Kent Private schools caught 11+ coaching

[Guest55]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-45346636" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"A ban on in-school coaching for the 11+ exam should be reviewed, the leader of Kent County Council has said.

In-school coaching is not allowed by the council, to level the playing field for grammar school access across independent and state primaries.

But an undercover BBC reporter visited 10 fee-paying primary schools in Kent and found nine were tutoring pupils.

Council leader Paul Carter said: "Why shouldn't local schools, as well as private schools, be able to coach?"

A BBC South East reporter posing as a parent found the private schools were running extra classes and summer schools focusing on the exam."

[Sparklecat]

If I had the money to go private, I would expect them to teach the test. Virtually every child at our state primary school had some kind of tuition arranged by parents. Probably better to just let all state schools teach verbal and nonverbal reasoning, and be done with it. Might put a few tutoring companies out of business. Or probably not.

[PanicMode]

I can't believe this is even news to be honest!! Of course they do. I wish that the state primaries were allowed to teach NVR and VR at school too - it might perhaps encourage the parents of children who can't afford coaching to let their children have a go at the test, and then who knows? I personally think that to make the playing field a little more even, as well as standardisation of scores for age, there should be some allowance made for state school children applying - if you've sat in a class of 12-15 children rather than 25-30 for your formative years at primary school, that's going to have had a significant impact. Perhaps a point for every extra child in a class between say 15 pupils and 30

[LocalTWmum1]

The whole system is so deeply flawed. Of course private schools teach to the test. Of course most parents of children at state primaries arrange some kind of paid tuition. It's the bright child with parents who aren't engaged in education, or who can't afford school fees or coaching, who will always lose out.

Hardly any child, however bright, will be able to pass the Kent Test in its current format without being extensively prepared for it, even if just a parent going through some books - it's simply too difficult when they are up against a cohort of Kent Test 'machines'; thousands of other children who can robotically answer every type of NVR/VR question type going, or are already working at KS3 level at their independent school in maths etc.

And there's the problem that governments, schools and parents have been grappling with for years and years without any kind of resolution. Surely they have to either ban ALL coaching, whether that's received via prep schools or paid for tuition, or let EVERYONE have the same access to the same practice material over the course of year 5. The test itself needs a massive overhaul EVERY YEAR to stop tutors and schools knowing in advance what is likely to come up, surely?

[Sparklecat]

Which brings us back to the claim that KCC want the test to be tutor-proof. It never will be. There are only so many ways you can vary it each year and tuition companies will always manage to cover various subjects, more than state schools. So the only way to level the playing field is to have the test similar every year and allow primary schools to teach it, with extra resources for poorer kids with potential. Schools already do this with extra teaching for borderline kids before SATs.

[PettswoodFiona]

Of course private schools teach to the test.

This is rather sweeping. Not all private schools teach to the test. DD's independent didn't, they actively discouraged it, possibly as they had their own senior school they wanted the girls to progress to.

[doodles]

Of course private schools teach to the test.

This is rather sweeping. Not all private schools teach to the test. DD's independent didn't, they actively discouraged it, possibly as they had their own senior school they wanted the girls to progress to.

DS's school didn't teach to the Kent Test as they went through to year 8 and wanted another 2 years of fees!

[thickasabrick]

DS's school didn't teach to the Kent Test as they went through to year 8 and wanted another 2 years of fees!

Then what do you do going into Y9? Just hoping there are places in other schools coming up?

[Tinkers]

A number of private schools either start from 13 or have a formal intake at 13 as well as 11. The prep schools that go up to 13 are designed to feed into them.

Many of the private school local to me go through to 18 so don’t really help prepare for GS 11+ exams either.

[thickasabrick]

It is of course possible to make the test somewhat tutor proof - at least the maths - but not with multiple choice answers. Questions where kids have to write in their own answers are a good start. Only then you might not be able to computer check all the answer sheets and that is a problem when you have several thousand.

In Y6 last year some primaries took part in a national maths challenge. Most of the questions were your standard multiple choice questions but a few towards the end were worded problems that required a good level of logical thinking without providing any selection of answers to 'work backwards'. There was plenty of time.

Considering how many kids passed the grammar tests it was quite astonishing only two made it into the second round of this maths challenge (one of them hadn't even taken any grammar tests). You only needed 80% for the second round.

So those grammar tests really do not tell you very much apart from how much work someone has put into practising for it.