I passed the 11 plus with flying colours but the local Catholic grammar (De La Salle) didn't want me

We had something similar with my daughter. No-one from her Catholic primary school had sat the 11+ for decades, but almost everyone did from the Anglian school round the corner. We were told if she sat the 11+ and passed, all well and good, but if she sat it and failed, the Catholic senior school would not offer her a place.

It was not quite that blunt, of course. We had to rank our preferences for senior school, and it was explained if the Catholic senior school was not in first place, they would be sufficiently subscribed that with first choices and second choices, anyone putting them third did not stand a chance. So if you put both of the local grammar schools before it, you would not get in.   Put a grammar in first place, and the Catholic in second, and the grammar over subscribed? That's quite a gamble; you might or might not get in. Put the Catholic school in first place, and you would get in, but there was no point in taking the 11+

Very manipulative, I thought. But they did not know my daughter's determination. She went and took the 11+ in the Anglican school (without most of the practise they had had); passed, and got the Grammar school of her choice. In subsequent years, there were always a few who did the same.