11+ prep - is a tutor really as essential as we’re being led to believe?

[Suchasadmumma]

This has probably been done to death over the years, so apologies!

Prepping for 11+; my daughter is about to start yr 5. She’s bright and would like to try 11+ next year to see if she can pass/apply to local grammar school.

I don’t do school run myself, but hubby tells me everyone says that you HAVE to get a tutor. A client of mine I was chatting to today also indicated to that effect. Apparently, everyone does it and it’s pretty much pointless trying to do it without.

I get that it’s a totally different kind of area of learning to what they’d be doing at school; but is full on tutoring absolutely necessary?!

I didn’t really want to take that route; I worry that kids might sink while they’re there, having been trained to sit a test but perhaps not actually be bright enough to keep up at the expected level once they’re in?

Apart from fully fledged child geniuses (which as bright as she is, my child definitely isn’t!) has anybody here had kids do a bit of prep at home to get a feel for the kind of questions in the test, but then taken the test and passed?

We’re Kent area, if that makes a difference at all!

Thanks

I think there are good reasons why you might not want to use a tutor, but fear of your tutored child not being bright enough to keep up once they’re there shouldn’t be one of them. If you were planning intensive tutoring from y3 on that might apply, but you’d only be doing what is fairly normal prep.

We didn’t have a tutor, so prepped ourselves, but we certainly did more than a bit of prep at home to get a feel for the test questions. I would say we did the equivalent amount of work to those who had a tutor. Not in Kent though.

You will get plenty of people saying their child did minimal prep and they got in. I wanted to do more to increase their chances, and did so without laying on pressure, hot housing or damaging our relationship. In fact I think the prep time actually strengthened the relationship with both DC when they each went through it.

What is important is that your daughter is prepared for the exam format and practices to get her speed up. She doesn’t need a tutor for this if you feel confident to do it with her and she doesn’t mind you being the teacher.
Find out the format for the exams and buy the relevant practice tests. Bond books are typical but there are others to support multiple choice tests.

Thanks for this input. That’s really useful. She did a couple of practice papers I’d downloaded back before lockdown (not realising what they were) and said ‘this is really weird maths’ but she did get a pass mark (albeit it lower end) so perhaps I’m being a bit naive in thinking kids can go in and just do it, without any real focussed/dedicated learning!

I’ll get some of the books as suggested and if she’s not really feeling it with minimal guidance/help, I may just get a tutor for her then, if nothing else than so she’s got a good idea of what to expect, and get her more familiar with it/the kinds of questions.

What lockdown has taught me is that she’d probably NOT appreciate us being her teacher!

I prepped my son for his 11+ . Get some practice papers and familiarise your daughter with the types of questions to expect. Timing is a massive consideration - I think we worked out it was 30 secs per question. My son did really well and got the highest score in the county that year.

Two boys here, one has taken and passed it and the other is due to take it this year. Both tutored, because it's not fair if others are tutored and they're not. I would like to see the whole system gone tbh. But because it IS there there isn't much choice but to go along with it.

Ps we also did/are doing the Bond Books and GL assessment papers at home (which were recommended by the tutor).

I think if your DC needs a tutor to actually teach them lots (beyond a bit of algebra and other Y6 maths), then it's probably a sign that maybe a grammar isn't the right destination for them. But I do think that a good bit of practice and honing of exam technique (eg timing practice) can make quite a difference, particularly if you're aiming for a super-selective grammar. It's perfectly easy to do that yourself if you have the time, patience, inclination and educational background - hiring a tutor is effectively just outsourcing that work. We do have a 'bit of a genius should have passed easily anyway' type child, and we still did some tutoring in Year 5, because we found that it then became like any other after school 'club', and he did the practice happily, regularly and without complaint, whereas I think if we'd done it ourselves it would have been much more of a battle. I'm pretty confident he would have passed without it, but probably with a lower score (and a lot more stress at home).

We didn’t tutor and when talking to our head about it he said we were doing absolutely the right thing BUT we were exceptionally brave as everyone else was. My DD was at a prep school and still everyone had an external tutor.

We didn’t tutor as we wanted to ensure that a grammar was the right place for her and not that she fluked a pass and then struggled whilst there.

We focussed on familiarisation of the types of question, exam technique and timing. Whilst her friends were doing three hours a day in the summer holidays, we were doing one or two 10 minute tests. It never felt like a burden or stressful. She passed with flying colours.

We were terribly lucky though. A great comp and the money for private as a backup. If my local school had been awful then maybe we would have tutored and been a lot more stressed out about it.

I do honestly believe that a bright child can pass the 11+ with preparation but not tutoring. But having been through it, yes, we were definitely brave 😂😂

She doesn't necessarily needs tuition, but she will need to prepare, preferably with an adult that understands the questions ,the logic behind them etc and to keep an eye on timings. Giving her the sheets,books and answers won't be enough unless she's very smart, very committed and very determined.

The questions vary in level of difficulty, some I struggled with as an adult(we do them in breakfast club for y5), some my Y3 DD solved easily .

Whether it is done at home or through a paid for tutor, the more a child learns on passing the test, the higher their probability will be in passing.

If you have a child who has passes the 11+, they are capable of working at that level. So, you will not get people saying, "My child is so bright, they did not need to work to pass the 11+. I am concerned whether to send them to grammar, as I don't know how they will cope if they have to put work in." Yet come GCSEs and A levels, which child is likely to do better?

Dd went to a group (3) session once a week from Y5 upwards and in the run up to the exam she did a couple of exercises from the Bond books every week and she did very well. She also did a couple of mocks in exam conditions over the summer and the results were fed back to her tutor to see what areas needed extra work.
I think it was good from the point of view that there wasn’t too much pressure or extra work but it got her used to the exam and concentrated on the areas not covered at school. A friend of mine works at a local Grammar and says they can pretty much see if a child has had no prep at all because “if they are bright they will do well”. She invigilates the 11+ at her school and often there will be a child in tears because they just don’t know how to tackle the exam paper at all. Equally there are quite a few who arrive in Y7 and are clearly out of their depth as they were pushed very hard for the exam but aren’t as academically capable as their peers in general
It’s a balancing act really

I’m not in a Grammar school area, so,not experienced but..

With things like verbal reasoning, it would not be fair to send in a child to sit an exam who has never seen A to B is like C to D questions before. Not necessarily tutoring, but no one is going to do well when faced with questions they’ve never seen before and have to spend time trying to figure out what the question is asking, no matter how intelligent they are.

Sadly intelligence isn’t the be all and end all of 11+. Children asked to answer questions without basic knowledge of those questions will struggle. That doesn’t mean hiring a tutor, but make sure your child understands the questions is a basic requirement I think.

The issue is that you have to be quick in the exam. If you're faced with a huge volume of new questions that you've not seen before, she''ll spend precious time trying to work out what the question means, rather than just cracking on with it.

Unless she is super-bright, you need some practice over the summer. But, you don't need a tutor as long as you have a decent level of education you can go though with her anything she is unsure about. We didn't have a tutor and DS (who is not superbright) got a decent pass mark.

I have four children - fourth one due to take it this year, three others into superselectives.

I would say that having a tutor will help if you don't want to/can't tutor yourself, but it's not essential. I found that particularly for NVR it helped having someone other than a parent prep my children - I personally find their input and experience invaluable. We just have a group tutor session once a week (I think one on one can be a bit intense for some) and the tutor ensures that they have covered all of the curriculum, practises exam technique with them and takes the pressure off my husband and me. The children have also all been to 'summer school' in the late August before the test in September. It definitely helps with familiarisation and speed.....

If you are in an independent school and have been well supported during lockdown then you probably could do the preparation yourself. If in a state school ... you're brave! I think next year a lot of yr5 will focus on catching up yr4 work so even less chance of covering the curriculum in sufficient detail especially in Maths which already draws on the state yr6 curriculum. It is worth looking at eleveplusexams.co.uk. It also depends if you are aiming for a superselective or 'normal' grammar school.

It does of course depend on your relationship with your child. Even if you get a tutor they will still expect your child to do homework which you will need to supervise. It is worth considering too whether the actual school will suit your dc. Different schools suit different dc.

DD went to a very good tutor, taught in small groups. Lots of exam preparation and filling in a few gaps.
She sailed through the exam and is doing well at the grammar school.
I know of quite a few families who just prepped at home and got in and some families who sent kids to tutors for several years who didn't..

I work in a prep school in an area with grammar schools nearby so we prep children for it. I can tell you from about year 3 who will pass, regardless of prep/tutoring. There will sometimes (rarely) be one who preps really well and passes when we weren’t expecting it (in the past 4 years we’ve had one of these), there will sometimes be one who flunks it when they should have passed - but this is rarely to do with lack of tutoring and more to do with overconfidence and not bothering to check answers or just a bad day, and the last 2 of these we’ve had have got in on appeal. What we don’t have is average children managing to pass, because it’s a hard exam and no matter how much prep they do some children just can’t manage it. I only wish parents would take our advice on this - frustratingly we have about 5 each year who attend our tuition and put themselves under pressure and they’re miles off. As I say, I can usually predict this from about year 3.

To sum up - I don’t think tutoring is a necessity if your child is working ahead of expectations, and you can do some prep with them to help familiarise them with the question types and format and help them with timing. But if she fails - will you wish you had tutored? Or will you think ‘never mind, that wasn’t the school for her’ and be happy with the other option?

I think that if you're in Kent it is slightly different from trying to get into a grammar in an area where most schools are comprehensive (and where a much smaller proportion of children can therefore get into the grammar).

I have a friend in Buckinghamshire which, as I understand it, has a similar set-up to Kent. All her (3) children got places at grammar school without tutoring. She did some preparation with them herself, so that they were familiar with the sort of questions they would encounter, but not much and not for long.

A couple of considerations. We found a tutor the best way to go for a number of reasons :

1. Its a dedicated time which cant be shifted (rather than "we'll do it in a minute")
2. They have more patience with your child than you do - this could just be me!
3. As pp's have said, there are 2 things that they teach - usually some of the Y6 content which hasn't been covered by the time of the exam, and then technique and speed. If you're confident you have a handle on that, then yes, you can do that but certainly here, tutors have masses of experience in that area (often teachers / retired teachers / been involved in assessment etc).

They can practise with you or a tutor. I found that school hadn’t covered all of the maths required. I prepared DD1, DD2 had a tutor as I didn’t have the time then to do it myself. They both did a couple of Bond tests a week. I really don’t think it’s fair to ask a child to do the test without adequate preparation.

I would definitely recommend using a tutor, especially for practicing the 11+ verbal and nonverbal reasoning tests, which aren’t covered in schools, and would help get dd or ds speedier at answering time limited questions. I can recommend an excellent 11+ tuition centre, which tutors small groups and is less intense than one on one called, www.procedoeducation.com

I'm a parent and maths tutor and yes it can be done without a tutor. But you need to be prepared.

Don't just think 'I have a bright child in top set in both maths and english' and thats fine, you need to find what your target schools are and the expected levels of that school.

I'm in SW London and most parents here are aiming for Tiffins/Sutton and top independents. These will be challenging for almost every child.

If you can work with your child , thats better than tutoring, but be realistic and honest with your own assessment. Look at any available past papers from the schools.

The top schools in Hammersmith are after mathematicians, not kids who can simply do algebra and calculate, they are required to think mathematically. Hence a lot of the question from these schools seem puzzling to most.

VR and NVR can also be done at home, but again prepare and be aware what each school may want.

Good luck !!

My daughter sat the 11+ and did no prep. We showed her how to colour in the boxes and how that worked. That was it. We only decided to attend last minute. It was for an area with a few grammars. She got a place offered at some but not all.