Support thread for parents of chilldren sitting the transfer test in 2011

Third_Time_Mum

Just to add a bit of perspective to all of this. My DS1 sat the old transfer test (10 years ago), got an A and got into his first choice of school. My DD sat it 3 years later, got a B2 and ended up at her second choice. Now she is on course to achieve 2As and a B at A level, the same as DS1, and has 4 university offers, including one for primary teaching at Stranmillis, which is extremely difficult to get into. This has helped me to see that if DS2 doesn't get into his first choice of school, it's a long way from being the end of the world!

aqeworrier

I do agree with you Third time mum - I went to a non-grammar myself and subsequently went on to achieve a 3rd level education. Its all down to the motivation of the individual. Having said that, our local non-grammar school is pretty undesirable and falls into one of the "failing school" categories, ie less than 35% of pupils come out with 5 GCSEs including English and Maths so I hope you understand my predicament. An impressionable teenager when mixed with a lot of unmotivated teenagers in a school with a poor reputation is a bad recipe. That is why grammars achieve higher results at GCSE and A level as the pupils are more motivated and/or pushed to do well by their parents and is why we all put our children through this - to give them a better standard of education and a better chance of succeeding at an establishment which is highly motivated. I do believe my DD is more than capable of grammar and she is working well towards that goal. I truly hope that she attains the score necessary to get into one, whatever they may be next year.

aqeworrier

flymetothemoon wrote: »

I still think after all I've read on here that a child probably needs to be scoring in and around 70-75% to get an AQE score of around 100. Rik M's post 440 sounds about right to me. I also recall a teacher in my kids primary school telling me that the school reckoned kids needed to score around 66% or more to get into a grammar and that was based on several years of 11+ results. So, I would say to anyone who is worrying that their kids need a really high score of 85% to stop worrying because levels of achievement cannot have changed that much over the past few years and so it is still likely that around 66% + will hold good for most grammars.

My DS scored 72% in the 2010 tests and got an AQE score of 96
and if, as Rik M suggets we assume that the 96 is out of 145 then her score of 96 is actually equivalent to 66% and she did go to a grammar and could have chosen from others with her score of 96 so please don't think your child needs a really high score becasue they don't.

I think that 70-75% would have gotten a score of around 100 in previous years - however that doesn't explain why Kola's child obtained 70% raw score and got an AQE score of 84 and why Confused Mummy's child obtained a raw score of 86% and an AQE score of 102. From talking to other people, it seems that the tests may have been easier this year so more children obtained higher percentages, hence the need to score probably around 80%+ raw score for an AQE score of 100. It will be interesting to see what the minimum scores for entrance to grammars are this year and if they have increased on last year

confused_mummy_3

I think this year the boundaries are going to be much higher than in previous years. Parents that I have spoken to from surrounding primary schools all said that scores were all late 100's early teens. Roll on 28th May so we know either way!

aqeworrier

Apologies for changing the subject - I started this year's preparation for the test saying that I am going to self tutor my daughter. Now it seems that everyone in her class has a tutor and I'm starting to worry that maybe she will miss something vital if she doesn't get one. I hate the idea of paying £20-£30 per week for an hour with a stranger when I am perfectly capable of going through the work myself with her and she is more than willing to work with me.

What are other parent's thoughts on tutors? I have so many questions about them. Do they really provide magic answers that us parents don't know about? Are they worth paying for or has it simply become a commodity based on parents' fears? What kind of work do they do with the pupils? Is it just practise papers or do most of them get the child to do extra work during the week too that they then go over during the tutoring session? ( I find it hard to believe that one hour a week with them would be enough on its own). What kind of exam technique tips do they give? Do people go to them more than once a week?

Sorry, but I find myself worrying more and more as tiime goes by! She's coping well with the work with me but just worried that by not getting a tutor I'm not giving her an equal chance with her peers. I hate the way that we all now feel pressured to pay for tutors. I really don't want one but now starting to wonder if working with me alone will be enough. Apologies for posting this on both threads but would also appreciate the help of those who have been through it and most of you are on the 2011 board. Help!!

RikM

aqeworrier wrote: »

Now it seems that everyone in her class has a tutor and I'm starting to worry that maybe she will miss something vital if she doesn't get one.

I strongly suspect that the number of parents paying tutors reflects more the willingless of the unscrupulous to target the vulnerable, than anything else.

This is basic KS2 English and Maths we're talking about! I even saw an advert in the local supermarket, touting transfer test tuition (hey, alliteration...). The advert contained obvious, careless, errors in spelling and grammar.

I don't trust tutors.
I don't altogether trust teachers, for that matter :-). But at least they will have had some effort spent on weeding out the bad ones.

minnimo

aqeworrier wrote: »

Apologies for changing the subject - I started this year's preparation for the test saying that I am going to self tutor my daughter. Now it seems that everyone in her class has a tutor and I'm starting to worry that maybe she will miss something vital if she doesn't get one. I hate the idea of paying £20-£30 per week for an hour with a stranger when I am perfectly capable of going through the work myself with her and she is more than willing to work with me.

What are other parent's thoughts on tutors? I have so many questions about them. Do they really provide magic answers that us parents don't know about? Are they worth paying for or has it simply become a commodity based on parents' fears? What kind of work do they do with the pupils? Is it just practise papers or do most of them get the child to do extra work during the week too that they then go over during the tutoring session? ( I find it hard to believe that one hour a week with them would be enough on its own). What kind of exam technique tips do they give? Do people go to them more than once a week?

Sorry, but I find myself worrying more and more as tiime goes by! She's coping well with the work with me but just worried that by not getting a tutor I'm not giving her an equal chance with her peers. I hate the way that we all now feel pressured to pay for tutors. I really don't want one but now starting to wonder if working with me alone will be enough. Apologies for posting this on both threads but would also appreciate the help of those who have been through it and most of you are on the 2011 board. Help!!

I know what you mean, I have had the same thoughts myself, I am sure there are plenty of other kids in the class being tutored although it is normally a well-kept secret! A few weeks ago, I contacted one tutor to ask the approach they take in preparation and I was somewhat relieved to hear it was the same as I would do at home - identifying the areas that need work and then going over the basics of that (eg multiples) so the child was confident in it, and doing some practice papers with them. Obviously this was just one tutor, so I'm not sure what others are doing, I suspect some just do paper after paper with kids, once a week (from the little I've heard other mums saying) but I'm going to stick with tutoring my dd at home. We didn't have a tutor for ds as he was very strong in Maths and English, but I feel the pressure has increased from 2010, or maybe it is just me thinking that as I have been through it once now and know how worrying it all can be! That's prob not much help to you, but just wanted to say I understand totally what you're saying.

aqeworrier

Thank you so much for that - I think I need reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. I'm working in a similar pattern - she is doing a practice paper once a week and then I am focusing our lessons on the weak areas - the questions she got wrong or left out so hopefully this is what a tutor would do anyway. It's just so difficult to know as we all want them to do well and I continue to worry that there are "secrets" to it out there that I don't know. Suppose its all down to practice and learning. I know what you mean about other mums not talking about it much - I've found my dd's friends' mums have suddenly become muted on the subject - trying to glean as much info as they can on what we are doing but not giving away much or even saying that their kids are getting tutored - I only know because the kids have been talking about it themselves amongst each other. :rotfl: I'm getting my eyes opened I can tell you!

Charliedevil

My belief is that if your child needs a tutor then why are they entering the test? The tests are based on ks2 work! The only child in my daughters school that had a tutor scored poorly! 60 something I believe! After all if you tutor now are you going to continue for the next 7 years? I worked withy daughter myself, however, she did not like staying into work when her friends not sitting the test were out playing! These are children! Don't take away their childhood! All the practicing in the world won't change the fact that it's down to the child on the day!

3Mum

AQE worrier

If you have the time to go through papers and help your child at home then tuition most likely isn't necessary. However if you have work or family commitments that make this difficult then I would have no qualms in using a tutor. I ended up sending my DD to a tutor in the summer as my mum became seriously ill and I was spending much of my time at the hospital. I've no regrets as I felt it was the best thing for us at the time.
Don't panic too much at this stage. It is very early days and you'll be amazed at how much your child progresses over the next few months. Good luck xxx.