Eleven-plus
The results of the exam would be used to match children's secondary schools to their abilities and future career needs.
Today it is generally used as an entrance test to a specific group of schools, rather than a blanket exam for all pupils, and is taken voluntarily.
[6] In the London Borough of Bexley from September 2008, following a public consultation, pupils sitting the Eleven-Plus exam are only required to do a Mathematics and Verbal Reasoning paper.
; [9] [10] Over 95% of grammar schools now determine their own admissions policies, choosing what tests to set and how to weight each component.
For example, only 15.866% score more than one standard deviation above the mean (+1σ generally represented as 115 SAS) as can be seen by adding up the proportions in this graph based on the original provided by M. W. Toews).
The downside of this local standardisation, as it has been called, is parents are frequently unaware that their children are being judged as much by the standard of other applicants as their own abilities.
Competition for places at Sutton Grammar School is extremely fierce with, according to an online forum[17] over 2,500 applicants in 2016.
At the other end of the scale, Buckinghamshire council website says, "If your child's STTS is 121 or above, they qualify for grammar school.
Releasing the raw marks would bring some clarity to the admissions process but attempts to do so have generally been unsuccessful.
[28] A provision in the Education Order (NI) 1997 states that "the Department may issue and revise guidance as it thinks appropriate for admission of pupils to grant-aided schools".
Citing this on 21 January 2008, Northern Ireland's Education Minister Caitríona Ruane passed new guidelines regarding post-primary progression as regulation rather than as legislation.
This avoided the need for the proposals to be passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly, where cross-party support for the changes did not exist.
In particular, the Hadow Report of 1926 called for the division of primary and secondary education to take place on the cusp of adolescence at 11 or 12.
A former highmaster of Manchester Grammar School asserted on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze that no child who had not seen the verbal reasoning tests that formed the basis of the 11-plus before attempting them would have a "hope in hell" of passing them, and he had dispensed with the 11-plus as "worthless".
Families had to play the system, little booklets were available from local newsagents that showed how to pass the exam and contained many past papers with all the answers provided, which the children then learned by rote.
[31] Criticism of the 11-plus arose on a number of grounds, though many related more to the wider education system than to academic selection generally or the 11-plus specifically.
35% of pupils in the South West of England secured grammar school places as opposed to 10% in Nottinghamshire.
JWB Douglas, studying the question in 1957, found that children on the borderline of passing were more likely to get grammar school places if they came from middle-class families.
[33] For example, questions about the role of household servants or classical composers were far easier for middle-class children to answer than for those from less wealthy or less educated backgrounds.
[34][35][36] By testing cognitive skills the child's innate ability is evaluated as a predictor to future academic performance and is largely independent of background and support [citation needed].
The problem lies with the testing of academic subjects, such as Maths and English, where a child from a working class background with a less supportive school and less educated parents is being measured on their learning environment instead of potential to succeed [citation needed].
