11 Plus Exams Forum

Firstly, thanks for such an excellent site. Now for my question. Somewhere amongst all your posts was a comment which said something along the lines of 'top table positions will only be relevant if it is within a school with a proven academic record, otherwise not necessarily an indication of high achievement'.

My daughter is attending a school which was given a mediocre Ofsted report (teaching mostly satisfactory, not even good). Might it then possibly be that the 11+ preparation provided by the school might not have been up to scratch and, therefore, for my daughter to have achieved a 116, despite being at what might be considered an underperforming school is actually pretty good going? Similarly, would it not follow that for a child to achieve level 5's in such a school is evidence of ability.

I hope I am not showing my ignorance here - the 11+ presumably measures an inate academic ability, but could one perhaps cite poor teaching in an appeal? Sorry - this now seems very rambling but I hope you follow my drift!

[Moved from Bucks to Appeals, as we like to keep appeals questions concentrated in one place. - Etienne]

I think possibly you could if:
1) Children were taught specifically to complete 11+ tasks ( not allowed in our area) and/or
2) No one passed the test from your school. If others passed the test, then I think your argument is weakened slightly.
Hope this makes sense
Bougalou

Welcome, slanyn

In your authority the Headteachers' Manual states this year:

the LA will pre-populate the ‘School Summary – Selection Appeals, Year of Entry …..’ sheet with the most recent SAT results for the school, and some contextual information (Acorn data) about the intake of the school.

The panel will therefore already know something about the context within which the school is operating, and the background against which curriculum results have been achieved.

Bearing in mind that preparation for the 11+ was officially limited to the familiarisation and practice papers, I think it's going to be much harder to attribute 116 to poor teaching than it would be to come up with an explanation if the situation were reversed (e.g. 126 and only one level 5 prediction). - Not that there would be any need for an explanation in the latter situation!

Thanks for your responses Bougalou and Etienne. I think the words 'clutching' and 'straws' spring to mind don't they!

No worries Sianyn, thinking I'm clutching at the same ones!!
bouga

This is really interesting. My DS is in Year 5 and to date he has thrived at school. But his teacher is really negative. Instead of motivating the children, he is constantly using comments such as "you are the worse Y5 at (tudor project eg) that I've ever had". The class have been working on a project this week, and my son was ill on Thursday. He went back on Friday to find his 'project' had been put in the bin as the rest of the class had finished them on Thursday - how horrible for a child to find their hard'work had been 'binned'. My son now says "thank goodness I've got Linda (his tutor) as mr X is really discouraging". This is such an important year for them, and for the first time in his education he really feels that it's not worth putting the effort in.

I think you need to talk to this teacher ,and if you get no joy , the head teacher. That sort of bullying should not be allowed.

Hi yoyo, I agree. Do you know whether other Year 5 parents share your concerns? I fail to see how the quality of teaching etc at a school cannot have an effect on the children, if not intellectually then surely with regard to their confidence. Can a child being taught badly in a large class and in an underperforming school really be expected to compete with a child attending a school with small classes and a proven academic record. Maybe they should be given extra points to level the playing field.

the trouble is that the "received wisdom" is that the 11+ is a test of innate ability - it shouldn't matter what sort of previous education a child has had, if they are clever enough they will pass. We all know this is complete codswallop - but if the powers that be started accepting poor teaching as grounds for appeal, they would also have to accept the fact that the playing field is not level. And that the whole 11+ system is massively unfair and should be completely overhauled. Which isn't going to happen any time soon!

Of course an appeal panel will take account of poor or disrupted teaching - but there still has to be a case!

Let's take as an example “Zoeâ€