CHELMSFORD County High School plans to ditch the current 11-plus in a bid to stop parents from coaching their children through the entrance exam.
In August 2013, the top girls' school will change the way it selects pupils for admission into Year 7.
Staff at the school, on Broomfield Road, are concerned that families are spending vast sums of money on private tutors to help their children pass the exams, leaving poorer families at a disadvantage.
But Stephanie Williams, the founder of S6 Tutoring Academy, believes more people will take advantage of extra teaching.
Her company, which has tutored over 1,000 county children since 2009, has already received 218 phone calls since last week's announcement from prospective County High parents worried about the changes.
"Because two-thirds of the new exam is not on the National Curriculum it is only natural for parents to try to help their children," said Ms Williams.
"I don't buy into the idea that this new exam cannot be tutored. Instead of parrot-like teaching, good tutors will now just teach the concepts in the papers.
"There will be more demand for good tutors than less," she added.
The school's head teacher Nicole Chapman refused to speak to the Chronicle.
But a school statement said: "For some years we have been concerned that many parents have associated entry to this school with the need to invest in intensive coaching for their daughter. We have aimed, therefore, to introduce a set of tests which assess a broad range of abilities and provide a level playing field."
The school is scrapping the 11-plus exams provided by The Consortium of Selective Schools in Essex (CSSE) and changing to a test provided by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM), a not-for-profit organisation based at Durham University.
The new tests are hoped to favour children with natural academic ability as opposed to those who have been extensively prepped for the exam – and include non-verbal reasoning, a subject not taught on the National Curriculum.
Currently, the school has the 58th best 11-plus exam scores in the country.
"We believe that not only will the new tests provide a more accurate reflection of each girls' ability but also be consistent with the school's fundamental policy of being transparently open to all girls who meet the academic standards required to thrive in a selective school," the statement continued.
Some parents who have paid for 11-plus tutoring for the old exam say they are angry with the changes but will continue to pay for tutoring.
Sandra Morgan, from Brentwood, whose eldest daughter Katie, 12, attends County High, says her youngest daughter, Maddie, 9, must now prepare for two different 11-plus exams, the CEM and CSSE tests.
She said: "I think a lot of parents feel like they have been left in limbo. My daughter has been tutored for 15 months for the old 11-plus. It is no bad thing, because there's been an improvement in her results at school.
"But it means that she might have to take two different type of exams to get into a secondary school – which will mean more tutoring and more cost."
Collette Roxby, the centre director of the Chelmsford branch of Kip McGrath, a nationwide tuition company, agreed and said that parents would continue to pay for extra help for their children.
"Parents will still pay for tuition for the entrance exams – especially if there is a chance of getting their children into some of the best schools in the UK.
"I don't see what's wrong for people paying for private tuition for their children. It's not just wealthy families that do – we've children from a wide range of backgrounds.
"Parents will always want to get their children into secondary schools or prepare them for life at a new school – because secondary school is a big step.
"I don't really understand the school's reasoning. Why should it bother them if they are getting the right calibre of pupils into their school?"
Other than a "familiarisation" paper, no practice tests will be made available to parents.
The results are age weighted and consist of two 45 minute papers testing verbal, non-verbal and mathematical reasoning skills.
