How are your preparing your DC for a grammar school 11+

[LittleOwl]

Suffering from last minute panic. DS seems bright / academic. Currently in year 6 and we registered him for the 11+ at Tiffin.
DS has never been tutored, and we did have a lovely off the grid summer (camping with GP).
I am in full blown panic. (And feel rather stupid for asking DS to take test but not preparing him) Test is 3 weeks away. Too late to find tutor. Are there any old test papers? Any advice?

[HPFA]

Would these be of any use?

exampapersplus.co.uk/tiffin-school-11-plus-11-exam-information/

www.gl-assessment.co.uk/products/11plus-series-11-plus-practice-papers/

No personal experience but my understanding from Mumsnet is that it's very common to have had years of tutoring and/or practice papers beforehand. Realistically unless your son really is exceptionally able he may be at a disadvantage.

If you think he's not going to be too upset if he doesn't pass then there's no harm in him having a go but if you think it may really damage his confidence then maybe do a couple of the papers and then re-assess.

[LittleOwl]

Thank you - I will have a look. I am trying my best not to damage his confidence (this is just to try, no worries if it does not work).

[MrsPatmore]

Print off the Manchester Grammar School test papers for maths - they're around the right level. Speed and accuracy are the most important things. There might still be mock tests available - check out www.elevenusexams. There is a discussion forum for Tiffin. Unfortunately as a previous poster has said, it is one of the most competitive exams in the country and children are tutored to the hilt for it for quite a long time. Good luck!

[MrsPatmore]

www.elevenplusexams

[witherwings]

You can get let's revision 11+ practise test guides. It's worth doing a few practise papers to see how the test is delivered and to get familiar with the answer sheets. Most kids seem to be tutored despite the fact that the school say don't.

[LittleOwl]

Thank you - I will get the Manchester papers and guides. And remind him there is all to gain

[brisklady]

I'm familiar with 11+ but not with Tiffin. I may be wrong given the apparent competitiveness of the Tiffin test, but my experience more generally is that if you have a genuinely bright child, then a LOT of what makes a difference in 11+ performance is familiarity with the type of questions - not loads of tutoring. The problem with assessing the importance of tutoring is that there can never be a control - no child can ever be both tutored and not tutored!

I have a 'bright' child, and we did decide to do a modest (by MN standards!) amount of tutoring - a weekly 11+ tutoring 'club' during Y5. Now, I'm not saying it didn't make any difference - DS picked up some good tips (esp in maths), he enjoyed the sessions, and just the fact that he was doing an extra hour or two's work a week for a year must have helped. But - I really don't think it made a huge amount of difference. He was scoring a bit higher at the end of the year than the start - but not THAT much higher (and of course he was a year older!). I would be very interested to know how much better he would have performed with the tutor compared with just doing a reasonable quantity of practice papers over the summer with us. I suspect the outcome would have been fairly similar.

Now, ok, you've only got three weeks left - but three weeks is three weeks. Find out which papers are most similar to Tiffin ones (the elevenplusforum should help), then get yourself on Amazon Prime and you'll have some resources by tomorrow. Get him to do some practice papers in each of the relevant subjects between now and the test - maybe some ten minute tests after school in the evenings, with a couple of longer tests at the weekends. Play down the importance, but just bill it as you giving him good preparation so he's relaxed on the day.

Good luck!!

[Mumski45]

I have DS1 in year 8 in Grammar School and DS2 who is in Year 6 and will take the 11+ at the end of Sept. In my experience if you have a genuinely bright child then the key areas to think about are 1) the style of questions which might be very different to SAT style questions they are used to, 2) are there any topics in Maths or Grammar which they have not covered by the time they take the test (ie at the start of yr6) and 3) practising timed papers as the 11+ tests tend to be more time pressured than those at school.

Good luck

[LittleOwl]

Time pressure will be a real thing looking at the Manchester papers. Hope to get DS to do a maths paper now. They have so much homework I find it hard to get him do much extra... thank you again for all the support. We have started doing keystone tests, three lines a day, so at least he gets used to the thinking

[Ooforfoxsakeridesagain]

Few children go into exams without some preparation. Levels of tutoring vary hugely and is a matter of personal choice, many people just do practice papers. I wouldn’t go into a test unprepared and I wouldn’t expect my child to.

They’re a test of speed and accuracy. Exam technique is important - things like always move on to the next question And don’t spend long on one question.

Once they are in there, it’s just another test in a classroom for them.

Familiarisation with the test is key and you’ve got time for that. Knowing times tables very well is also very important.

[Nicknamesalltaken]

LittleOwl - I wrote to the school and told them mine wouldn’t be doing homework for the term before exams. School were fine with it.

[aintnothinbutagstring]

We're in Essex so I'm not sure what format of test Tiffin uses. I've recently prepped my dd to do a CEM eleven plus, its very important to have a general idea of the format and timings of the test. Do the school give you a familiarisation booklet? Very important to show them how the test is structured, even how to mark their answers. Timing was a big one for us as CEM is very tight on time. Doing timed practise as home, maybe a little mock exam. Does Tiffin cover NVR? Show him some NVR type questions as many children will not ever have seen those types of questions though they are probably the easiest to improve on with practise. Same with VR, show him the type of questions, cloze etc. so they are not a surprise. I would say in hindsight, the best prep we did for the eleven plus is encouraging dd to be an enthusiastic reader and giving her challenging books from a young age. This meant she found the VR very easy and was able to complete it quickly. The biggest mistake was not encouraging her maths skills more, its very stressful to try and bring their maths up under the pressure of the eleven plus.

[iMum]

Don't fret!! My son has just started at a grammar school-I didn't have a tutor for him, he didn't see a past paper-he scored very well, and I'm not worried that he will now flounder there had he been tutored and then had that stopped iyswim.
Good luck!!

[KeepingTheWormsQuiet]

You need to do some practice papers so that he knows how an exam is structured and not to linger on difficult questions. The first Tiffin papers are multiple choice and have to be done very quickly - I can't remember the exact figures, but it's something like 70 questions in 50 minutes. DS2 didn't finish the papers, but still got invited to the second test and could have had a place at Tiffin after the second test. He goes to a different grammar.

[Tinty]

@LittleOwl

Does your DS go to a state school or an indie at the moment? If he is currently in an indie then he will probably be working a year ahead of state schools anyway and also a lot of indies do work towards the 11+.

My DD went to a state in special measures, never had homework and we just did some papers from WHSmiths in the summer and she reads a lot, she took the 11+ in the middle of September. She passed and started at a Super Selective and loves it.

Get some past papers so it isn't completely new to him and get him to practice for speed.

[Holidayshopping]

DC is sitting the 11+ on Saturday, I feel your pain!

The papers in this area include a maths and an English with some writing and a small amount of VR thrown in.

We are just going over some past questions this week.

[Mog37]

Don't know how much help this is (because we're now waiting for results so I can't tell if it's been a successful strategy or not!) ... but we opted out of tutoring (although MiL did very kindly offer to pay). We could really do with DD getting in (as our local school is pretty pants) but also really didn't want to spend a year making the exam into some huge big pressurised event.

I did buy some practice books (CGP for the CEM Durham University test) and have done a few questions with DD over the last month - but not every day - so that she got the general idea of the type of questions and what she needed to be doing. I know DH had some chats with her about general exam technique too.

The school we are interested in makes a big song and dance about tutoring not being necessary. 6 of DD's friends from primary school took the exam yesterday and I think only one of them had a tutor. (Obviously, I wouldn't like to swear that other playground mums always tell the entire truth when it gets competitive....)

Anyway, I wanted to reassure you that you're not alone and we've certainly had a go at it without tutoring! And DD walked out of the exam saying that it had all been ok and very like the practice questions - she hasn't seemed too stressed at all. (The stress is my job!)

[Mog37]

Have just reread my post and want to make clear that when I say we opted out of tutoring so as not to pressurise DD, I don't mean any criticism of anyone who chose tutoring. My DD can be - how can I put this?- a teensy bit prone to drama and, knowing her, we tried to keep the exam as low key as possible.

[HPFA]

Obviously, I wouldn't like to swear that other playground mums always tell the entire truth when it gets competitive

I think the tutoring thing can be a bit ambiguous. I've seen posts on Mumsnet like "Oh, DS got in without tutoring, we just did an hour's practice every night since Year 3" or similar.

So I think someone can say honestly their kid didn't have tutoring in the sense they paid for it but maybe that shouldn't be taken to imply the child's had no preparation.

[LittleOwl]

Wow - DS is Indie (local state gave me the dirty look when we mentioned full time work and I had met too many of the mums doing hours of extra work). But I would (selfishly) like to start saving some money...
I wish Tiffin would still do NVR as this is my sons biggest asset.... all English and Maths now.
My son has very high expectations of himself and then beats himself up - the English paper from MGS was fine, the Maths on is a different story... need to consider next steps.
Good luck ck to us all!!

[Mog37]

Just thought I'd update - in case it's of any use to others - to confirm that DD's results are through and we're pretty optimistic she'll be offered a place. So, genuinely, no tutoring and no past papers, just looking at a few practice questions for half an hour every now and then over the month before the exam.