11 Plus Exams Forum

Next month 9 students from one prep school will start at DAO having taken almost 15% of the 65 academic places available. This is a change as there used to be students from over 100 different primary schools in each year. This has happened as the same time as the last rank to get in on allocation day went up from 132 to 108 in one year, so 24 fewer students turned a place down than the previous year. Some of these students have tutoring on top of the preparation that they are getting during the school day so it is unsurprising that they achieve a higher ranking in the exams than those at the local state primary. I feel that this situation is likely to increase this year and carry on getting worse leaving fewer and fewer places for state schools students in the state selectives. Is this trend also happening elsewhere? DG

so 24 less students

tut, tut DG

Guest55 wrote:

so 24 less students

tut, tut DG

A fellow pedant

Tut tut indeed! Shameful! DG

Daogroupie wrote:I feel that this situation is likely to increase this year and carry on getting worse leaving fewer and fewer places for state schools students in the state selectives. Is this trend also happening elsewhere? DG

Not in Bucks. There are "high and low years", but the overall picture has remained stable for at least a decade, with around 11% of the GS population being drawn from in-county prep schools. (We can't break out the figures for out-county applicants.)

In a "high" year, as many as 280 prep school pupils qualified, in a "low" year, as few as 200. Across the 13 Bucks GS, that is a variation of as many as 6 pupils per school either way.

Ultimately there is a finite prep school population, and it didn't just wake up to the existence of grammar schools. The impact of coaching is also finite.

There are always rumours that the Indie sector is increasingly flocking to GS because of the recession/cost of school fees, etc, but they are just rumours. If there was any truth behind them, we would be seeing some public schools on their knees financially.

I think it is a blip, and not a trend.

In Gloucestershire some of the county Indie primary schools actually promote the fact they always get a high number of their pupils into the local GSs. The bigger prep schools do not actively encourage the GS but the CE for entry into the attached senior schools. There are many parents who go the Indie primary route with the higher hope of a GS place.

DS is at a local GS and he has said there is a high proportion of boys in his year who come from the Indie sector, he knows it is over 10 in his class alone.

Seeing lot more prep school kids getting private tuition than couple of years back - maybe the incentive to save money is greater so they don't mind spending extra to secure a 'free' place in a good state selective

It seems to have been an increasing trend in London during the recent recession years. For example prep schools are more likely now to list state grammar schools when advertising leaver destinations. In previous years they listed only selective private schools and highlighted the scholarships gained. Some parents are looking to pay prep school fees with a view to making longer term savings by not having to pay the higher fees required for private secondary schooling. Private prep followed by state grammar is a fairly common route through education.

The Sutton Trust's publication "Poor Grammar" also commented on this trend. It found that whilst only 6% of pupils aged 10 attend fee paying schools, an average of 13% of Year 7 grammar school pupils transfer from these schools. This figure is higher at stand-alone grammar schools (15%).
It varies wildly though. In some local authorities, more than 25% of grammar school children come from outside the state primary system. In Essex, over 1/3 of pupils transferred from outside the English state system. In North Yorkshire, it was much lower (about 7%).

Seeing lot more prep school kids getting private tuition than couple of years back - maybe the incentive to save money is greater so they don't mind spending extra to secure a 'free' place in a good state selective

It is also due to selection changes at some private schools. Some private schools which used to select pupils via the Common Entrance Exam have now introduced a pre test in Year 6. These tests encourage tuition since failing them means losing options later on. Therefore parents decide they may as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone: since they are forced to prepare for tests at age 11 whether aiming for state or private later on, they may as well give the state school 11+ exams a shot as well. If they are then successful, the prospect of saving a lot of money and having a guaranteed school place for secondary school can be very appealing even if it isn't necessarily something they may have considered a few years back.
Increased levels of selection at private schools mean tuition has become the norm at many prep schools and parents feel they may as well put it to good use.

For my part it was the perceived quality of state school education over that on offer in the private sector and links to value for money that swayed us.

We are blessed in having this choice in the midlands.