To ask if your child passed to the 11 plus how much work they did in preparation.

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DS is sitting the 11 plus in a few weeks time. It is his choice to do it, probably based on the fact that so do all the other boys in his year. We have been doing a little bit most days of the holidays (15 mins) but DS has come home today from school talking about the amount of work others have done. One has done 4 hours every day another has sat 7 formal mock exams every week. I'm now feeling as though we haven't given this enough time. I know this quite a debated subject but alternative schools are not great so I am so desperate to get him. Mothers at the gate play down the amount of work so I would really appreciate some honest input.

DD didn't do any prep I bought her the books but she never paid much attention! I figured that if I had to force her to do loads it would have to continue so she could keep up iyswim? Luckily she passed and started her school today! Take the pressure off and just let him know you will be proud no matter what! Good luck to him!

2-3 hours a week year 4 and 5. Also 30-45 mins a day in the holidays, but not every single day.

DS is doing it in a few weeks (standard grammar area, not super selective). He has done 3 mocks over Summer (in a hall with other candidates) and had an hour a week tuition in 4 of the weeks (holidays!) plus homework which is about another hour.

If they need that much drilling to pass, it probably isn't the right school, tbh.

10 minutes a day through year 5 then the summer before the exam focussed on weak spots and practice papers. Home supported.

An hour or two (no more) a week during last 2 terms of year 5. Half an hour approx a day 3 or 4 times a week for the last 2 weeks of summer holidays. Did no mocks / past papers etc. Both my children qualified with high scores and are doing very well at their school.

We started about 1 year before. Had to get him up to scratch in the basics first of maths and English as the school hadn't managed even the basics.

This was up to half an hour every day.

Once up to a better level, we started tackling past papers, not timed. Then went through mistakes, learnt where going wrong, saw areas of weakness.

Once that improved, we looked at getting faster. Timed practice papers and got faster and faster with practice.

Then we tackled verbal and non verbal reasoning as this is not taught in schools neither was his maths and English

More practice papers. In the last few months, especially the holidays we did a few papers each day until he was used to the whole procedure, question styles, and timing.

Good luck 🤞🏻

I was a little surprised to see the intensity of 11+ training given to a friend's DD (she lives in ultra-competitive Surrey): 2x90 minute sessions a week with a tutor in year 5, through the summer holiday and the 3 weeks before sitting the exam in September. I don't remember being hand held through it 34 years ago, but it seems times have changed!

It's a good idea to make sure that your DS is at the very least familiar with past papers. Exam technique is as important as competence.

really depends on where you are and how clever your ds is and also what he has been doing in school.

I have 2 in grammar schools and now do 11+ tutoring. In our area it isn't massively over pressured wrt no of places v. no of kids sitting, but it is also a super selective system, not a general grammar (so top 5% of kids not top 30%)
In our area it is a CEM test. At the minimum I would say you need to go through the topics in the CPG 11+ prep books. There are some maths topics not covered in school yet. (ratio, percentages, probability) There are also maths terms that they should know, which aren't always drilled in in school, eg factors and primes.
Depending on the school and how well they have been taught they may or may not have covered the rest, and then it is a matter of revision.

I have had students who sail through all the examples in the books, who have already covered all the material at school, and whose natural vocab was really good, so they were fine on verbal reasoning etc.
With those students, they really need exam technique prep. At least one mock test under exam conditions (but could be at your kitchen table) using the correct answer sheets, so they have practice filling them in. Talk to them about timing, if you get stuck on a question, give it a go and then move on, keep going, don't wasted time on questions you can't do, if it is mutiple choice, always put an answer even if it is a guess, and also if it is mutiple choice use the answers that are there to help you work it out (eg, if something is mutiplied by 2, then all the answers which end in an odd number are wrong)
Non verbal reasoning practice is good too as that isn't done at school.

These student could really have got away with just doing a couple of weeks intensive over the summer (that is what I did with dd, as I couldn't get her to do any before the summer holidays!) and a mock test.

But I have had other students who are great in one area eg English and poor in another, and we have spent the whole of year 5 working hard on those areas to try and bring them up to scratch. Those kids need a lot more work over longer time.

If I had a student who was poor across both English and Maths I would recommend to parents that they didn't continue with tutoring for 11+, as it is unlikely they would pass, and even if they did, they would struggle at grammar school.

Without knowing your child it is really hard to say.

whoops a bit long, sorry!

(by the way I tell my students parents they MUST give them a 2 week break over the summer, as otherwise they would be fed up and exhausted. It is a battle to get them to agree)

An hour or two a week during year 5. Did a couple of mocks and some past papers over the summer holidays. I found these very handy to know how to pace themselves and for timing. Both my older children qualified with good scores (both got the same mark which was good from a competitive sibling point of view) and are doing very well at their school.

Not a lot. School (standard state primary) ran I hour sessions going through bond books fir those who wanted to do 11+ for last 1.5 term of year 5. Then for the couple of months before exam we did an extra hour a week of creative writing and some maths. She passed and started yesterday. As far as I was concerned if she needed Amy more than that she probably shouldn't have been going and would have ended up struggling once there.

DS did 20 mins a day in August on a computer programme I found on the elevenplusforum website and did 6 or 7 timed papers at home 5 years ago. He passed fairly comfortably for three of the local grammar schools but not for the most prestigious one. Going off to the toilet in the middle of the second paper on the day didn't help!

*elevenplusexam forum

Bloody hell! Reading this with interest as we have moved into a grammar school zone, although both kids still very young. Dh and I both passed the old 12+ years ago with v basic preparation, how times have changed.... I knew it had become very competitive but reading this has been an eye opener

steppemum I'm interested to know where you're located?

(Purely for benchmarking purposes).

For my dd, I'm planning to do a little bit in y5 only. Perhaps an hour or so in a week in the holidays.
Just to get her used to the style of the paper, as they don't do it at school.
I think if you do too much, you are running a very big risk of your child getting in and struggling to keep up.

Not in a GS area and wouldn't allow mine to be dragged into it anyhow. If they are bright enough, it doesn't take much prep, they know it verbatim. Mine could walk it but, yeah, we have to do it the hard way

None at all, all three of mine passed and got in to selective grammars and we were (just) out of catchment too. I figured that if they needed tutoring to get in then they shouldn't be there at all if that makes sense. Not interested in being pushy or hothousing them, I would rather they went to the most appropriate school for their ability to be honest

Oh sorry, good luck to your son obviously!!

DD1 wanted to do the 11+ so she did 10-15 mins per day during the summer holiday just before the test. She had a go at a couple of mock papers to get used to the test layout but that was it. No tutoring and no practising until a couple of months beforehand. She passed very comfortably and had a guaranteed grammar place.

MoonShapedPool when you say none at all had you or school really never shown them a sample paper eg from the school info booklet or website. I only know of one dc who went in completely blind and it didn't end well. I just can't imagine getting a 10 year old to sit an exam in a strange hall with hundreds of strangers where they need to put a line in a box in a certain way so the computer marks it without having at least shown them an example. I can just imagine How did it go, good mum I ticked all the correct answers. Mum goes pale.
Those who dont prep at all how do you deal with covering yr 6 maths curriculum. Our area GL test definitely included yr 6 and beyond maths yet the test is week 3 of yr 6. This maths won't have been covered at all by a yr 5 child in state school.

I'm amazed at this amount of prep. My DC took the Kent test back in the late 90's/early 2000s. All I did with them was buy the books from WH Smith and go over the papers in those during the summer holidays between Y5 and Y6.

They need to get used to the format of the questions - I would hate to do a test like that blind - but I would say that we probably spent no more than a few hours with each of them spread over that summer.

If your child needs to do as much prep as some people above are suggesting then they may not be happy or do well at grammar school.

I attended a grammar school many years ago and remember how unhappy one particular girl was who had gained her place on appeal.

She came bottom in every test (we were handed our test papers back in results order) and was in the lowest set in the subjects that were streamed. I can still picture her sitting there hunched over in class.

She left at the end of the fifth form whereas the vast majority of us stayed on in the sixth form then went on to university.

Her parents admitted many years later that she would have been both happier and more successful at the local comprehensive school.

The best thing you can do for English is put up a word a day/couple of days for them to find out the meaning and use it in a sentence. Simple, quick, painless, fun and primary school will appreciate it too.

Disagree about not needing prep. DS's school only taught up to level 4, but the 11 plus is level 6.

Non verbal and verbal reasoning not taught at school.

Exam technique is very important.

No one goes into gcse or a level exams without studying. It's an exam, like an other. It needs preparation.