00:00 Is the 11 Plus still relevant in 2026?
00:52 Our background teaching 11 Plus
04:56 GL in 2026: what changed
06:08 CSSE (Essex) written papers
07:57 Independent and other formats
09:27 CEM becomes Cambridge Select
10:50 Where Atom fits in admissions
13:18 Reasoning types: codes, series, 3D
17:13 What to prepare for in 2026 (GL vs CSSE)
18:01 Foundations that matter by Year 6
20:04 The vocabulary and general knowledge gap
26:09 How many grammar schools and where
27:27 Trends in expectations and child choice
35:46 Is 11 Plus prep valuable even without a place?
48:24 Trade-offs and costs to consider
56:05 How to decide if the 11 Plus is right for your child
58:16 Wrap up

Is the 11 Plus still relevant in 2026?

Is the 11 plus still relevant? And is it actually still worth it going into 2026?Now, I think parents are a lot more Yeah, they have to be a lot more selective about where they’re they’regoing. Yeah, they’re more realistic with the fact that it’s actually very difficult to geta place. Grammar schools are rare or non-existent. I don’t think everyone can be ready by the time they take the exam. Even if youwere to start super super young, vocabulary level tends to be a big barrier. I think that’s probably the biggestbarrier in 11 plus is that they’re just not exposed to a lot. Whether rightly orwrongly parents are leaving the choice to their goods.The education lounge podcast.

Our background teaching 11 Plus

So we’ve been teaching the 11 plus for a combined total of over three decadeswhich is kind of crazy to think and in that time we’ve actually builtwell an entire business well more than one business aroundthat that knowledge. So the the the conversation today is basically is the11 plus still relevant and is it actually still worth it going into 2026taking the exam in 2026 with all the changes and things that have happened. Is it still worth it forparents and children? Yes, probably. I I got I mean yeah it’sa complex question. You’ve got to think what’s theyou’ve got to look at your child and work out is this an 11 plus childessentially just just like the way that we’d we’d look at our our students andat some point evaluate them and go well do you think it’s right for them? Ithink we’re not based on their level you think on on whether they whether you think it’s Yeah, because I think everybody could becapable but given enough time. I I disagree but but I think the timething is the Yeah. is the thing. I don’t think like I don’t think everyone can be ready by the timethey take the exam. Even if you were to start super super young,I don’t think you’d necessarily be able to coach someone all the way thereunless they had the talent for it. See, I don’t think it’s just talent. Ithink it’s more mindset both.Right. So I mean we get this we get thisquestion quite a lot actually like should should my child do the 11plus we get that we get that a lot some families it’s just like we are doing it because they’ve done it with previouschildren or they did it when they were younger and it’s just a thing it’s like a GCSC it’s just a thing thatMhm. the families do. And then we have other families that um come into here for year four, year five and we’re likewe’re signing them up. We say so you doing general math and English help or you doing the 11 plus? And they gowhat’s that? So you get all sorts of different That was like my mom.Yeah. It’s cuz she didn’t really know about grammar schools and private shedidn’t really know how the system worked in the UK. Yeah. Um so as I was entering like as Iwas getting very close to the exam she realized oh we need to prepare maybeum so it was very last minute for me. Mine wasn’t I mean I didn’t do like atwo-year course like we do here. Um but it wasn’t as last minuteum as your experience either. But you had a prep school. I think if you’re coming from a prep school, you’vegot some expectation of the level. Yeah.Um at least cuz there is a little bit of preparation, thus the word prep school.I think um everyone’s got different likedifferent strengths, different weaknesses. So for me, non-verbal spatial reasoning was Ididn’t have to think. I just knew. Yeah. I like verbal. But for me, yeah. So for me, verbalum and comprehension. Yeah. Verbal and comprehension were more difficult. Maths and non-verbal werepretty much fine. I I found maths difficult at that age.Uh no, I found it okay at that age, but then it got easy. Yeah. Over time.Well, a lot of things have changed. So, I wanted to just quickly go through the exam boards. Um because we had that

GL in 2026: what changed

change back in 2023 a couple years ago. GL were the dominant provider well forquite a long time. Feels like ages. I know. Um the GL is you GL is used by moststate grammar schools across England. Math, English, verbal, non-verbal. Uh schools basically choose whichcomponents of that they want and which ones they don’t. Well, the it’s like the borrower, isn’tit? Or Yeah. Yeah. Generally this borrow it’s multiple choice it’s machine markednationally standardized and after CM withdrew in 2023 GL became the defaultfor all new or converting regions. I know that there’s some other ones inother regions. We’re going to we’re going to go through them. We’ll do a whole a whole section on examples because I think the a lot ofthe questions that we get are around examples and what are they and who doeswhat and what am I doing and all that. So the GL is generally what’s used.It’s the mainstream choice. It’s got a consistent format. It’s predictable. Um and then we move on to CSSE which is the

CSSE (Essex) written papers

well the Essex and the surrounding areas which stands for the consortium of selective schools in Essex. So Chmsford,South End and like the edges of Redbridgeidge and you know so they settheir own written papers. It’s not multiple choice. Uh which I assume means it can’t be machine marked.You get one English exam which is comprehension and writing. They do writing. Mhm. because the other one doesn’t dowriting does it Jill andone maths like problem solving type paper and yeah he is he is handmarkedand early September sitting results feed both Essics and some East Londongrammarss a similar sort of time mhm yes the paper is most red familiesprepare for I don’t think that’s true they’ve had they’ve had um a few years where I know there was a bit of a clash,but Oh, well, they said they clam on the same day. Yeah. Cuz there’s people that want to do both.So, they don’t know whether they’re going to go into Chford or South End or if they’re going to go into WoodfordCounty or Ilford County. Yeah. And they set the exam on the same day fortwo years in a row. Maybe two years. It was a standard fair like a long time ago for people to dofour schools, five schools. Now I think parents are a lot moreWell, they have to they have Yeah. They have to be a lot more selective about where they’re they’re going.Yeah. So across the country slash across our local area cuz we’re on thefringes of London and Essics pretty much. Those are the main two. But we do have

Independent and other formats

the independent schools. Yeah. There’s also Chford School for Girls has the a different board.Yeah. There are some schools that just have their own they do their own thing. It’s like but I think it’s part of it’slike the future schools enterprise alliance thing. I don’t know. in somesort of um basically some grammar schools have got together and they’ve created their own oneI’m guessing more profit more cuz obviously T providers will be gettingpaid they’re not doing this free it’s not charity um so yeah the I can see why grammarschools would band together and create their own one they’ll save money and they’ll also be able to probably producejust as good an exam and it’s quite similar toum the CSSE exam they’d be able to prod produce I mean if we’re able to produce it.Yeah. So don’t discount us. I think I think our stuff’s pretty good.Yeah. Links are around but if you want to download papers and things we’ve got a load ofthose. Um so yeah the independent schools room is EB.So, it’s an adaptive online test covering English, maths, verbal, non-verbal, mainly for independent 11plus and 13 plus entry. Mhm. Um,

CEM becomes Cambridge Select

yeah. Do you know what CM was rebranded to? Um, I remembered and now I’ve forgotten.Cambridge Select Inside. Yeah. Because Cambridge bought it. Yeah.Because it was Durham before, wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then Cambridge bought CM, I think, and and now theyWell, now they use privately or internationally. Mhm. They they’ve quite they’re quite broadin what they test now as well. A lot of these test providers, they’re not justdoing 11 plus. They they’re doing so many other things. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they would be. Um, I sawone for discalcular actually on GL because I I was doing some research on discalcular like why why people have itand that sort of stuff and how to test for it and yeah there was a a link to GLassessments and I was like oh they’ve got their own they’re just broadening out into loadsof other things and then you’ve obviously got atom. Adam. Yes. So, Adam’s not on here andit’s not it’s not an exam board, is it? Sort of. Now, it’s more it I mean it’s more like a online practice.Well, no, but they they do the you know Chickwell exam for instance andbankroft for the reasoning sections.

Where Atom fits in admissions

Yeah. But it’s not an exam board. H I mean you could say they’re testproviders. Yeah, I I kind of think they are at thispoint. A lot of them I think a lot of them want to be exam boards anyway becausethey can set their exam, they can provide practice materials for exam. It’s like closed shop. Yeah.For them. Um they can make a lot of money doing that. I quite like the 3D stuff in the CM.I mean it was really really long to make the questions when we were making them when I was making them here but I quitelike that aspect of it. the reasoning the spatial 3D reasoning spatialreasoning. I just I just think reasoning generally is quite fun apart from codes. I hate like I hate codes.Like I don’t I don’t think there’s anyone who likes codes if unless you’relike even then the way that codes are they’re not like so complicated thatthey’re really like if you’re really really clever and you’re really into code broking they’re not a challenge inthat respect. They can be fun, but when you get like a page of 20 of them, it’sit’s just very repetitive. Yeah. But when you get like, you know,alternating patterns or you get reflective codes or Fibonacci codes and stuff like that, it’s more interesting.I just remember actually doing the 11 plus and also doing some practicematerials for it and I’d know I’d turn the page I’d see that bloody alphabetjust looking at me and I’m not a fan of the alphabet and I’m just not very goodat it. Um yeah, I remember that feeling. I haven’t this again.This is so much counting. If you’re in a if you’re in a times paper and it’s one of those ones where you areallowed to go go ahead or go back then just come back to itbut do it do it do it later in the exam. Most of them don’t do that. They they do that section. The the the problem is nowis well the problem with it I think is it’s just entirely well it’s a bitboring. Like even if you if you are clever, you don’t really want to do somethingboring that much. No, it’s too mundane, repetitive. Yeah. So, it’s like I mean, you’re

Reasoning types: codes, series, 3D

probably probably co is just culling whole loads of people who just suddenlyhave a lot of potential and are very good at problem solving, but they they just look at this and they just go cuz Ilose the will to live when I when I see it. I know. You try making them.Yeah. It’s I I find them effort to check. Yeah. As well. Like just like any anythingthat we produce, we’re checking through and and I sometimes I get into a flow,right? And I can do them really quickly. Yeah. But most of the time it’s just I I don’tget into a flow with it. Yeah. No, I understand that. Just to cuz we are talking about examples. We go back into into that. umthe different things that are in the different examples. So, CM used to have the 3D and spatial codes disappeared fora while, but they seem to have come back with a vengeance. So, what what umwhat’s what what uh question types are in each of the exam boards? I’ll see if we canWell, it’s kind of difficult to It’s kind of difficult to say becausein the different Yeah, it can change at the drop of a hat. AndI think which is why we prefer for everything. We used to say, okay, well, this isn’t this, this isn’t this, and wecan be completely sure. But I think with the changes and the fact that you’re notyou can’t really get the exam papers, you do need a very goodbasis from which to so you you need to have well-rounded students. You need tohave all of the all of the different things at your disposal and know when to deploy each onewhere in in the in the exam and and it’s like you you need to get them used tosay for instance matrices they might appear in more than one form. Yeah.And then you’d have your different logic applying to those different types of questions. So a good strategy isactually to have a very wide base. I always kind of think like one of thebest question types for teachingnon-verbal is codes, right? Because you you need to have a reallygood idea of what’s changing from Yeah. Yeah, but that’s also true for youknow series or Yeah. So I guess with code you have to you have to actually allocate a letter to aspecific feature of a shape would I find it like if I wanted to work out how good someone was at non-verbalquickly. Yeah codes is a really good way to I think codes are the easy easiest of uhthe non-verbal questions into Yeah. doesn’t it dependsbecause it literally tells you there’s something that’s changed here unless it like a four letter columnsI think series are easier um or complete the sh complete the yeah no I think series these sorts ofthings are appearing in most of these exam boards I mean uh to bring it backs doesn’t really havemuch non-verbal they have so in maths you could getreflections and things like that that are obviously and nets as well like theythey can doing nets nets is quite hard for a lot of people but they won’t have like a pagesection it might be a question where it’s like okay what will this look like or whateverso then the verbal non-verbal is mainly for GL and other bits and CSSdoesn’t do a lot of that but it does do writing and GL doesn’t so basically for 2026 think of it like this think of it

What to prepare for in 2026 (GL vs CSSE)

as GL everywhere except Essics for the for the most part where CSCstill writes their own papers. GL everywhere um exceptnorth north of England as well. I think there’s a few and Sutton there’swe got a different but I’ve never prepared someone for Sutton. No, neither have I.But I imagine it’s very similar and that’s the thing. So even there’s somany in terms of preparing someone. Yeah. what is like get a good groundingin maths and English foundational after year six essentiallyat the end of year six really cuz yeah so you’re working a year and a half ahead two years ahead

Foundations that matter by Year 6

I’d say a very at a very strong year six level so like very top of year six then youknow they’re kind of ready for math and English um although I’d say like the comprehensionthe way it works with the multiple choice is very different from what they’d experiencedin school. So even if they’re very good at even if they’re good at comprehension sogenerically. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn’t necessarily I mean it’s a great idea to write outget them to do some written comprehensions because you see the logic behind their answers but and that’s kindof why we we just don’t do like multiple choice all the time. It’s Yeah. Well, the thing with multiplechoice is not it’s not necessarily easier. Like thereare quite a few times where I think it’s more difficult because you could write out the answer, you could write it inyour own way and you’ve picked up on a point done. But with multiple choice, some of the multiple choice optionsare so similar that they basically sound the same.Yeah. It’s like nuanceally very very nuanced. like it’s veryvery close. The hard ones are which of these is not. I I find those really difficultlike the the ones where it’s like what’s not in the passage or something like that because then you need to have readit really well whereas no I I think you just find what is inthe passage and cross off those. No, no, but then like most of the time with comprehensionI’m good so good at comprehension I can just literally I don’t sometimes I don’tneed to read that much like I just I can like scan it and then I can do thecomprehension but those questions I have to go wait I’ve got to think like quitea lot. Yeah. for them. The other ones that I think a lot of students find quite

The vocabulary and general knowledge gap

difficult is are the vocabulary based ones where it says how’s this word usedin the sentence or what which word in this passage means it like for me it’s easy becausevocabulary isn’t a weak point but I’d say that’s vocabulary level tends to bea big barrier. I think that’s probably the biggest barrier in 11 plus is that they’re just not exposed toa lot less and less now. I think even after especially after coeven before you are you are g have not really lefttheir like town. Yeah. Have you been to the temps? You knowwhat the temps is? You been to the river? No. The one that’s down there. The one inLondon. the one that’s on like a 20-minute train journey. You’ve not? No.Yeah. So, they don’t experience this stuff going shopping. When do you count changereally nowadays? That’s true. They can’t use schools. They can’t useanalog clocks. Kids can’t use clocks at the moment. They’re taking them out of schools because people don’t know how to usethem. I think it’s mad. Everyone just has everyone has this. I think I think that’s a bad way to dealwith it. Oh, so like people can’t cope with it. Let’s take it away and lose it.What you do is you remove the other ones. You remove the digital ones so that people can learn how toWell, also you you you teach them how to use it. Yeah. No, I think I think it’s crazy.But yeah, overall vocabulary, general knowledge, life, world experiencewill help. So, a lot of these texts, especially for English, are old. They’reold text, right? They’re starting toI I feel like the a the AI thing willbecome more and more of a thing and you will start havingcuz it’s just got so many advantages. You can you can you you first of allcreate something copyright free. Yeah. essentially um like you can site it froma open AI or whatever. Yeah. But you can produce a text that they canactually sort of understand like at their age level which has been a big problem.They’ve they’ve traditionally used very old antiquated texts that areold language, old vocabulary and they don’t understand it. But that’s kind of what made it difficult.It is but I think maybe difficult for the wrong reasonsmaybe potentially what will happen with test scores overall and that sort of thing is actually they’ll move up andup. So it won’t be so much that the tests I think the tests are probably notgoing to get too much more difficult. They’re just going to the other way that the pass rate isgoing to go up. So, well, the pass um mark’s going to go up. There’s like theeffective pass mark, which just never is the pass mark and the actual pass mark, which is the lowestscoring successful candidate for those number of places or whatever. And that Isee creeping up over time, which we’ve seen it do. Um, but I don’t think thetest will get more difficult. M maths I’ve seen has got more difficultand English easier based on the text that yeah English I’d say and a lot of people findit quite challenging it’s still what they’ve like even in satsso the amount of text there is an inc is a large amount for a childof that age to read in a short period of time so they might have less challengingtexts but longer ones. Right? I don’t this these are just theoreticalideas but um I see that with this this sort of AItext thing and stuff like that which I I I think will come up more and more. You might evensee it. I think they shouldn’t do it for GCSEs and they’ve got because a lot ofthe big publishers actually run the GCSE like Pearson and Nixthey should actually get acquire the rights for the book and to be able to use it. So it’s a real text,but I see in 11 plus and with these test providers, a lot more AI generated stuffwill be the norm and probably they’ll have cheaper cheaper to cheaper to make,cheaper to mark, easier. Well, well, it’s probably the same to mark, but cheaper certainly cheaper togenerate and it probably gives them what they want, which is a relativelydifficult text, but not impossibly difficult. Um, it gives them that ability to findsomething that the other children the children haven’t read. Like there’s there’s always the thingcuz who who was the kid we were talking to? School bus driver something.Yeah. I don’t we were looking up. We’re trying to figure out what it was and then we realized Yeah. This isn’t the text thatexists. This is like a I was in this year’s paper was like Yeah. I Yeah, that is why I suspicion,too. Um I think cuz I I was thinking like what could it what could have possibly been?Um well, I thought we’d get through one episode without mentioning AI.No, and and I thought this would be it, but no, it’s already it’s already in this one, too. So, 2026 landscape. Let’s just

How many grammar schools and where

go through this then. So done the exam boards and we talked a little bit about the subjects and the different topicsthat may or may not come up. There are 3,400state secondary schools in England. Grammar schools are a small minority. Ithink roughly one in 20 secondary peoples goto one and about so it’s about 5% about 5% of schools are grammar schools. But it’sgot the density problem, hasn’t it? Yeah. So some counties Exactly. So some counties like Kent, Buckingham Shar,Lincoln Shere, they have like the selection is widespread. They have overespecially I know Kent has like all of them. There’s like 43.Uh well the percentage of people’s in grammarss is much higher low. So yeah, they’re like sometimes 25 30% of schoolsthat are grammar schools. And then you’ve got non- selective areas like most of London.I think they should grammar schools are rare or non-existent. Even around here we’ve gotone boy school and one girl school. Yeah. This is very overs subscribed.Whole of Red Bridge. Yeah. Have you noticed any trends in tutoring difficulty level and

Trends in expectations and child choice

parental expectations? And secondary question, what’s actuallychanged since last year’s cohort? Not a big change. I don’t think the cohort’s reallychanged. No, children are always the same. Um, but have you seen a a a trend intutoring, difficulty level, and parental expectations? I think parental expectations,they’re always like crazy high. No, I I don’t know. I think they’re moreaccepting when they don’t get a place. Yeah, actually I’d agree with that.I think especially in this area because I just think it’s so difficult.One in 13, one in 14. Um, and that’s even like a lot more parents are almostthey’re still whereas in the past they used to have this kind of whatidea that okay they need to go to this. Yeah. It was literally like make orbreak. Yeah. I don’t see that quite as much now. It might I’m sure there are parentslike that but I I’ve not noticed it as much. Maybe it’s it could be we’veselected for parents that aren’t of that mindset, butI don’t I don’t think it is that way. I think they’re more realistic with the fact that it’s actually very difficultto get a place. And I don’t think it’s just that. I think I thinkwhether rightly or wrongly parents are leaving the choice to their kids.And we had one the other week. She was like, “What’s going on?” Like, “If that was my kid, I’ll just be like, “What areyou doing? Just go in. We’ve paid for it. Go in.” But and that probably would have happened to us, you know, when we were at that age, right?You’re going here. We paid. You’re going and that was it. Like, you’re going here. Okay. Now, it’s like talking to the8-year-old like, “Do you want to go? Do you not want to go?” And it’s like, it’s like that. Yeah.Even I’ve seen it with Keystage One Kids in in in well in the center. Um, and Ithink that is part of the reason why keystage one I get more becauseI I I sort of get it more because I I think there are somekeystage one kids that they they can’t they can’t deal with at that age they’renot mature enough to but they’re also not mature enough to make a decision like that. No,I Yes, this is the whole selfhood idea. Um, actually, so I think childrenat a young age because they’ve got no definite self-concept, their job is toactually do what their parents say. Yeah. Because and your job as a parent is to help themunderstand their own sense of self. So to give themtheir self-concept in a sense like they’re not going to like if you say what what do you want to do?They’re not going to know like really like most of them will just look at you confused like I don’t know likeno they’ll just they’ll just say something they find fun. Yeah. I want to play this. Yeah. They it’s not their job yet. Sothis is what I mean. This is part of the parental expectation is is because of this whole concept. Whereas, yeah,before we probably would have had and we still do get some, we probably would have had a they have to get in and panicpanic panic and you should be doing this and you should be doing that like you know telling us how toYeah. take our classes and No, but that’s how you that’s how you learn. So as in that’s how youmy my mom forcing me to like go to school or whatever or forcing me to tosit down and do my homework. Yeah. That was not like it was not unfair onme. That’s exactly what made that that gave me my values like interms of what I thought was important. Yeah. because I realized that was important to her and you’re sending thewrong signal if you’re allowing your this is just my opinion about parentingI’m sure but I I think if you allow yourvery young child may maybe at like 10even then you don’t really you don’t really know much like no but you can have more of aunderstanding more of a conversation than you can with someone that’s live like they shouldn’t like I’d say generally they they should at least likethe school. Um and if they if they go to a grammarschool and they absolutely hate it, it probably isn’t the right. Yeah. I mean for me I at that age mydecision was purely based on my my friends are here. Yeah. No, but like if I’dthat’s why I didn’t go partly. My friends went to different school. If my mom had made the decision purely offwhat I believed, yeah, that would have that wouldn’t have been right. In fact, it was like actually oneof my classmates who actually said to me, no, he went off to do to city of Londonand he said to me, “This is a chance to create something new.” Like it’s achance to It’s a very mature thing. You say, “How old is this kid?” 40. Like 10. Yeah, this is a this is achance to like re remake our our self-concepts and I don’t I don’tknow like this sort of stuff. So that kid should be making his own decisions and I agreed with like as inthat he made me see that that actually it’s not a bad thing to gointo a new school is a new chance. Yeah. I I mean I didn’t want to leavewhere I was. Yeah. But then you’re already on that sort of the path whereYeah. your your mom and dad probably were like, “Yeah, okay. We’re on the rightpath.” Yeah. Yeah. Um I was sort of less sure about what Iwanted, but I I knew that I wanted more challenge. That’s that’s what you’ve seen in thetrend. I I’d agree with you. That is the trend that I’ve I’ve seen. um didn’treally come to mind, but when you said it, I was like, “Yes, that’s exactly what’s happened.”So, that being the case, why do parents still choose to do this whole 11 thing?I think obviously the they’re more interested in their childmaking that decision. We’ve even had some some students that went throughthat didn’t go through the 11 plus but wishes wish they did wish they had.Some parents or kids? Kids. Do we have any kids that did go throughit and wish they didn’t? No. No.Do you think? I don’t think. Not Not through. Do you mean just taking the exam and going to agrammar school? Uh taking the exam and doing the preparation process and that all thatsort of stuff. No, I think there are somethere’s some that find it hard. I think mainly because it’s a lot of work. They find it hard. ButI think I’ve got a couple of couple of like GCSE people that are here with us doing well doing GCSE classes that werehere for year five 11 plus and I do hear them be like oh I remember when I didthis and it was so long and no but do they even though it’s long do you think it’sI don’t think it’s like a regret regret it I think if anything they’re in a badplace. Yeah, I I think if you do it whether you get in or not, you’re in a better place.

Is 11 Plus prep valuable even without a place?

Yeah, it’s not always an enjoyable process. The the value of the 11 plus educationis definitely there. Yeah. Right. Um the the preparation that gets youthere will carry you through SATs. that will carry you probably up to GCSE in asense because you’re not so much of so many of the problems that you need tofix at secondary school with students is in their grounding and in theirfoundations like they’ve got poor foundations in mathematics and calculation orsomething like that or a very rudimentary grasp ofsentences and structures and poor voc vocabulary and so and that that isactually improved by 11 plus prep. Yeah, I do think that even with thatone of the trends going back to the trend thing is that umI think students are generally weaker than they used to be especially when it comes to likeEnglish. it. I think it depends on the parent,but there’s a general trend. We went through a period when we had a lot of Filipino kids.Mhm. And I’d say their English wasamazingly good. Yeah, they were very well. But I’m watching some of these 11 plus kids recentlyand uh like at this point they would have been ableto do a compound sentence or whatever 5 years ago. What what is up with it? Because I findit amazing how like don’t get me wrong I think co had abig impact. This is why I keep cuz I keep thinking this cuz I keep thinking right you’re doing this now you’restruggling with this you were this year group during co thereforeI yeah cuz they would have missed their actualit’s like year one yeah they would have missed their phonics and things yeah um that that’s definitely a that’sdefinitely a thing but I also think I found that with GCSEs definitelyum and it’s probably translated into the other year groups. Yeah, they they they might well be weaker.Well, think about people doing GCSEs now. M they would have been year six and yearfive during CO. I think it a lot of people describe the effects of COVID asaccentuating trends. So the students that were stronger actuallyended up even more strong during that period because they were able to they were able to self regulate andlike and if they got parents who are like really up on things and and certainly a parent that’s able to helpthem not out of work they’re you know highly educated parent then they’re able to actually reach ahigher level than they would have done and then but in a lot of cases isa lot of parents have didn’t have that one. They they were actually just like, “Oh, I’ve got a child at home.”There’s more variables though because I think a lot of the people that would have been able to help and stuff wouldprobably have been working from home and the ones that weren’t working from home would be like nurses and thosesorts of Yeah. jobs. They wouldn’t have been at home. It’s there’s a lot of variablesbut I think they they did generally find that lower income households struggled more during that period andtheir kids are f were ended up further behind then the kids from more affluent families which just makes perfect sensemakes sense yeah I suppose if standards across the board lowered and we did notice that there wasa drop off and for that reason you know it’s not for no reason thatthese exam boards I’m thinking mainly of like the GCSE exam boards. They ended up like loweringa lot of the boundaries. They ended up doing things like sheets and stuff, stuff like that.There’s no that’s not just a coincidence. That’s because there is a statistical variancein in their performance. I think the year that didn’t have SATs, I noticed whenthey went through GCSE, they were very they struggled quite a lot because SATsis like when all of the teachers attentions are on getting them through their SATs andthey’re very focused on getting their like grammar up to speed, their vocabulary up to speed, spelling,consolidating primary school. Yeah, pretty much. And and yeah, essentially just likeensuring they’ve got a firm base. I found that year going into year seven was so weak, right?Yeah, I remember. So, yeah.Yeah. So, so what I then actually answer the question, why do people still why doparents still choose it choose 11 plus?That was that was the original question because we I I think yeah it’s normal for a parent to want their child to goto a good school and if the good school happens to be a grammar school and their child is is bright then and and doingvery well at primary school then I think it’s completely reasonable thatthey’d say okay well there’s a chance here let’s have a goand see and I think it’s a it’s a good that’s a healthy attitude mindset to gointo with it’s like your child is doing well at primary school. Yeah,maybe they could maybe could even do any even better. Um there’s the whole Ithink we’ve talked about this in the independent school thing about the network effectsabout this. Yeah. Of going to a a school. Obviously, it’s a lot more pronounced with a privateschool because you’ve got the money aspect and the wealth aspect and not just and the social aspect, not justacademics. Quite a lot of if you think about like MPs and stuff like that, quite a lot of them went to to grammarschools and they ended up being MPs. Like very few MPs actually went to state schools.But do you think that’s a network thing or do you think that’s part some in some cases? Yes. Mthere’ll be some grammar schools with good networks. Um there’ll be someit’s a selection bias at the end of the day. It’s like, all right, you got Ethan at the very topwhere it’s like, okay, well, oh, you went to Eaton. My dad went, too.Um, and you you have those network effects there, but there’s a sort ofsliding continuum whereby, you know, if you’re at a halfdecent school, like say like bankrupts or whatever, you can you there there isa network there. There are old bankrofonians or whatever. What are they called? Bankians or whatever. Um, and it’s samewith grammar schools. There’s like the top ones. If you like as an employer, ifI look at someone’s CV, probably don’t care that much about school, but it probably means a littlebit. If I see something like if I see one of those highly selective grammarschools on there, I am thinking, “All right, this is quite clever. The more capable, you think them?” Yeah.Yeah. There there is a there’s a correlation, a high correlation between IQ and capability.It’s not everything. Like attitude, it’s probably first, but then if they’ve got that conscientiousness,they need conscientiousness out of school like that. to survive. Yeah.Like I’ve heard um what’s that really? What’s that girl school? I can’t remember which whichgirl school. It’s very very competitive. Uh well where is it?Yeah. North London. Is that what the one I’m saying? Northland. Henrietta Bonnet. Cage. No. Henry Bonnet.Henry at Bonnet. Yeah. Um, there were some kids that I taughtand got into there and honestly I was I was blown away byhow clever they were. It’s not often where you have like a 10year-oldwho’s just she’s not be they’re not better than me at that age or whatever,but they seriously impress you with their thinking. Yeah. Like I’m actually impressed.Um, and they go there to the these schools and they go, “I’m just average.”We’ve spoken about before, haven’t we? We’ve spoken about this uh whole just getting in versus just missing out.Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think these the these people just these girls justgot in. Like, they probably were solid. So that’s the question. Do do you thinkthey would be better off uh in a not so prestigious school butbeing top of the class? It’s hard to confidence potentially. Like it’s it’s hard to say.Imagine being that clever and then having your confidence sort of knocked for that for like six years. Like whichone which which is better? It’s it’s hard to say because I think I went through a little bit of a similarexperience because but but mainly because I don’t think I had very good foundations.It wasn’t so much that I felt people were sorry like IQ intelligent. It wasmore you know like a bit of a gap in knowledge. Yeah. So like maths I was like okay I don’tknow that. Um and I think yeah it must be the same for for these these people who get intothese extremely competitive schools. Obviously a lot of pressure but I’d if Iwas looking at their job application I saw Henrietta Barnet like I was saying that would be a selection bias. If I wasif I was at Oxford in Cambridge, uh, admissions officer or whatever, and Iwas looking at applications and things like that, I you you have a level, you know, they’reclever enough to do this. Yeah. Like, you know, that they’re going to have top grades. You know that likeyou’re going to have loads of people with A stars and well, nines and whatever ata level and GCSEs. So, but you get those from other schools aswell. No. Yeah. So, is it just another knowledge that they can get into the school? Is thatpretty much it? Yes. It’s a It’s like a I think Jordan Peterson was saying like if you went toif if you go to an Ivy League school, like a top Ivy League school like Harvard or whatever.Obviously, he’s using that concept because he’s Canadian. Yeah. um he’slike the selection bias and that’s that’s the filtering process. Sothe main reason it’s not that these schools make you smart. You’re already smart. You’realready very capable. If you went to any other school, it would have been obvious that you’resuper capable and you’d excel just the same. But but maybe you wouldn’t be pushed as muchpotentially. both sides of it, isn’t there? Potentially, buta lot of the time really clever people tend to push like they they they they tend to have them.Yeah. The the middle 80 get the attention. The top 10% probably geta decent amount and the bottom 10% as well, but the curriculum and the teaching is all catered to that middle80. So, if you’re not in that middle 80, you’re going to get less attention. Yeah. I think I remember at primaryschool like I just spent most of my time sharpening pencils. Yeah, that was that was why like that was whatI spent most of my time doing. So then what are the downsides? Cuz obviously everything’s got trade-offs.

Trade-offs and costs to consider

Everything’s got pros and cons. Um I can go run I can run through a fewthings I’ve got written down or you can jump in with some some stuff if you wantto. You run through run for one a few the whole address thing is uhkind of crazy people having moving house and going to that level.I can un Yeah, I can I can understand why people want would want tosituate themselves near these schools. Yeah. Um there is a Well, you not even near the schools. Youhave to be in a specific Yeah. catchment. There’s a there’s a network. Well,there’s an sort of investment advantage to that as well in thatbecause you know that that school’s desirable, that area is desirable. If you move there, thenvalue of the value of the property will increase quicker, but it will cost more.Yeah. In the first place, I can see also why some people might be caught up in the whole private schoolversus grammar school thing. Yeah. Um, it might actually save money to move toa grammar school area than place where there’s loads of grammarschools around where you can actually get your child in into a top schoolwithout paying those private school fees because it will probably offset the and plus you get theum the value of the of the property. Quite a risk though. You don’t know if you’re going to get in or not. It is. now but lo I think areas withloads of good grammar schools they tend to have a lot of good good schools around there too like like if you’removing to the area bit of a risk so there’s a lot offinancial costs obviously you got to pay for tutoring mocks and travel is quite important as well like when you’rethinking about traveling to and from school umstamp duty conveyance there’s a couple other bits. I mean, I think the from the looks of itthat there probably are more pros, but then there are downsides. I mentioned thisearlier, social side of things, splitting up with your current friend group. I’ve had a student recently who’sjust got into for county. Obviously, you got to some other schools as welland his mom’s been telling me um cuz I was like, “How’s he how’s he doing?” And she’s like, “Yeah, he’s really notcoping with the work, like the workload. He It’s like he can’t manage thehomework and the time.” Yeah. Cuz it’s a lot. Like I rememberum Yeah. I don’t think I could do that now. And and she’s like he can’t like he can’t organize himself to sit down andand do. And I’m like, “Yeah.” And they and this is like he keeps getting set work that he doesn’t he doesn’t enjoy.Like it’s kind of weird like they they make him they’re making him create posters which a lot of kids would enjoybut he absolutely hates that sort of stuff. He’s more of a mathsy dude.Um and I told her thatit will take time but he will get used to it and he’ll be better for it. It’s hard to work.You got to learn how to do it. Yeah, like it’s hard to watch. I think as a parent that’s difficult to watch cuz youyou know your child is stressed. He’s only 11 or whatever.Yeah. I I don’t agree with I I’m I’m a big like the thing is Iagree with homework when it has high value but I don’t agree that homeworkshould be set for the sake of setting homework and that is like only when itaddresses a certain issue topic yeah it certainly makes a difference likeI I think if it a good homework task that is well set is you know going to benefit the child.But yeah, children who complete the homeworkwill do well. Well, the homeworks, it’s it’s there asa reinforcement. So, you learn something. It’s the whole learning.I’ve forgotten the pattern of it, but it’s like you learn something and you wait a bit and you revisit it.Mhm. To create the connection in your brain neurons to be stronger. Yeah. That’s all that’s what it’s for. just torevisit. Yeah. It’s um reinforcement. It’s not doingspace repetition. Space repetition. Yeah. Yeah. Um but so many children I think the themore valuable aspect is actually the organizing of your time. That’s just that’s a life skill. That’sYeah. I I think I think back on to the pros though, haven’t we? I think we take Yeah. But we take for grantedYeah. that the fact that we can actually manage schedules and things like thatand actually a lot of this is not necessarily natural. It’s something thatyou have to learn. I don’t necessarily agree with the concept ofno 11 plus generally I think that’s the world that we live in. There are there are there are pros but thereare there are downsides as well. I agree with it but I agree with the concepts of11 plus but I disagree like I I don’t think there’s enoughgrammar schools and that is the problem the competition like I think the fact that it’s sounequally split between the areas and the way I do it is kind of like theyhave it in the old days where there’d be like grammar school streams in regular schools so you’d have likeyou’d you’d have a grammar school stream and a ordinary stream. Um likeso do you think it still works? It works in some areas.Um it I I don’t I don’t think it’s wrong for parents to go for it. I I think itcan be the right choice for a child who shows that I think Yeah, exactly. I think itdepends. Yeah, I think that’s pretty muchYeah, summarizing, I think that’s pretty much what I would say as well. It depends on the child.It always depends. It always depends on the child. Um, it’s a bit of a boring. So, so how can you tell whether it’ll beright for your Well, it’s worth it when the school fit is right, the preparation staysbalanced, then everyone in the family still likes each other by September.Yeah, I Yeah, it can it can pushlike we’ve seen it a few times like people almoston the edge. Praise the divide. Um, and then it sometimes creates a dividebetween parents as in the husband and the wife because that’s that’s for sure. I’ve I’ve seenthat plenty of times because if you’ve got one person with a certain philosophy and certain thingthat they want for their child and is there some disagreement or conflict. Yeah.Uh you need you need to create some sort of unity otherwise it’s not it’s going

How to decide if the 11 Plus is right for your child

to be very very difficult. Start by thinking about how your child’s doing in school. What level they’re what levelthey’re at, if they’re if they’re low, if they’re high, that makes a difference.Um, so depending on their level of knowledge and their probably their attitude, how much they enjoy this sortof stuff. Um, financesand location, if you’re near one of these schools or not. And then I guess just your what this the social stuff aswell for the child and the parent whether you need that network thing we spoke about back in the VAT privateschools episode. Um whether the child has friends that are sticking on in theschool they’re in. So all the social side of things. UmI think they’re the main the main things to consider. Yeah. I think it did create a bit of alooking back there were other people who like applied for schools and stuff like that but theyjust didn’t get in. So it can be a bit socially divisive as well likeyeah but then like we said people that we’ve seen people that don’t get inafter all the preparation tend to do pretty well later on better than they would have donewithout the preparation when it comes to GCSE even further. But it was a different time. People didn’t No, I I still see that now.People prepare a lot now, but they didn’t No, I disagree. I think people prepareless now. No, there was a period. There was a golden age, if you will.Yeah. Um maybe it was like 10 years ago. Seven, eight, eight to 10 years ago,something like that. Like when we started pretty much. Yeah. when when I think everyone waslike really really pushing. Yeah. And it was very very competitive. It’sstill very competitive, but I think people care a bit less of now. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think it depends onyour philosophy as well then. Mhm. Um I think we’ll leave it there for today. If you want to get like resources

Wrap up

and things like that, we’ll leave some links down below. some sort of conversation to to hear what you guys think would be would be good too. Do you agree or do you not? It’s definitely a divisive topic and we’ve seen both sides of it. So yeah, be good to hear what you think. So thanks again for joining us this month. If you are watching us on YouTube, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment down below on what you thought aboutthis topic. If you are watching us on Spotify or listening to us on Apple, leave us a follow and a rating. And we’ll see you back next month for our 50th episode,The Education Lounge Podcast.