GD terrified of 11+

This was on the C of E website.
Church schools in numbers

Approximately 1 million children attend Church of England schools.
About 15 million people alive today went to a Church of England school.
"A quarter of primary schools and over 200 secondary schools are Church of England.
With 250 sponsored and over 650 converter academies, the Church is the biggest sponsor of academies in England.
Over 500 independent schools declare themselves to be Church of England."
In my daughter's town there are grammars, church schools with incredibly strict rules for entry and the Academy our girls attend which has about six children for every place.

The vast majority of secondary schools in Norfolk are Academies. One near us has a wonderful history of music and still a very good reputation for it, but opted to apply for sports speciality status. Rumour has it it was because sports gets more money! (I do not know the truth of this.)

I hate the whole "speciality" academy thing.

If you are lucky enough that it matches your child's aptitudes/interests it can work out okay but I've seen it go the other way: kids shoe-horned into subject streams that don't suit them, then getting disheartened because they don't enjoy or succeed at them (understandably)

In that way, the selective schools (church & grammar) have become the "comprehensive" schools in so much as the children can chose subjects that suit them rather than the school's speciality status, and all subject streams/choices are more equally valued

Notanan 11+ coaching from Year 2 feels fairly pushy to me. ?
The outstanding academy our girls attend has no particular specialism, but my GD1 says a lot of her friends come from families who don't believe in selective or religious schools!

A lot of kids do need extra help in year 2 because they "skipped" the curriculum up a year, i.e. what used to be taught in yr 3 is now taught in yr 2, what was previously yr 4 work is now expected in yr 3. This comes from the government not parents or teachers. Kids in yr 2 are being tutored just to keep their head above water.

I have family members who tutor for 11+ and they mostly tutor yr5s.

Yr 2 tutoring is mostly just helo keeping up with the recently increased pace.

I have used free online subject resources to help my kids with their school work. A lot of the free stuff is US based. With the youngest (still in primary) I now have to use the resources from about 2 US grades ahead, not the corresponding grade for same age group, just to access the topics mine are doing in school.

I think people don't appreciate how much schools have changed in recent years at the hands of the government.

Tutors are no longer reserved for the pushy who want their kids to excel beyond their peers, its now necessary for many kids just to keep up with the accelerated syllabus just so that they don't end up completely dejected.

Schools are running homework help lessons FOR PARENTS because kids homework is so much harder than it used to be and well educated parents are struggling to help their kids at home.

Dont be so quick to think that the source of the pressure on kids these days is "pushy parents"

There have always been pushy parents. There aren't more of them now than there used to be. The increased use of tutors and 11+ prep has other sources/causes.

All I can say is that in my GDs primary there were lots of children having 11+ tutoring from Year 2. There were even more from Year 3, both private and group lessons. We also know lots who went to independent school where they specialise in 11+ entry. It is a wealthy town though.

PS I do know how schools have changed; the latter half of my career in teaching was in school improvement. ?

What we need is non religious non specialised non selective schools....

Comps really.

The choice for many isnt whether or not to jump through hoops, its WHICH hoops to jump through: religous, other selectives, limiting subject bands or 11+

Agree that in wealthier areas the local "outstanding" schools don't necessarily deserve the title due to the amount of money spend outside of school on tutoring for results that the schools then take credit for.

In such areas the "good" state schools are selective by house prices. With the wealthier parents (who will tutor) being able to move/buy within catchment.

More hoops. If you cant buy on the doorstep of the catchment selective state school you're left with religous hoops or exam hoops...

Rock and a hard place really..

That reminds me, I left one school off my local schools list. Its a state school but I havent ever been able to consider it due to its "Outstanding" status. You can only get in if you buy into the immediate area, and rents and house prices within its catchment are astronomical.

Thats why parents cant "just" send their kid to the "local comp" (although I think its an academy now too)

I have never found that C of E primary schools are at all strict about entry, unlike RC schools.

Neither do any, as far as I know, push religion on to the children any more than any other state schools.

Yes exactly. And if you don't do religion....
I do think though that the grammars take quite a lot who would have otherwise gone independent, which is why the local secondaries have students who go to Oxbridge and RG universities.

It depends on how over subscribed they are Jamilall. Most COE schools DO have priority criteria for church going but where the cut off occurs on admissions depends on how many apply per place.

At my local coe secondary, the cut of has been church involvement for last few years, but hasnt gone as high up the criteria for cut off as the RC one, which is currently cutting off at weekly attendance & a RC primary. If the RC applications drop then the cut off will move down the criteria categories.

However I believe that the archbishop of Canterbury is opposed to church going attendance as an attendance criteria as he feels is is against the spirit in which the COE provides community schools, and SOME COE schools are following suit

It varies, but it usually goes something vaguely like this:
1. Children in care
2. Siblings in catchment who have regular/weekly church involvement, go to church primary and are christened
3. As (2) but without siblings in the school
4. Siblings in catchment who are christened
5. As (4) without siblings
6. In catchment not christened with siblings
7. As above without siblings
8. Out of catchment christened with siblings
......and so on..

(It varies & many secondaries dont have the sibling categories)

So where our RC has a huge amount of applications they are filling up at Cat2, where the COE is over subscribed but less so than the RC it is filling up around Cat 4/5

It is not because they are stricter than RC, Their criterias are pretty much the same, they just cut off numbers wise lower down the list