Thank you all for the insights - very interesting to hear that prep school kids are not as advanced as those prepared for 11plus. I always assumed that the prep schools prepare the kids to that level and that is why 11plus is such a high standard. Seems as if tutors have overcompensated making the standard so high and putting enormous pressure on the children preparing for them.




Indeed, this would be very interesting to know. Again a presumption but have to assume they will have caught up by then and are not in any way achieving less at GCSE level. If anything, so many kids who are heavily tutored may find they struggle once it comes to attending the senior school and/or may just not be cut out for that kind of work ethic long term.

The 11plus thing is a minefield!

I am going to contact the schools as you say DG and will see what they say. Will report back if any insights of interest!

Ok so I am back quickly!

I just spoke to UCS admissions office. They said that they have stopped admitting boys into Year 6 even where there is a space as the Senior School has asked them not to do it anymore. The senior school prefer boys coming into Year 7 to have sat the 11plus. Although their own Year 6 boys do have to sit the 11plus, they always get given a place in Year 7 but if they fail the 11plus there are strict conditions as to their continued presence in the school. I was told that previously boys were "tested" in age appropriate maths and literacy for a place in Year 6 but it wasn't anywhere near as hard as the 11plus - presumably this was creating problems, hence, why they have stopped the practice. Earlier entry point is 7plus.
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Suspect may be similar at other schools.

Thank you for this update.

It is very helpful to hear the situation as described by admissions at a school that has a prep school feeding into the senor school.

Hopefully all data points are indicating to you that the most sensible thing you can do at this point is start preparing for the 11 plus.

Right now students who did prepare are being offered interviews and hopefully offers at a range of different private selective schools in North London.

Some will end up with a choice of schools for Y7 in September and there will be offer days to help them decide.

In my opinion these students are in a much stronger position that those who went into a prep in order to avoid doing the 11 plus and now have no choice but to stay onto the senior school.

But there are many who have the advantage of both routes. They have gone into a prep at 4 or 7 but they have also prepared for the 11 plus so now have the choice of staying or going elsewhere.

The confirmation that UCS would rather fill Y7 places from outside than take on a new student into Y6 speaks volumes.

The myth that students are over tutored for the 11 plus and then struggle at secondary school continues to be peddled.

The students that have prepared are now on the level that they prepared for and that is why they are more advanced in English and Maths than the preps when they are together in Y7.

It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of the results at GCSE, A level and University between those who came into the school at 4 plus or 7 plus and those who arrived in Y7 and those who do the 13 plus and arrive at Y9

Both my dds felt that having gone through the preparation and experience of sitting the exams at 11 plus helped them enormously when it came to GCSEs and A levels and university entrance tests.

Others for whom GCSEs were their first real exams found it more challenging. DG

This thread is just making me laugh.
Indiemum, UCS does the SATs informally with no pressure or revision in the JB (I know because that's what my son did there) so they have something to compare 11+candidates against. Then, they go back to teaching history, geography, French. science, art etc that the kids cramming for 11+ will have missed out on. The whole point of going to an all-through school from 4 or 7 is to have a well-rounded education that doesn't come to a juddering halt to cram for the 11+.
I've experienced both sides of entry into NLCS (4+ and 11+), there was no difference whatsoever between the level of girls in year 7. Or, for that matter, the UCS boys who came in at 11+vs JB boys. Except, in science, history, geography, French, art etc. where the 11+ candidates were behind.
But, I guess if you're in the tutoring business......

It's very difficult as a parent to have the first idea of the varying levels of children in y7 so I don't think any of us can say categorically who's further ahead.

However my children at a selective boys' and a selective girls' in North London have both said that those who come bottom of all the tests have come from the junior school. That's not to say they missed out on 11+ cramming to their detriment, just that they got in at 4 but might not have got in at 11 when the testing is inevitably more accurate.

I stress that not all of them are struggling - many of them come top of the class but there's definitely seems to be a broader range of abilities among those who've come up from the connected junior schools. I've heard the same of Highgate. I think it's fairly self-evident that testing kids at 11 is likely to be more rigorous than at 3. If testing seven years previously was a rock-solid predictor then they might as well just give out Oxbridge places on the basis of 11+ performance. To get into these schools from a state primary is a challenge that once met means the kids are likely to be at the very least in the middle of the class.

One of the reasons Habs Girls stopped the 11+ for their junior girls is that having studied their GCSE and A'Level results over a number of years these results show that those who went through the junior school consistently out perform the 11+ cohort by a few percentage points across both sets of public exams. This information was sent to parents.

MrsChips, since you mentioned Oxbridge....I've just pulled out DD1's NLCS yearbook. 117 girls in the year (60 at 11+, 17 at 16+)
Of 40 girls who came in at 4+ and 7+, 14 went to Oxbridge.
Of the remaining 76 who came at 11+ and 16+, 18 went to Oxbridge
Now you can all have the conversation about how Oxbridge isn't the end-all-be-all as per usual.I do think that it shows. in common with Guesswho's Habs experience, that earlier entry is not a disadvantage in exam performance or uni destination.
But, if you're in the tutoring business......

OK! To be honest, I don't really care, clearly not as much as those coming from the preps. And I'm not a tutor either, thanks, just a parent who's happy with my choice of going to a very lowly state primary which I think has benefited my children academically and socially (and their parents economically).

But your Oxbridge stats don't disprove my point that the bottom of the class come from the attached junior schools. Maybe the very top do as well (and I think at somewhere like UCS that's likely true as the very cleverest boys from external preps/primaries probably get siphoned off to Westminster). The experience of my children right now is that the very least academic come from the attached junior schools. But feel free to dismiss their experiences of actually being in the classroom.

And I do know Junior Branch boys who've been managed out of the UCS Senior School. I don't know when your son was there, but apparently the Senior bit was getting aggravated by the standard of some pupils.

[quote="shootmenow"]This thread is just making me laugh.
Indiemum, UCS does the SATs informally with no pressure or revision in the JB (I know because that's what my son did there) so they have something to compare 11+candidates against. Then, they go back to teaching history, geography, French. science, art etc that the kids cramming for 11+ will have missed out on. The whole point of going to an all-through school from 4 or 7 is to have a well-rounded education that doesn't come to a juddering halt to cram for the 11+.
I've experienced both sides of entry into NLCS (4+ and 11+), there was no difference whatsoever between the level of girls in year 7. Or, for that matter, the UCS boys who came in at 11+vs JB boys. Except, in science, history, geography, French, art etc. where the 11+ candidates were behind.
But, I guess if you're in the tutoring business

Sorry to burst your bubble but state school kids aren’t prepped for the 11+ at school and therefore their well rounded education otherwise known as the national curriculum does not come to a ‘juddering halt’. Believe it or not they continue to learn science, art, French, Spanish, art, history, pshe, PE, ICT etc throughout their time at Primary school. All tutoring happens outside of school alongside many prep school children whose parents pay twice for the privilege.

To be fair, at least up to quite recently there would be people posting on the forum that they had informed their DC and their DC's school that for the duration of said child's 11+ prep, no school homework would be done. Also, some would keep their DC out of school at the beginning of the autumn term until they had finished all the 11+ exams for which they had been entered.

I don't know whether their proponents just don't boast about it anymore, or possibly these practices themselves have come to a juddering halt, but obviously, for the DC concerned, ordinary school life was pretty much affected by their parents' ambitions for them.

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