11 plus prep in the summer

[essexmum78]

Anyone else's DC sitting their 11 plus soon?

We're 2 months away and I'm more nervous than DD 🙄 she's working at greater depth across the board but seems to make silly mistakes under pressure (especially with maths). We're doing an hour of practice questions/chat every day and nothing on weekends but I'm worried it's too much and she needs a break!

How is everyone else managing the last few weeks?

We are doing it this year too. She was on 1.5hr/week group tutor however this stops during the summer as the tutor is taking summer holiday. I managed to book a week off end of August and we have weekends.

My DS is sitting 11+ in January and we're having a horrible time trying to get him to take it seriously at the moment. We're mixing up 10-min tests in all three subjects with practice papers, but his English skills are just not very good. He did a practice essay this morning and it was awful. I was really struggling to find a few positives, while trying to get through to him that he needs to make a plan and then write something that actually makes sense and tells a story with a beginning, a middle and an end

We are most strugging with non-verbal reasoning and really dont know where to start. Is there any explanation book, short cuts/tip share book we could get or it is just a matter of increasing practice. Being in state school doesnt help with regard to NVR at all.

There's NVR books and help books available on Amazon

When did they’ve start doing prep? What age/year group? Nothing to contribute I’m afraid but curious when people generally start practising for these!

We're using these Greenleave CGP

Bond

@FloraHiggins we're in Essex and the test is closely mapped to the curriculum so we've just been going a bit further with what she learns at school since the middle of year 4 so about 18 months before the test. Other tests are more traditional and need more prep and practice.

Lots of reading, comprehension and covering year 6 curricula that they'll have only been exposed to for 3 weeks at the time of sitting the test!

Thank you, I have bought bonds however we might need to take a step back and do 09-10 first then 10-11 then CPG. At the moments she struggles to answer complete within 10 mins and the results arent great. We live in Tiffin area and our tutor only taught maths and english. We plan to sit few private which has NVR.

Thanks crisscross! We’re also on the tiffins area greenleave and i prepped for it 20 years ago but my parents were pretty chilled compared to the rest of my (Asian) family - I only started practising 6 months before - so it’s hard to gauge what’s appropriate, especially since things have presumably changed!

*In the tiffins area

We started in Jan of this year (so a year before), but I think it depends on the DC, where they are curriculum-wise (behind, on schedule, ahead), whether the school does any prep with them, how much of a fast learner they are, how much time you have to do stuff with them at home, how good the tutor/prep class is. My DS1 is quite well prepared with maths and VR/NVR, but we really need to work on his English, which is nowhere near good enough at present.

Greenleave, I think you are right on taking a step back. When dd started on NVR, I introduced it as some fun puzzles she might like to try and did not time it. I think children do better if they think it is something they are good at,, so determined to give her lots of praise no matter what her results and get her to explain one "I could not see". We used to do some tests as a competition between us. It does improve a lot with practice, but a positive, "can do" attitude is important.
She now never uses anything she learnt from NVR or VR. Hours of education are wasted each year on children building useless skills to pass 11+ when they could have been learning something useful, all to support the dogma that 11+ tests natural ability and cannot be taught.

YouTube has some really useful explanations of all the different NVR types. Bond 10 minute tests are really useful to keep dc ticking over in the holidays and great for timing practice.

DS sits the 11+ in mid Sept and has had a group tutor session for an hour a week since March. We’re doing 10-15 minutes a day on weekdays during the holidays just to try and get him used to the timing constraints.

I had a look at the NVR books today and 1/2 of the questions I have to guess, I could only exlain it once I saw the answer. Thanks everyone, we will need to dive in the how to books first, we have few more months compare to grammar school. I thought she could have taken NVR naturally based on her character clearly it hasnt been a case. We need to focus on vocabulary as well even she is a book worm and reads loads and always happy with any book. Our tutor is truly busy, I dont think she remembered my daughter name until recently. To be honest I only hope she helps her familiarise with exams techniques and types as there isnt time for any personal touch(explaining new concepts to each of the 7children within 1.5hour).

Bond do the 'how to do VR' etc books - talks you through the different styles, with worked examples - these are useful.

When I was prepping, we used the 'how to..'book first to learn the skills and then the 10 minute tests to practise them.

We were prepping for Jan exams and did some work most days in the Easter hols and then in the summer, spent 30 mins per day on Eng/maths and 30 mins per day on Vr/VR on week days when we weren't away on holiday - so probably did about 20 days like that over the whole summer. We used to do 30 mins Maths/Eng after breakfast, go out for the day and then do 30 mins VR/NVR before dinner when we got home from our day out - tried hard not to let in spoil the hols.

In the Christmas hols just before the exams, we did similar, having 3 days off over Christmas and tended to do either a maths or Eng paper per day or a VR/NVR paper per day. If you draw up a timetable of the time available and pencil in which skill to work on in each slot available, it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

Personally I think some chunks of time totally off is needed (weeks away and weekends) and an hour a day the rest of the time is plenty.

Sounds like your daughter is doing enough extra study, make sure she has days off occasionally. The important thing is for her not to be stressed out.

There seems to be a lot of extra tutoring for 11+ nowadays, I never had any and neither did my offspring and we got through with no difficulty.

Thanks, ordered these how to books and 9-10, 10mins. I dont really see her during the week, I might be able to catch her before bed time. I leave before she wakes up. There are activities for her during the day, she does loads of music at reasonable high level(G7 piano and G5 violin last year), music camp etc and I know there are loads of reading because I have book list she requested almost every week. We do have weekends however with a young sibling and so much chores to catch up weekends passed by fast. I havent realised NVR as a problem until last week.

My DD is also sitting exams and they are before she does a day of Y6! Beginning of Sept. Unfortunately different formats too.

She does a paper in the morning and corrections in evening when I'm back. We do VR words at weekends as we go about doing real "holiday stuff" Also taken the last week of school holidays off.

There seems to be a lot of extra tutoring for 11+ nowadays, I never had any and neither did my offspring and we got through with no difficulty.

Comparing to the past isn't relevant. For a start, especially in super selective areas, the "pass" mark is a lot higher. Back in my day, it was typically around 65-75%, but in super selective areas, it can be as high as 95%. Secondly, a few decades ago, the subject matter was actually taught as part of normal school lessons - nowadays, the 11+ is sat typically at the start of year 6 but is based on the entire primary curriculum, so kids have to learn a lot of year 6 work for the 11+ which they then learn in class afterwards. So, not really comparable at all.

mama how do you do VR words? Is there a list you work off or are you just generally expanding her vocabulary? Sorry, I'm not there yet with my DC but am intrigued!

Flora I wish I could say it was interesting but it's practically learning by rote.

We have the CGP CEM 10 mins tests (comprehension and cloze) and for the tests tried in the week, we go over the words. Also the words in the Letts CEM book. She doesn't do the Letts papers, I just ask her to learn the words as there's just no time. Plus words we come across when we read together (She's never not known a word when reading by herself).

Why a 10 year needs to know words like virulent beats me!

Most of the VR words should have come from generally reading books etc throughout the primary years. If the child hasn't read a lot of books, or has only been limited to the ones supplied by the school as oposed to more general reading, children's classics, etc., then, yes, there may be a problem and realistically, learning by rote is all you can do when the 11+ is within sight.

It always concerns me that these children who are being 'force fed' will just manage to get through the selection tests and then be totally out of their depth when they are in the school classes. There is no time in class for 'extra' back up. If they are really struggling with the tutoring, back tests etc then maybe they are not really grammar school material.

Most people tutor for grammar these days, so they will be in with a lot of other students who have got through by shear hard work for the 11+. If they are capable of doing enough work to pass the 11+, and are clever enough to pass having done that work, they are well within the capabilities of what their workload will be in Grammar.