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?

I don’t see any children being force-fed on this thread. Simply parents doing their best in a system where some kids come from the private system where they’ve been doing this stuff for years, vs the state system where Y6 maths isn’t discussed at all in Y5 (our test is a week into Y6, hence the one tutoring lesson a week.) Our system locally is super selective, without some practice kids coming from state schools wouldn’t stand a chance.

maybe they are not really grammar school material

Most grammars sit the same exams as comps, so there's not really that much difference in what they're being taught. The average grammar pupil will be at a similar level to the higher sets/streams of an average comp. Both will be sitting the higher GCSE exams at the same age. The main difference is that grammars may expect their pupils to sit an extra 1 or 2 GCSEs and they may offer subjects that some comps don't, maybe such as Latin, Further Maths, etc. Grammars also offer the less academically demanding subjects such as Arts, tech, PE, so again, similar to comps really. I really do think people over-state the differences.

My daughter got into Tiffin last year. Started tutoring 1 hour per week for English and Maths (separately) around Easter of year 5 (plus homework and practice - maybe 2-3 hours per week). We felt she needed time off over the summer, so she didn't touch anything during the summer other than a practise test at Examberry which I felt was really useful to simulate exam conditions and to see where she was vs. an admittedly fairly random set of local potential applicants. We started again in September and stepped up the practise at that point (maybe 5-6 hours per week). Towards the 2nd round test date my daughter was getting quite fed up with work, so anytime she objected we didn't really push it...I think it you push too hard and don't allow time off there's a danger of burn out and/or stressing the children too much. They are all different of course, but my daughter is quite stubborn and I know she might really react badly if we tried to impose a strict regime on her - it was a parternship based on how much she felt comfortable doing vs. having a normal life, seeing friends, spending hours making slime etc. etc.

I agree with pacer in that academically grammar schools are not much different from top sets in comps. There are however lots of other differences which is why I choose for both my DS's to do the 11+. DS1 was tutored and I did worry that he wouldn't cope as although he is bright he is not an instinctive learner. However my worries were unfounded and he has had a fab first year.
I think you only need to worry about over tutoring if you are in a full grammar area and your child is really struggling to achieve a pass mark.

My niece's school has run a summer school for 11+ prep....she's loving it!
Also uses - Atom Learning at home - to prepare. School gave us the log in details and set work every week....
Would ask your school about this - if you dont already have it!

Hi @essexmum78, just though to share this, I got this free online maths course for my year 1 kid from Think Academy UK, both me and my kid are very happy about that. Think Academy is currently offering one week free online maths course for year 1 to year 6, targeting SATs and 11 plus exams.

My DD is about to go into Y8 in a grammar school in a super-selective area. She is from a very average state school background and I ‘tutored’ her for the exam myself. She/we did masses of extra reading (Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer/The Wolves of Willoughby Chase etc etc), lots of audio books of Greek & Roman myths in the car (I found that having that ‘prep school’ cultural capital really helped, especially when it came to her composition, not sure that this is the right terminology). We did extra Y6/Y7 curriculum maths three times a week, I think. But what I would say is that the biggest lessons for my state school daughter were in how to read a clock and fast forward and plan her timings, and exam techniques accordingly, so making sure she had read all the questions correctly, knew how to notate, knew to turn the blasted exam papers over, and knew to move on quickly if she didn’t know the answer to a question, and, if she still didn’t when she revisited and it was a multiple choice question, then simply to make an educated guess.

My daughter signed up to an online platform called Paideia last month after a friend recommended - she's doing their online classes/learning material. They are good quality and we are happy with Isabelle's teaching (the woman who runs it) so we just enrolled her for the summer program they're running. Might be worth looking into.