11+ - please help us start preparing!

"2 months with a tutor enough to get into any school in the land"

ROFL. Fine if you are privately educated, or have been doing any other 11plus prep. And indeed, depends what you mean by bright. Working at Level 5/6? Some children are very "bright" but not that speedy, or have weaker areas - eg may be exceptional at Maths and hopeless at spelling, creative writing etc etc. And what is 2 months with a tutor? Once a week for 45 minutes or an intensive 4 hour a week programme?

And tbh why risk it? It's a one shot event, certainly in our county.

Bright child plus 2 months with a tutor on exam technique is enough to get into any school in the land. Depends what you mean by "bright".

Hi op. Where are you, in a grammar county? Are you looking for a top score or "just" a pass?

We are in Kent and DS took the test last Sept. We had a tutor for 45 mins for the whole of Y5. From Easter onwards, he upped the "homework", giving DS more and more practice papers to do. He saved the GL assessment papers until then, as there aren't that many of them and they are the closest to the test itself.

What they weren't close on were timing, in Maths. We spent most of the summer trying to get DS to slow down as he was going what we thought was way too fast, and making silly errors. The practice papers for Maths are 50 questions in 60 minutes, increasing in difficulty. The actual test had all multi step (so long) questions - and 30 in 25 minutes. So no one finished it. They had to lower the pass mark as there weren't enough that passed! Conversely, the English paper was too easy so there was no age standardisation possible at the top end. It was the first year that spatial reasoning was introduced so nets practice was needed. The tutor paid for himself with this as I am hopeless at it.

My advice would be speed, speed, speed with accuracy. That comes from practice. Go to www.elevenplusexams.co.uk forum for papers etc if your tutor can't provide them.

Happy to provide any more specific info on the Kent test if it's relevant to you.

^Yes. I do about 5-7 min of "what's 1000/20" and "whats 80*60" etc with my son about 5x a week and get the timer out, jump up and down when his time improves, etc. He gets a kick out of it and has grown more nimble.

A lot of 11+ rests on not making silly mistakes, so rote mathematics is key.

Tables tables tables. Print off mixed tables tests with 60 on a sheet and time him. Give him 3 minutes to complete the sheet and if he can do that then reduce the time you give him to do it. Once you have done that find some that are mixed multiplication and division and repeat exercise. It's deathly boring but it's 5 minutes a day and this was 100% what has made the biggest difference to my eldest being able to move on in maths, it's the basis for virtually everything. If they have that off the top of their heads then they find it much easier to pick up so many other topics. Other than that make sure he's reading decent literature 20 mins a night and leave the rest to the tutor.

I second looking on the 11+ forum. Working out a timetable with him so he can see there is time to relax as well will help. Try also doing some of the practice tests along side him so you appreciate more what is involved and it will also make it more fun for him to compare scores. Lastly, make sure he has covered enough or the maths curriculum, as he could be tested on any of the year 6 content. There is no guarantee for any child to get in, but the more he does, the greater his probability of passing.

Look objectively at DC ability then it becomes a numbers game.Research your target schools on how many apply,their various catchment rules and general academic levels.Have a plan B.Once you have done this then embark on your journey.There will be twists and turns.Read,read and read.

Check Godolphin and Latymer, SPGS, KCS websites. They all have sample papers. Six months of tutoring is a pretty long time, I think!

Surely it's an either/or approach otherwise you seriously run the risk of putting your DS off studying so hard (at such a young age)! We did six months of prep at home with our DC1 and that was quite long enough - any longer and he would have rebelled.

Fine to use a tutor (providing it's a good one!) but don't push your DS too hard otherwise you may find it counterproductive!

If he's in Year 5 currently (but he's had a tutor for six months already) then I would imagine he should be on target if he's bright enough, although you don't say whether he's going for 11+ in a super-selective or not?

Good luck!

I'll start with a warning - some tutors are great. Some... not so much. Does your tutor seem to understand the 11+ in your area? Does he know whether you should be using Bond or Nfer? No matter how good the tutor seems to be, I'd check this kind of stuff out. The Eleven Plus Forum is good for this- this will tell you the information for your are (although most of the people who post on it seem a bit obsessive!).

If your ds will be sitting the 11+ for a particular school, it's worth contacting the school to find out if there are any practice papers available. If it's an area/county test, look on your Local Authority's website to find out as much information as possible.

Ok, I'm going to say that I think this is about your need to be involved in the process, not your DS's.

You say you have a tutor and your DS is bright: you need to take a deep breath and trust your ds's brightness and your tutor's ability to tutor.

I've not done grammar 11+ but I have done the London day schools entrance exams twice in quick succession. I know one of the the things my DCs teachers used to pull their hair out about was the confusion of methods having a lot of people teaching a dc. You could ask the tutor if there is anything needed to support what s/he is doing, but I probably wouldn't.

I think good overall strategy is to ensure they are exposed to current events (life skill), ensure times tables are rock-solid (often overlooked building bock but the faster they can be the better) and ensure there are lots of other interests arond to keep everyone sane.