Did you pass your Eleven Plus?

[[AW] Whale]

Hi everyone.

I've just been at the pub and one of my friends upset someone at the bar by talking about this subject.

He implied that a woman had 'failed as a parent' because both of her children failed their 11+.

Now, I do not agree with him but he was adamant that it is a parents duty to get the child through the 11+ and into a grammar school if possible to give them the best chance in life. As I'm sure you all know, non-grammar schools are a bit of a shambles and you end up with the nasty folks children.

Did you pass your 11+, and if not, what do you personally think the reasons were for that?

[Ferral]

I personally feel that it is not the parents that are at fault. Yes we have to support the minor and encourage them to do the best they can. However, blaming the parents for a childs poor performance at school is not on.

Peer pressure in that age range is high (I have an 11 year old now who will be doing her sats next year in the senior school). At home we make sure she does homework and gets a good nights sleep on school nights. We are doing everything on our side.

I think over the last few years the public schools havnt been as good as they were. More so now that the teachers have less power against unruly pupils that have genuinely bad parents and it reflects in the child. All it takes is a few of these unruly kids to disrupt an entire class, this can end up leading to bullying which in turn leads to poor performance for a start. Then the teachers cant act appropriately towards these kids, they get sent home on time outs where they can just sit in front of a TV or games console all day. How many kids really dislike that punishment!

[Whiternoise]

Well, for starters what happens if you don't live anywhere near a grammar school? Certainly where I grew up there are none and you're stuck between state or private. Both my girlfriend and I both went to state schools and the local college. I'm studying physics at Warwick, she's studying engineering at Oxford. My cousin (same age as me) went to a grammar school in, as did his sister. Granted, we're a middle class family, all university educated, at least 3 from Oxbridge and mostly scientists; education is something we take seriously. Would my aunt/uncle be seen as failures if they'd not gotten them in to the local grammar (note while they could afford it, they chose not to publicly educate their children)? Probably not, and it doesn't do your kids' self esteem any good if you criticise them for not achieving.

I'm not sure whether your shambles comment was serious or not, but it's absolute bunk. You get unruly kids everywhere, but if the school is average and streams children by ability, disruption isn't an issue. I was in top sets in my school, an incredibly average institution, and the most we had were people talking. The bottom sets were attrocious, on the other hand.

Grammar schools as they are perceived are long gone, as far back as the 1980's. By 1990, all the old selective grammar schools had turned into comprehensives though some retained the name for posterity. The closest analogy to grammar schools now are independents.

There are now only 164 grammar schools, defined as fully selective state. As a result, you can attend a school with the name grammar in it, without it actually being a grammar school. Indeed, some comprehensives still have people teaching who were around when the school was a grammar. What it doesn't mean is that the education is going to necessarily be good, though it's fair to say that grammar schools are generally at the top amongst state schools. It's not like an independent school where the fees are ploughed into top-class facilities, good teachers and an environment of happy students.

As for the 11-plus itself, it's designed to cream off the top 25%. In grade terms, that's about A*-B at GCSE. The questions are not particularly difficult and anyone who actually learnt what they were supposed to in primary school should not have any problems getting in. The common entrance papers, on the other hand, are meant to cream off a smaller percentage and often come with an interview - hence the reason that independent schools usually get better grades. In essence, if the child has a vague aptitude for learning, getting into a grammar school purely on the basis of the exam shouldn't be a problem.

You don't have nearly enough information to implicate the parents. Did they do things like read to the child from a young age? Did they make them play educational games from a young age (even board games like Monopoly)? Did they show an interest in what the child was doing at school? The list goes on, and on.

[jim]

Whiternoise: (can't quote you for some reason)

I think you're diminishing the status of grammar schools to be honest - yes, a lot of them were closed, but there are a lot of them still around and they are a bit more than just "the better state schools". The 11+ is extremely demanding. At the school I went to I think something like 10% of the people who took it ended up getting a place.

It's actually quite difficult to get a place. My sister is quite intelligent, always did well at primary school and only just made it. A guy I know, his father was a tutor who taught for the 11+ exam, and he spent months working on 11+ papers with him, then scraped in by 2 or 3 marks. His father didn't let him go on the basis that if he could only scrape it with his help, he would find it very difficult over the coming years. It really isn't as simple as "you pay attention at primary school, you turn up, you get in". Where in primary school do you learn non-verbal?

The common entrance exam, on the other hand, isn't too hard. I went to a private primary for a couple of years, and as you can imagine the vast majority left for grammar schools and private schools. Many of those who failed the 11+ passed their common entrance exam, and went to private school.

[jim]

As for the thread topic itself, it's question of nature vs nurture. The 11+ tests are largely designed to be intelligence tests - I think the maths has now been dropped, so it may just be verbal and non-verbal, which are very difficult to teach.

There is a lot of value in doing some practice papers to familiarise yourself with the test, but beyond that I don't think there's a whole lot that you can do. If the parents did some practice papers and prepared their kids, then that's as much as they could've done.

It's good to get into grammar schools, but if you're barely scraping in, or you're getting in through something other than intelligence, you're probably going to spend 7 years being "the thick one" when at a comprehensive you'd have done really well. That's not always helpful.

[redddraggon]

I think over the last few years the public schools havnt been as good as they were. More so now that the teachers have less power against unruly pupils that have genuinely bad parents and it reflects in the child.

I can't see it. My experience of public schools is that the majority of parents are heavily involved and most of the pupils know that they are to learn, and there's the fact that public schools are still pretty selective on who they let go to their school.

[peterb]

Hi everyone.

I've just been at the pub and one of my friends upset someone at the bar by talking about this subject.

He implied that a woman had 'failed as a parent' because both of her children failed their 11+.

Now, I do not agree with him but he was adamant that it is a parents duty to get the child through the 11+ and into a grammar school if possible to give them the best chance in life. As I'm sure you all know, non-grammar schools are a bit of a shambles and you end up with the nasty folks children.

Did you pass your 11+, and if not, what do you personally think the reasons were for that?

To paraphrase some of the inflammatory comments I have just deleted (you do attract them don't you?)

"You friend is somewhat narrow minded and has a warped perception of life."


It is a parent's duty to enable their children to reach their full potential, but they can't really do anything about the innate intelligence of their offspring.

As for your comment about non-grammar schools being a shambles, well, yet another sweeping generalisation (You are good at those ).

There are some extremely good comprehensive schools about (many run on grammar school lines) and while selective education had its merits, one of the downfalls was that insufficient resources were spent on the secondary modern schools that were part of the secondary school system.

Sadly in the interests of 'equality' the decision was taken to try to abolish the grammar schools, rather than put more resources in to the secondary modern.

And yes, I did pass.

<admin mode> Gentle reminder about flame wars and trolling - keep the debate civil please) </admin mode>

[nibbler]

On the subject of state schools:
I'm at a non-selective comprehensive school and it is about 5th in scotland for exam results. Granted, there are no grammar schools at all in Scotland, but this is still impressive and it's worth asking why it gets such high results. The reason, as far as I can tell, is that the school is in a good neighbourhood. There are the odd few idiots (as in chavs, not dimwits) who don't do any work but even then, by chav standards they are pretty soft. Most people in my school pretend not to care but secretly do rather a lot of work at the last minute and as a result, of the 240 people in my year 35 ended up with AAAAA last year (in Scottish highers). So there are good state schools and I find that it's not the teaching that makes a good school, it's the students.

[Joeroe_92]

i got an A in my 11+. but 18/22 in my class failed it. i wouldnt say it was bad off them. some of them just didnt want to get into the better schools. also for children who were dyslexic it was so difficult for them to read alot of the wording of the paper under pressure. perhaps the parent could play an active role or provide some home tuition but it really is down to the school i believe!

[[AW] Whale]

To paraphrase some of the inflammatory comments I have just deleted (you do attract them don't you?)

"You friend is somewhat narrow minded and has a warped perception of life."


It is a parent's duty to enable their children to reach their full potential, but they can't really do anything about the innate intelligence of their offspring.

As for your comment about non-grammar schools being a shambles, well, yet another sweeping generalisation (You are good at those ).

There are some extremely good comprehensive schools about (many run on grammar school lines) and while selective education had its merits, one of the downfalls was that insufficient resources were spent on the secondary modern schools that were part of the secondary school system.

Sadly in the interests of 'equality' the decision was taken to try to abolish the grammar schools, rather than put more resources in to the secondary modern.

And yes, I did pass.

<admin mode> Gentle reminder about flame wars and trolling - keep the debate civil please) </admin mode>

Its not my fault that people get bent out of shape over stupid things.

Thanks to all the people who wrote a proper reply

[Kumagoro]

I never bothered to do the 11+ as I wanted to stay with my friends, which you tend to when
you are at primary school. Also I didnt want to have to get the bus to school when the nearest
was only a 5 min walk.

When the results came I can still remember one person in my year passing and me thinking, how
the hell did that idiot weirdo pass... amusingly to me at least his name was Gordon Brown.
His family was proper poor as well and I bet that going to grammar school changed his life very
much for the better. As such I have always thought that grammar schools are a good thing.

Saying that, I remember when going to college by bus the grammar school kids on there were
complete dweebs and I can imagine that nearly all of them being like that. Also now I have a
baby girl I have thought about where she should go to school and the thing which puts me off
most about grammar schools (at least where I live) is that they are single sex schools.

[Whiternoise]

Hmm,

As for the thread topic itself, it's question of nature vs nurture. The 11+ tests are largely designed to be intelligence tests - I think the maths has now been dropped, so it may just be verbal and non-verbal, which are very difficult to teach.

There is a lot of value in doing some practice papers to familiarise yourself with the test, but beyond that I don't think there's a whole lot that you can do. If the parents did some practice papers and prepared their kids, then that's as much as they could've done.

It's good to get into grammar schools, but if you're barely scraping in, or you're getting in through something other than intelligence, you're probably going to spend 7 years being "the thick one" when at a comprehensive you'd have done really well. That's not always helpful.

Maths is still examined in most places as far as I'm aware - most LEAs specify their own examinations and you can find sample tests on the school websites (including maths). When I say "knowing the syllabus", I mean that if you're getting C's in exams, you don't have a solid understanding of the syllabus. That doesn't mean you're not clever, some people struggle. A GCSE C was around 50% a few years ago for some boards - that's effectively only getting half the paper right. I said that 25% of the population get A*-B, so you don't need to be *that* clever to be in the top 25. It sounds snobbish, but I would consider getting under 50-60% in an exam to be a fail.

Verbal is difficult to teach, but simply reading from a young age should prepare most kids for a verbal reasoning examination. A lot of children don't read for pleasure any more, I was brought up surrounded by books, I was read to as a child and I tore through the pulp they gave us in primary school - to the extent that I ran out of 'kiddie' one-line-per-page books and they had to give me the actual stuff with paragraphs. I'm not saying I'm a good reader, I'm not even that fast, but simply because my parents encouraged me before I went to school, I didn't have any problems with the stuff they gave us. As a knock-on effect, I had a decent vocabulary and didn't struggle with verbal reasoning later on. So yeah, it's not something you can teach in the classroom, but practice goes a long way.

Non-verbal is a trickier one. I didn't realise they asked those sorts of questions! Much of the standard shape problems are based around either spatial awareness (rotating shapes, nets, etc) or pattern recognition. These can indeed be taught and IQ tests get less effective the more you do, I believe. Certainly once you've got the hang of the sorts of things the questions are looking for, it becomes a lot easier.

And actually, I think that being the dim one amongst clever people is far better than being the clever one among dim people. In the former case, you're more likely to have goals, people who will challenge you and encourage you. In the latter, you're likely to assume that you're the best and it's a bloody great shock when you leave school that you're not as clever as you'd like to be. If passing the 11-plus is as big a deal as, well, it is, then scraping means you've earned your place. I think if my child scraped into a selective school, I'd damn well make them go because they'd earned the place.

I'd draw a comparison with the STEP papers or the higher maths challenges, they're sodding difficult and most of the time you're not expected to even complete the papers in the time allotted. As a result, even a scrape over the pass mark is considered an achievement.

[jim]

And actually, I think that being the dim one amongst clever people is far better than being the clever one among dim people. In the former case, you're more likely to have goals, people who will challenge you and encourage you. In the latter, you're likely to assume that you're the best and it's a bloody great shock when you leave school that you're not as clever as you'd like to be. If passing the 11-plus is as big a deal as, well, it is, then scraping means you've earned your place. I think if my child scraped into a selective school, I'd damn well make them go because they'd earned the place.

I'd draw a comparison with the STEP papers or the higher maths challenges, they're sodding difficult and most of the time you're not expected to even complete the papers in the time allotted. As a result, even a scrape over the pass mark is considered an achievement.

People who will challenge you and encourage you?

Not in my experience. At my grammar school, the thick kids were derided for being thick fairly routinely... maybe not to their faces, but they certainly were. And in a way, I don't particularly have a problem with that - it would happen anywhere. But, these kids were actually very intelligent, taking the nation as a whole. Instead of being pushed, they're just demoralised and give up. A lot of people who gave up on school/6th form I reckon would've done a lot better in a comprehensive, purely because they wouldn't have believed they were utterly stupid. It's very easy to forget that you're in an environment where average is a lot higher than the real average - being in that world every day is tough.

It just kills any enthusiasm. I know a certain person who quit the grammar school to go to a 6th form college. At grammar school, she was doing okay, one or two teachers thought she was a genius but the rest just weren't interested. She just plodded her way through the work, and often was the centre of attention for being a "rebel" (although being a rebel at my school doesn't really amount to a whole lot other than drinking/smoking).

Now, take her out of that environment, and into a college, and she's now one of the top students. Instead of being average, she's really revered by all the staff for being such a bright prospect. And that enables her to stand out and feel like she's really achieving something, and she's working her arse off to get to a good uni and do a good course. Had she stayed at the grammar school, I'm 95% sure that would not have happened.

On paper, it sounds like a good idea to go if you've earned your place, but I really don't think it's that simple from my experience. It's not always the most beneficial learning environment, and as we've proved with earlier posts you don't have to go to a grammar school or a private school to get into the top universities.

[Mblaster]

I had no idea an 11+ test still existed... I'm sure I never did one, and as far as I know there weren't any grammar schools within reasonable commute distance from where I grew up.

I would have much rather gone to a school where I would be given more of a challenge, as I cruised though school without even trying since at that level everything was easy, and I took that attitude into university and it didn't work out so well there.

As for the original point, to say the woman has 'failed as a parent' is just being provocative. Getting your child into a good school is nice, but there are far more important things than that, maybe like teaching them some manners so they don't go insulting random people in a bar.