11 plus coaching

ds did two NR tests in the 11+
one he got 75% in
next he got 100%
Bizarre he blamed it on a headache and a bad day in general
Or otherwise known as nerves.

I was 'coached' for 11+ (the whole class was) for what felt like the entire year. My younger bro wasn't. I passed, he failed. This was because he had never seen anything like the paper in his life before.

When I studied psychology at University, our lecturer in intelligence pointed out that there is no point in practising for IQ tests more than once as the only time there is a real difference in your score will occur between the first and second test. In any further tests your score will be pretty much the same as the second time. (It's called the practise effect). Does that make sense? I haven't explained awfully well, sorry.

Mind you, IQ tests can be quite fun so if your dc enjoys them do loads! It won't do any harm, and IMO will help in confidence if nothing else.

Yep the NVR is what we had here and I am mighy glad we showed ds a few papers first!
They usually do mock ups in school too.

i have got two children in grammar school without coaching . However - the brightest child in the world would fail the verbal/nvr papers if they had not seen and practised them. Competition near us is stiff stiff stiff and i recommend training your child. Once they are in its still very high calibre and an over tutored child could be in for a shock. many struggle hth

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Our ds has just started at a Bucks grammar. Each county seems to have its own exams, so the first thing to find out is which papers your dd will take.
We didn't send our son to a tutor, but he did practice papers on and off for about a year, usually averaging 3 per week. He started off getting about 80 per cent, rising to low 90s, so he did get through ok. He was at a disadvantage because he's a September birth, and if your dd is, say a June to August birth, she'll get several points added on. I'd recommend a look at www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum. There's a very lively and helpful forum which I found great.

The main thing is not to get too hyped up about the whole 11plus thing. They're still quite little and if there's any doubt that she'd get in, don't put her through the pressure. I've seen a lot of very able children who happen not to be good at VR end up really upset and feeling like failures because they've been forced through the process.

I'd advise against coaching if your child is not already in the top 25%.
DS has had some kids at his grammar flounder badly as they were rigorously coached, scraped through and now are unable to get on at the grammar.

FWIW we never coached ds not one bit, I'd buy Letts 11+ workbooks/mock ups and see how she goes on those

Freckle is right. It also depends what the exam consists of -- Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are meant to be pretty-much culture-free, ie. measure innate ability rather than how well the child has been taught. So if the main tasks are VR/NVR and you genuinely think your child's ability would be suited to grammar school (eg. got Level 3 in Y2, likely to get Level 5 in Y6) then by all means do some practice papers (readily available in large bookshops) so she knows what to expect and gets the knack of how to answer the questions, but probably not worth going overboard on tutoring.

If the exam consists of English and/or maths papers, then you need to take a long hard look at the specimen papers to see whether your dd's curriculum has covered the appropriate material. IME there is a significant gap between national curriculum maths and the expectations of highly selective schools entrance exams, and here some tutoring may come in handy. This is particularly the case if she is likely to be competing with significant no. of children from private prep schools, who will have been taught a much more ambitious curriculum.

But as Freckle said, do be realistic about your dd's abilities and whether she is likely to be suited to the grammar school. If she is, then tutoring or extra practice is simply a way of levelling the playing field for her. If she's borderline, then she might scrape in but find she's ended up in the wrong school for her. Dd1 has just started Y7 in a London grammar school, and is bringing home literally hours of homework a night. She's happy as Larry because schoolwork is her idea of fun, but I think plenty of other kids are moaning, and some may be really struggling. Not fun.

Do you think your child is genuinely grammar-school material? If there is any doubt, please do not consider coaching her. She may pass the exam as a result of the coaching, but she would probably then struggle to cope at the grammar school, which would be heart-breaking for both of you.

If you feel that she is grammar-school material (and you need to sound out her teachers in this respect - we parents often have an inflated idea of our child's capabilities ), coaching may give her confidence in the actual exam, but that can also be achieved by having her do practice papers at home.