• I was lucky to attend a primary school that had an exceptionally kind headmaster. His name was Ward Hopkin. It was obvious, even to a child, that he truly had our best interests at heart. So much so, that when it came to taking the 11+, we didn’t realise that we had sat it.

• At this time, every child was entered for the exam, and it was carried out in their own primary schools. In retrospect, there was a small amount of preparation. We had had some lessons where we had been asked to decide which strange shape should follow a sequence of other strange shapes (non -verbal reasoning). We had never done anything like this before.

• Then, one day, we found that the school hall’s dining tables and chairs had been set up very differently, and we sat a test outside our classrooms for the first time. That was my experience of the 11+. The name of the exam was never mentioned. It had clearly been decided that we weren’t to be subjected to any exam pressure. Thank you, Mr Hopkin!

Fast forward…

How things have changed!

• We now have the phenomenon of the tuition centre. It has almost become a rite of passage to attend one. I could write a lengthy article on what I feel about them and why, but I want this to be a very positive website. I became aware of their arrival when the performance of some of my pupils began to deteriorate. This had never happened before, so I had to find out the reason.

• I discovered that they had begun attending a tuition centre. They were being overloaded with homework (to please the parents) and not completing my work to a decent standard - if they were completing it at all. Their focus was all over the place. Most noticeable was the drop in their comprehension performance. After painstakingly creating material and teaching them to read between the lines (inference) they were now grabbing at the answers. The 11+ comprehension questions are written with built-in traps to catch out the weaker readers. The tuition centre attendees were now falling into all of them. They were being taught to rely on ‘key words’ ( a low level skill ) and being encouraged to underline all the important points. Unsure of what these points might be, they had taken to underlining just about everything.

  
  

• It’s hard enough to try and help a child to achieve a successful outcome in this exam. If they’re attending these centres, it’s practically impossible.

• Disclaimer: there may be some excellent tuition centres in the UK. I certainly hope so! My first-hand experience is based on those local to me.