Eleven Plus Gaining Popularity And Grammar School Shortage

Nationally, there are 164 Grammar schools, and there are thousands of students who pass the exams yearly though fail to gain entry into their chosen school due to shortage of spaces.

The Grammar Schools Association survey shows that of the 29,500 children who took the entrance test at 56 schools, 13,800 passed and of those, about 7,700 won a place in September. The remaining 6,100 or so children were turned away because they did not meet other entry criteria as closely as those who were offered places, such as the distance they live from the school. If a similar number of eligible pupils are being rejected from the other 108 grammars in the country, it would mean that nearly 20 more establishments would be needed to meet the demand for places from about 15,000 extra students.

Bob McCartney, the chairman of the Grammar Schools Association, said: "These statistics demonstrate the great demand for grammar schools compared to the small number of places available and the unfairness to children who are qualified to fill them but are denied a place. "The Government continues to blatantly ignore parental choice. Its approach is based on political motivation and not the pursuit of education excellence."

Government admissions rules introduced in 2011 make it easier for oversubscribed schools to expand or even establish "overflow" or "satellite" schools nearby. However, there is no new capital funding for buildings and it is unclear whether a "satellite" grammar school would contravene the 1998 legal ban against the setting up of new selective schools.

11 plus tuition gaining popularity

I started training students up to sit the 11 plus grammar exams back in 2004 when I was based in Manchester. The most popular schools in and around Manchester areas include Altrincham and Sale Grammar as well as Stretford and Manchester Grammar. Government funded schools are more popular than the self-paying schools which also means more students are sitting the exams. With around 1200 students sitting each exam and only 10% gaining entry, it is a very competitive game.

With so much stress placed on 10-11 year olds who are required to learn contents based at KS3 and sometimes even GCSE level with topics such as algebra, ratio/ proportion and percentages its no wonder parents are opting for additional support from tutors. This is why tuition demand is increasing and additional home support is becoming more popular amongst families. Parents these days struggle with time and to sit down with children to teach them, many parents who are qualified as teachers and those who have the knowledge themselves tend to struggle actually sitting down with their children. Patience and emotions tend to get in the way of parents actually productively teaching their children which is why external support is more popular as lessons are more productive with a tutor.

Is it worth training your child for the 11plus?

Every child, given the chance, can achieve a great deal. Competition is extremely tough, especially for the children coming from the state route. In fact, over 70% of the places offered by the state selective schools, are taken up by the candidates from the private sector, where 11+ preparations are taken for granted.

Those children attending local junior schools should still be going for the grammar school entrance exams as there are so many able children out there who can break the barrier with parental support and encouragement.

As parents, you must feel that your child will pass their exam as the result of failure could be devastating for the child. Be honest with them while trying to raise their self-esteem. Tell them it will not be easy, but if they are prepared to put the effort in and with a bit of luck they can succeed. Even the most capable private school students need luck in the 11+ exams, after months of preparation and anxiety the exam is done and dusted in 2.5 hours.

General tips for the 11 plus preparation So, what can you do, as parents, to give your child the best possible chance to succeed? English is easier to analyse. Basically, you have the comprehension section, where the questions range from true and false statements, equivalent words section, choice of descri ptive phrases relating to the passage, closest meaning questions, express with your own words questions etc. Then there are the punctuation and grammar questions(s).

Maths questions on the other hand, come from a larger pool covering many areas. Simple additions and subtractions, decimals, fractions and percentages, measurements, problem solving, graphs, pie charts, date and time calculations, areas, angles, formulae, geometrical shapes, sequences, symmetry, patterns, averages, probabilities, temperatures etc.

Verbal Reasoning has about 25 categories of questions in total, ranging from words with opposite meaning, closest words, compound words, incomplete words, jumbled words, hidden words, sums, letter series, number series, words x codes, arranged words, true statement, jumbled sentences, unrelated words, word pairs with a missing letter, number coded words etc. Then there are the questions where you need to move a letter from one word to another to make two new words or completing sentences with a choice of given pair of words etc.

You need to make sure that all these question types are covered in your child`s revision process. There are great deals of material to work with. You can obtain past papers from CGP and Bond Publishers and these can be downloaded from the internet and almost all bookshops sell 11+ practice papers. However, you must make sure you make an educated choice when buying practice papers. Check and see if they cover question categories relevant to your region.

With English, get your child to do as many comprehension practices as possible. Devise different ways of enhancing their vocabulary - vocabulary is the most important single area that will have a great bearing not only for the English test, but also for the Verbal Reasoning. You could for example write the words on pieces of card with the meaning or equivalent/opposite on the other site. You could play a game to see who will get the most words right, giving one mark for each meaning, opposite or equivalent for the card picked at random. Ask your child to read an article or a passage from a book, then ask them to tell you the main points of the story in their own words, helping them at each opportunity for a better choice of word. You could take sentences from a book and remove the punctuation and ask them to complete these, then show them how much of it they got right. For math and verbal reasoning start with repetitive practice questions for each category. Let them do one type of question for a day or two. Then introduce another category and so on. Then combine few categories together eventually going onto doing the timed full practice papers.

Let them do as many full practice papers as possible in all subjects, without actually overworking them to an extent that they loose interest. Try and devise ways of making them enjoy the tests, by structuring the papers so that the children see their progress at every step and are encouraged by it.

Make sure your revision sessions do not go beyond an hour. Do it regularly without fail but limit it to an hour each time. (Only the mock tests should go beyond this) Try to work out at what part of the day your child`s comprehensive faculties are at their best. Some do extremely well after playing with friends for an hour or so, others may be sharper and more attentive early in the morning before school. Plan the practice sessions at least a day in advance. Make sure not only you know the answers to each question, but the methods of working them out which best suits your child as well.

It is very important to get your child into the habit of reading the question carefully to ensure what is actually asked is understood correctly. Most mistakes are made by rushing into working out the answers without fully reading the question. Having repetitively solved so many questions of similar wording, the child may fall into the habit of jumping to conclusions after the first few words and skip reading the rest of the question. You must teach your child to guard against this tendency.

You must help your child to get into a habit of working out the answers patiently, but efficiently. You must also help your child find ways of holding that concentration span for the duration of each test paper. Most question types, especially in maths and verbal reasoning, can be made easier to work out and less error prone by applying a specific method that can be adapted to your child`s way of thinking. However, the operative phrase here is that the child must be comfortable with it.

Give your child at least 2-3 months or more to practice their time management skills. This is one area you should not compromise on. This might make all the difference. In the last few months of preparation do not compromise on time to encourage your child. Find other ways of building their self-confidence. Praise them for correct answers, especially in their weak areas.

Passing the 11+ exams is only the beginning of this rather difficult path to success, but it is a solid beginning. You will find, especially in year 7, that there will be a lot of hard work at school and at home, so the parents participation would need to be a continuous process. In the event that your child is unable to get into any one of these selective schools, there is one thing that is certain. Your child will reap the benefits of all that hard work whatever secondary school he/she attends to. Admittedly, the success rate for the comprehensive schools is a lot lower than those of the selective ones, but it is almost certain that a child who has gone through all the prep work for the 11+ will be one of the top achievers.