextualise a child's result, as well as seeing whether it had clearly been told to lie or trot out a 'politically correct' answer, as most ten year olds would not be able to do either convincingly.

Surely if a child has achieved a borderline score after hundreds of hours of tutoring s/he ought to be seen differently from one who had a few hours from Mum and Dad? And if a child has produced an exceptionally stratospheric score I can't see one of these schools minding one bit how it was done, as long as it was legal- as with all schools, they live and die by their results. I don't think for one moment they think of it as simplistically as 'tutoring-bad, not tutoring-good' - they must know that the type of entrance tests they have and the demographic they are marketed at will lead to a huge tutoring industry - but a child's reaction to that question would surely give them a lot of interesting information to help them decide how to proceed.

Just a view from the auditorium. Good luck to all.

[kenyancowgirl]

To be honest, I agree - I think the tutoring question is quite low down on the unacceptable questions list, as it is a common place activity around entrance exams, so can legitimately be asked of every candidate and could offer an insight into their learning capacity. Although I very much doubt any child would say "oh yes! Interminably - twice a week with a tutor for an hour a time, heaps of homework and then my parents made me do an hour before and after school every day for three years!"!!!

My mother reminded me, yesterday, when I went for my independent school interview (my folks lived abroad and I needed to have a British education as we could have been sent back at any time, so was applying to boarding school at the tender age of 7) they asked the question "what does you father do?" (Now, this is an example of a dodgy question!) I answered "I'm not sure, I think he's a spy". There was a stunned silence as my mum hastily explained that he did work for the Diplomatic Service and I had been quite taken by the fact he had to sign the OSA!!

[Daogroupie]

A much better question would be, "How did you prepare for the exams?" That would be the way to find out exactly how much work had been done. Lots of forum members are confused about "tutoring" and think that tutoring is going to somebodies house or having somebody coming to your house or attending classes. If they do lots of "preparation" at home with Mum and Dad or at a prep school either during classes or before or after school this somehow is not "tutoring" A father told me recently that it was only when his dd sat for entrance exams that he actually saw an example of an eleven plus paper for the first time. When his ds sat the prep school managed the whole process for them and the parents were not involved at all. Yet I am sure his ds if asked in interview "Were you tutored?" would say no. If however asked, " How did you prepare for the exams?" he would have detailed the work that had gone on inside school. I think it is important for the school to research how many students are attending the exams with no preparation so they should ask that question. DG

[Pandora123]

At NLCS a girl from our primary had the question which other schools have you applied for and if you had an offer from all them which one would you choose.

Also throughout the interview it was possible to see the interviewer's mark. She got a 7 and 9 (I think) not sure what that means though. I'm sure we'll find out next week!

[Daogroupie]

I think that is a very fair question. They need to be able to work out who is likely to accept the offers that are made. I would say the marks were out of 10 so 7 and 9 are very good. DG

[kenyancowgirl]

When my oldest nephew was being interviewed for a well known secondary in Surrey, my sister and her dh were interviewed by the head (or deputy - can't remember which). They are both very charming people and chatted away quite happily - as they got up to go, they looked down at the form he was completing and saw he had written "very good parents A+"....!!

[mystery]

I don't think the "were you tutored" question is a good one unless it's just a bit of small talk and has no bearing on whether the child is selected or not. It does not help to put the child's score into perspective as the answers to this question could be inaccurate in some way, some tutors are great and others are terrible, some parents are fantastic tutors and others are not, some primary / prep schools are excellent and others are not.

I would worry about sending my child to a selective school that thought that this was a good question to discriminate between candidates. I would doubt the intelligence of the person that put together the selection process!