11 Plus Exams Forum

anotherdad wrote:

DSDSDD wrote:Surely it's the school's fault for allowing 'out of catchment' candidates to take the exams in the first instance and as I suggested in my earlier post, wouldn't the more pragmatic approach be to 'qualify' more candidates than the PAN, subject to the caveat that a qualifying score doesn't guarantee a place, and then allocating the places on score/distance. Redbridge is an example of this.

It would be illegal to disallow OOC applicants. because among them are people genuinely moving into the area. As to your pragmatic suggestion, that is exactly the approach some of us have been advocating for some time, but the schools don't seem to be interested in implementing it.

Has anyone started a petition on gov.uk to see if they will debate this?

I keep meaning to post on this thread.

Mocks taken: 1 (Sutton)
Exams taken: 1 (DAO)
Music exams: 2 (DAO, Ashmole)
Selective places: 0
Other: ranked for music place at Ashmole but outside top 20
Method: DIY tutoring. 1 hour per week since beginning of year 5

I would suggest that 1 hour is not enough for the exams in this area however my DH and I decided that we didn't want to do any more and put DD under too much pressure. What will be, will be. DD didn't give up any extra curricular activities but once again we didn't want the DAO exam to feel a big deal.

Yes. We are one of the many families currently awaiting selection review result in February. DS narrowly missed Bucks qualifying score. Took no mocks and only one test. Child devastated to probably not be going to school with his sibling. Have had an awful few months. Sad to see ignorant comments from selfish parents. By the way, if your child required all that coaching, they will struggle at grammar school. Remember, once you get them in, they actually have to do the work. Are you going to carry on paying for tuition? Smh

Trakka wrote:I keep meaning to post on this thread.

Mocks taken: 1 (Sutton)
Exams taken: 1 (DAO)
Music exams: 2 (DAO, Ashmole)
Selective places: 0
Other: ranked for music place at Ashmole but outside top 20
Method: DIY tutoring. 1 hour per week since beginning of year 5

I would suggest that 1 hour is not enough for the exams in this area however my DH and I decided that we didn't want to do any more and put DD under too much pressure. What will be, will be. DD didn't give up any extra curricular activities but once again we didn't want the DAO exam to feel a big deal.

Did your DD find it useful for the DAO exams, to sit the mock apparently designed to familiarise those hoping to apply for a place at one of the Sutton grammar schools with the type of exam they would face? I can't help thinking that any of ours would precisely have got the idea that the exam they were going to take for real was not a big deal, had we decided to schlep clean across London and out the other side for a 'dry run'.

To be fair, all of ours had already attended events at various local secondary schools and got lost in Basildon / Covent Garden / IKEA, respectively as innoculation against being thrown by unfamiliar surroundings / stressful situations / crowds etc and the worst thing about the 11+ for them was having to get up earlier than school time on a Saturday morning .

ToadMum wrote:

Trakka wrote:I keep meaning to post on this thread.

Mocks taken: 1 (Sutton)
Exams taken: 1 (DAO)
Music exams: 2 (DAO, Ashmole)
Selective places: 0
Other: ranked for music place at Ashmole but outside top 20
Method: DIY tutoring. 1 hour per week since beginning of year 5

I would suggest that 1 hour is not enough for the exams in this area however my DH and I decided that we didn't want to do any more and put DD under too much pressure. What will be, will be. DD didn't give up any extra curricular activities but once again we didn't want the DAO exam to feel a big deal.

Did your DD find it useful for the DAO exams, to sit the mock apparently designed to familiarise those hoping to apply for a place at one of the Sutton grammar schools with the type of exam they would face? I can't help thinking that any of ours would precisely have got the idea that the exam they were going to take for real was not a big deal, had we decided to schlep clean across London and out the other side for a 'dry run'.

To be fair, all of ours had already attended events at various local secondary schools and got lost in Basildon / Covent Garden / IKEA, respectively as innoculation against being thrown by unfamiliar surroundings / stressful situations / crowds etc and the worst thing about the 11+ for them was having to get up earlier than school time on a Saturday morning .

Sorry Toadmum, life has got in the way this month and I didn't see your post until now. My DD actually did find it useful. It gave her an idea of what exam day would be like and also a bit on exam technique. This may seem strange but we made an outing of it and had a lovely day out. I don't regret taking her to the Sutton mock.

Deb70 wrote:Yes. We are one of the many families currently awaiting selection review result in February. DS narrowly missed Bucks qualifying score. Took no mocks and only one test. Child devastated to probably not be going to school with his sibling. Have had an awful few months. Sad to see ignorant comments from selfish parents. By the way, if your child required all that coaching, they will struggle at grammar school. Remember, once you get them in, they actually have to do the work. Are you going to carry on paying for tuition? Smh

Agree to a certain extent, but having done the 11+ process (inc the tuition and mocks etc) it gave my children a strong foundation to enter secondary school. They learnt valuable techniques which they've carried forward. Never needed a tutor since then, independent and able to handle pressure after having gone through it.

However I know some children who do need to continue tuition, either to keep up with other children in a highly competitive environment or they are so used to having their hand held they lack confidence to stand on their own two feet.

If you don't mind me asking, in hindsight do you think you did too little perhaps?

I don't mind at all. DC didn't need much prep for the actual questions, but I think I didn't prepare him properly for the hype and stress in the run up to the test day. He said straight after the test that he hadn't done as well as he could have done, and that he felt so stressed that he found it difficult to think properly. We live OOC but hoping to move closer, other DC is already at the GS so this DC would fall into sibling category. Big difference from 2016 when other DC qualified, lots of kids at his school doing carpet bomb approach sitting multiple tests with intensive tuition.

AML wrote: However I know some children who do need to continue tuition, either to keep up with other children in a highly competitive environment or they are so used to having their hand held they lack confidence to stand on their own two feet.

This is interesting.... I didn’t realise that children continued to have tutors in secondary school once they were in a grammar school. I thought the point of a grammar school was so they wouldn’t need to pay for tutors because the teaching was good enough.

We didn’t tutor our first DC for the 11+ and she now goes to a non-grammar upper school close by. She works hard but I am not sure she is getting the help from the school she needs to pass the exams. We have had to get her a Maths and English tutor to help make sure she passes those subjects as you need to pass those. I would not recommend that she takes these subjects for A-level. There are plenty of other things she is good at that where she doesn’t need a tutor to get good grades. Unfortunately, maths and English are the important ones. I wouldn’t bother if she wasn’t required to pass these. You need at least a 4 in these to get accepted anywhere for 6th form.

Blue_Marigold wrote:
This is interesting.... I didn’t realise that children continued to have tutors in secondary school once they were in a grammar school. I thought the point of a grammar school was so they wouldn’t need to pay for tutors because the teaching was good enough.

That's because they weren't bright enough to go there in the first place but had lots of coaching to pass the exam.

Deb70 wrote:

Blue_Marigold wrote:
This is interesting.... I didn’t realise that children continued to have tutors in secondary school once they were in a grammar school. I thought the point of a grammar school was so they wouldn’t need to pay for tutors because the teaching was good enough.

That's because they weren't bright enough to go there in the first place but had lots of coaching to pass the exam.

There is no particular reason why teaching would be better in a grammar school. As with everywhere else there will be good teachers & poor teachers - attending a grammar school isn't a magic formula to get good teaching.
Some tutoring may be needed by some children, others will have it as their parents are keen for them to get the highest grades possible and may be anxious that this is not the case. There have been many threads on here about tutoring at grammar schools and independent schools. It happens a lot more than people think (I know someone as a Bucks GS who had 5 tutors at GCSE). Of course the schools will take credit for good results
My DSs have had pupils in their classes who are clearly not academically up to it, and usually they leave after GCSEs. Is this because they were tutored through the 11 plus? Maybe for some, others simply may have peaked at 10 and then plateaued. Maybe this is one reason why segregating pupils at 11 may not always be a good idea?