The Student Room Group

Bring Back the 11 plus?

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I'm all for challenging tests at 11, not for the separation between grammar and secondary modern being brought back.
Original post by firebolt
There are some very good comprehensive schools though, I went to one, I think it depends on the individual, but getting good teachers is more important than grammar schools because unfortunately they can be very intelligent but cant teach to save their life.


I am a middle-aged ex-comprehensive school lad from the period immediately after the destruction of most grammar schools. I am a supporter of grammar schools, but the point that I have been making on this thread and elsewhere is that politicians do not see, and I don't see, a viable way of recreating a grammar school system.

The model that the government seems to have settled on is basically the private school model whereby each school will set its own character and try to attract pupils or close. That works in the private sector. There are plenty of schools for kids too thick to tie their own shoelaces.

The problem in the state sector is that decent schools simply coast along in areas where there are few good schools but excessive demand. If you are better than your immediate neighbours, the head feels no need to expand or market. It is more work for him or her. They continue to pick the pupils that make life easiest for them. The free schools programme is an attempt to shake this up by harnessing the abilities of parents who fail to get their kids into that school.
Reply 62
I think the main reason why grammars are unpopular is it is one of the ways parents, particular middle class ones can be seen as failures.

If the child of middle class parents failed a compulsory 11+ exam and did not get into a grammar, its a big loss of status for a middle class parent and embarrassing to admit to their friends that their kid is a failure.

In Kent, this is not so clear cut since the 11+ is not compulsory so parents who don't think their kids could not pass the 11+ can simply avoid it and not loose status and get the opportunity to bang on about how unfair grammars are.
Reply 63
Original post by nulli tertius
Thanks for the link. It looks like the list I posted only contains schools who have joined that Association and a fair number of London ones hadn't.

There is a vast shortage of private school places in London.

London is also atypical for secondary education in England. Every year columnists write screeds in the broadsheet press about the fight to get children into decent schools and middle class parents from Berwick to Penzance wonder what on earth they are going on about. I was at dinner in London this week and schooling is a major topic of conversation for middle class London parents in the way it simply isn't elsewhere.


I expect the lack of good schools is the lack of good teachers, salaries for teachers in London are too low for a decent lifestyle.
Original post by Maker
I expect the lack of good schools is the lack of good teachers, salaries for teachers in London are too low for a decent lifestyle.


That is part of the problem but there are other issues. Left wing borough councils have been reluctant to give planning permission for new private schools or to allow existing private schools to expand. Neighbours complain about traffic problems. Land prices are so dear that it is frequently not economic to use land for schools. In the case of state schools, admissions criteria based on proximity mean that many schools have to take pupils with social problems or with a poor command of English. A Catholic School in Kilburn that 25 years ago would be full of working class Irish kids is probably now full of Francophone Africans.
Reply 65
It still exists in some boroughs e.g. Redbridge and a county that I can't remember the name of. It depends on whether you think grammar schools are the way to increase social mobility.
Reply 66
Original post by nulli tertius
I am a supporter of grammar schools, but the point that I have been making on this thread and elsewhere is that politicians do not see, and I don't see, a viable way of recreating a grammar school system.

The problem in the state sector is that decent schools simply coast along in areas where there are few good schools but excessive demand. If you are better than your immediate neighbours, the head feels no need to expand or market. It is more work for him or her. They continue to pick the pupils that make life easiest for them. The free schools programme is an attempt to shake this up by harnessing the abilities of parents who fail to get their kids into that school.


What's your opinion about the fair-banding system I proposed in my previous post?

It would allow grammar-school education within the comprehensive system by ensuring that all schools have a balanced intake and are truly comprehensive.

This also addresses the problem you highlight about heads picking 'suitable' children. An equal year 7 intake for each school would prevent coasting by making schools compete with each other to maintain (and raise) standards. No one would want to see their own school fall behind and be perceived as second-rate.
Reply 67
Original post by madders94
We didn't have to take it but that was because we're in Wales where there aren't grammar schools.


That's because Welsh people are so thick that nobody would pass it...

Jk, you lot are really talented.... at rearing sheep
Original post by Holmeboy
I am against the 11+ exam and the concept of Grammar v Secondary Modern Schools in general, as like many have said above, it is too much of a life changing event to have your future cemented by how you perform at an exam at the age of 11.

I do believe in flexible streaming though in the same school system, were children of different abilities can be streamed to either stretch or support them were necessary, and all get a decent education, and can even move between streams as they develop.


that's happened at the two secondary schools i went to... i thought that happened at every school?
Original post by Reader 79
What's your opinion about the fair-banding system I proposed in my previous post?



I think the answer to the whole grammar vs. comprehensive debate lies in fair banding.

If the government legislated to make this compulsory, the 11+ could be reintroduced on an LEA-wide basis; equal numbers of high-, middle- and low-scoring pupils could be sent to each school. The test would then become what it was originally supposed to be: a diagnostic test intended to place each child at the correct starting position, with no sense of failure because there'd be no pass / fail element.

This allows those pupils who are ready for grammar-school education at 11 to hit the ground running, but it avoids rejection entirely by placing those children who would have attended secondary moderns in the same school, with the opportunity to move up later on if they make sufficient progress.

A further advantage is that this allows differentiation by subject, so that if a child has a special talent for maths and science, for example, but struggles with English and history, he or she can start the strong subjects at the grammar-school level, and receive extra help and support in the weak subjects.

This resolves two problems raised by many pro-comprehensive advocates:

1) The selective system is unfair to children who may miss out on a place by a mark or two, or who feel unwell on the day of the exam, or who are able in most subjects but struggle in one (e.g. maths), which denies them a place.

2) The grammar-school system consigns late developers to an awful education in a secondary modern, because they weren't ready at 11.

Under a system of fair banding, this wouldn't be an issue.

So in each school, there'd be a sound base of able, engaged and committed students upon which to build an aspirational ethos. As late developers mature, the proportion would increase beyond the starting percentage.

This system also resolves one of the main problems that blights the current comprehensive system: random ability intakes. Some comps are de facto grammar schools; others are secondary moderns by default. This is just as unfair as the grammar system - in fact, it's more unfair in some ways.

Fair banding = a fair chance for every child: selection without rejection, and a rigorous academic education for all pupils who would benefit, without tossing anyone on the scrapheap.


Those three words damn it. This isn't fixed catchment areas. This is bussing and there is no chance that any government will introduce that.

There is another problem that arises from the change in the population and the hybrid nature of the 11+.

The 11+ was supposed to be an intelligence test but in form was an attainment test. It performed a function as an intelligence test reasonably well in a monolingual, largely mono-cultural society. Geordies might not have a lot culturally in common with rural kids from Cornwall, but Geordie competed with Geordie and Cornish lads competed with Cornish lads. Now the life experiences of kids from only a few streets apart in major cities have little or nothing in common.

How do you examine kids who are bright, but have just got off the plane and whose English is limited to "Manchester United"? How do you ask someone comprehension questions on a passage about the Titanic, when they don't know what the Titanic was or what an iceberg is?

Either you set an intelligence test a la Mensa in which case your "top" pupils may be straight into a remedial class or you test prior attainment which is as much a competition between primary schools as between pupils.

At present the 11+ is mostly deployed either in hyper-selective environments where this issue is more or less an irrelevance or in culturally homogeneous towns.
Original post by tj hughes
That's because Welsh people are so thick that nobody would pass it...

Jk, you lot are really talented.... at rearing sheep


K bro.
All I will is that you can take the 11+ and if you don't take it, you can still go to a grammar for sixth form. Besides you get those that "failed" the 11+ in the state ones, who have a hard work ethic :smile:

Tbh kick out all the chavs from state schools and put them into countries in Africa and make them appreciate what an education can do.
Reply 72
I took the 11 plus in 2006, as I lived in a county with a girls grammar school. At that age, it was quite a traumatic experience, I passed, although I had no tutor, but I agree that a sense of advantage was with wealthier students whose parents had them privatley coached.
Reply 73
Original post by heyAmy
I don't know if any of you know what the 11+ is, but it's the old education system which was abolished about 35 years ago.


I took the eleven plus in 1996 and, at least by my watch, that was less than thirty five years ago...
Reply 74
Well im attending a grammar sixthform and helping out with the 11pluss today
I expected grammar schools to be being bashed when I clicked on this thread, but I honestly can't believe what I've read here! It seems like the gist of the OPs argument is that they're against the return to secondary moderns, not grammar schools per se.

You say that grammar schools aren't "real" grammar schools nowadays because they have individual entrance tests; you clearly haven't looked into this properly. I currently live in Warwickshire, and I used to live I'm Buckinghamshire, and both 11+ tests there are for all the grammar schools in the county and is run by the local authority.

The school I've attended since year seven is a mixed grammar school in Warwickshire in Town A. There is a boys only grammar in Town B and a girl's only grammar in Town B. Town A also has a comprehensive school and a Catholic school, Town B has a comprehensive school. Nobody in the local area has a problem with the grammar school system, because all six schools are equally good, and that's what's let them survive until today. I would understand how the system would seem unfair if the schools performed drastically differently, and perhaps they do in other counties - I just don't know - but what is the problem with a system everyone is happy with?

You claim the comprehensive schools can't be "true comprehensives" because the "top layer of pupils" is gone; that's complete rubbish. They are incomparable to secondary moderns, because nowadays, we all have the same opportunities. If you go to a grammar school, you sit GCSEs, if you go to a high school, you sit GCSEs. It's not as though by not passing the 11+ you have drastically changed your future; you haven't. Everyone leaves year 11 with equal opportunities.

I'm now in the non selective (apart from A at GCSE entrance requirements, but that's the same as the comprehensive in Town B's sixth form entrance requirements) sixth form, and so know a lot of different people from the different schools, and I have to say, the biggest difference the grammar school system has made seems to be to those who just about didn't get in, and went to the comprehensive or Catholic schools. They were top in their schoolS, which meant that they received a lot of attention that they wouldn't have otherwise, and achieved very similar GCSEs to those from the grammars.

The other thing is, not many people at all in my year were tutored, because tutoring doesn't help with our county's 11+. It's a logic test, and they change it up every year. Even those who'd been tutored said they'd never seen anything like it. It's not your standard verbal / non verbal reasoning. Not that tutoring doesn't have advantages; it must teach you exam technique, which you don't have as a 10, 11 year old, but as far as content goes, you can't prepare for it. It's kind of like the mini aptitude tests they use for admissions to medicine in that respect.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on for so long. I think you ought to do research into different counties grammar school systems before you draw such harsh conclusions, mostly unfounded. Also, you seem to be getting then and now mixed up. All I know is that Warwickshire has a great system which everyone is happy with and which lets people leave after year 11 with some great GCSE results.
Reply 76
I took it, as I applied to a grammar school.

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Original post by loveire&song
I expected grammar schools to be being bashed when I clicked on this thread, but I honestly can't believe what I've read here! It seems like the gist of the OPs argument is that they're against the return to secondary moderns, not grammar schools per se.

You say that grammar schools aren't "real" grammar schools nowadays because they have individual entrance tests; you clearly haven't looked into this properly. I currently live in Warwickshire, and I used to live I'm Buckinghamshire, and both 11+ tests there are for all the grammar schools in the county and is run by the local authority.

The school I've attended since year seven is a mixed grammar school in Warwickshire in Town A. There is a boys only grammar in Town B and a girl's only grammar in Town B. Town A also has a comprehensive school and a Catholic school, Town B has a comprehensive school. Nobody in the local area has a problem with the grammar school system, because all six schools are equally good, and that's what's let them survive until today. I would understand how the system would seem unfair if the schools performed drastically differently, and perhaps they do in other counties - I just don't know - but what is the problem with a system everyone is happy with?

You claim the comprehensive schools can't be "true comprehensives" because the "top layer of pupils" is gone; that's complete rubbish. They are incomparable to secondary moderns, because nowadays, we all have the same opportunities. If you go to a grammar school, you sit GCSEs, if you go to a high school, you sit GCSEs. It's not as though by not passing the 11+ you have drastically changed your future; you haven't. Everyone leaves year 11 with equal opportunities.

I'm now in the non selective (apart from A at GCSE entrance requirements, but that's the same as the comprehensive in Town B's sixth form entrance requirements) sixth form, and so know a lot of different people from the different schools, and I have to say, the biggest difference the grammar school system has made seems to be to those who just about didn't get in, and went to the comprehensive or Catholic schools. They were top in their schoolS, which meant that they received a lot of attention that they wouldn't have otherwise, and achieved very similar GCSEs to those from the grammars.

The other thing is, not many people at all in my year were tutored, because tutoring doesn't help with our county's 11+. It's a logic test, and they change it up every year. Even those who'd been tutored said they'd never seen anything like it. It's not your standard verbal / non verbal reasoning. Not that tutoring doesn't have advantages; it must teach you exam technique, which you don't have as a 10, 11 year old, but as far as content goes, you can't prepare for it. It's kind of like the mini aptitude tests they use for admissions to medicine in that respect.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on for so long. I think you ought to do research into different counties grammar school systems before you draw such harsh conclusions, mostly unfounded. Also, you seem to be getting then and now mixed up. All I know is that Warwickshire has a great system which everyone is happy with and which lets people leave after year 11 with some great GCSE results.


Most of the criticisms you are making are not criticisms of the OP's posts but of mine.

In a true grammar system which extracts the top 25% of an area's children then the other schools in that area cannot in any rational sense be comprehensive. Comprehensiveness is about taking children of all academic ability.

I do not know where you are in Warwickshire but I had a look at Alcester because it was first in the alphabet and Stratford because it has a famous grammar school. If you look at the Ofsted reports for the two secondary moderns Stratford on Avon School and Alcester Academy

http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/files/2327077/urn/137236.pdf
http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/files/2274365/urn/137172.pdf

they are pretty crap really. If those parents are happy with their schools, then frankly they shouldn't be. In a sense this is unfair because I have simply taken two reports out of context,although they were the first two I looked at. However, the criticisms of the those schools are the same criticisms that have been made of secondary moderns down the ages. Frankly those schools don't have the excuse that they are challenged by their intake. These aren't kids with no English. These aren't kids from the slums.

I haven't looked at Bucks but I would expect a very different scenario over most of the county. There you have few grammar schools sucking in applicants from a wide area outside the county with nowhere near the top 25% of the local ability range getting in. Essentially the existence of grammar schools in Bucks has no more impact on the education of most of the children than Eton does.

However the thread title is "Bring Back the 11 plus" and if you read my comments and those who debated with me, you will see that they are focussed on that.

Where you live there are legacy grammar schools so there is no question of "bringing back" what never went away.

Nothing you have said addresses how the 11 plus could be re-introduced elsewhere with public support. Various people challenged my comments on this, I don't think any of them successfully.
Original post by nulli tertius
Most of the criticisms you are making are not criticisms of the OP's posts but of mine.

In a true grammar system which extracts the top 25% of an area's children then the other schools in that area cannot in any rational sense be comprehensive. Comprehensiveness is about taking children of all academic ability.

I do not know where you are in Warwickshire but I had a look at Alcester because it was first in the alphabet and Stratford because it has a famous grammar school. If you look at the Ofsted reports for the two secondary moderns Stratford on Avon School and Alcester Academy

http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/files/2327077/urn/137236.pdf
http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/files/2274365/urn/137172.pdf

they are pretty crap really. If those parents are happy with their schools, then frankly they shouldn't be. In a sense this is unfair because I have simply taken two reports out of context,although they were the first two I looked at. However, the criticisms of the those schools are the same criticisms that have been made of secondary moderns down the ages. Frankly those schools don't have the excuse that they are challenged by their intake. These aren't kids with no English. These aren't kids from the slums.
Have you considered that "a bad school" in reality just means, "a school with bad students" and correspondingly for good schools? That would seem to be as consistent with the observations as the theory that grammar schools somehow exert a stupifying influence on other schools located many miles away. And there is precious little evidence that education quality substantially alters life outcomes when intrinsic ability is controlled.

The advantage of grammar schools, then, is not to improve overall education outcomes, which policy cannot do much to change, but to remove the perceived need for the social waste of spending on private education, which has the effect of suppressing the birth rate of the intelligent. In the long term, that will improve overall educational outcomes as well by increasing the growth rate of the intelligent fraction of the population.

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