Those taking the 11+ in Sep, how much prep are you planning for the holidays?

[lawofdistraction]

DD is taking the 11+ late September and I'm not sure what is an appropriate/normal amount of preparation to do over the summer holidays - I don't want her to become stressed or burn out.

It's GL assessment English and Maths, and to give an idea of where she's at - she took a mock at the school recently and performed really well, placing 7th out of 165 girls. However it was her English that pulled her up (standardised score 118) whereas her Maths was lower than I would have liked (89). This didn't surprise me as she has been scoring better at English in practice papers at home.

We have flashcards and 10 minute tests so I was thinking, Monday to Friday: 10 minutes or so of flashcards; a 10 minute test and 20 minutes reading something that isn't Enid Blyton, as that is all she would read if I left her to it! Then in addition once a week, one full length paper.

Does that sound reasonable? What are others planning?

That’s all about we did - sat the Bucks 11+ GL test in 2019. It was more than enough BUT my DD was getting standardised scores well over 121 in all sections at this stage.

Your daughter’s maths result seems very low in comparison to her English. If her maths is weaker (as opposed to it being a blip) then I would focus more on maths.

I have seen children totally broken by the 11+ process so agree with your approach but plenty of other people would be ramping it up significantly over the summer. One of my DDs friends had been tutored from year 4 and was doing three hours a day, six days a week in the holidays. They didn’t go away. And she failed. It’s just not worth putting all your eggs in one basket.

Thanks. Yes I definitely think we need to focus more on maths. Her mental arithmetic is excellent but I think there are gaps in her knowledge and she needs to learn how to apply her maths to the questions. That said, the top maths mark in the mock was only 109, so perhaps it was a difficult paper for some reason.

DD is doing her test in September. I have left it up to her to decide how much she wants to do in the holidays.

I will encourage her to read and listen to audiobooks, but otherwise I’m leaving it to her. She has made herself a practice timetable, and I think she’s doing an hour on weekdays and mock tests on Saturdays.

Probably moving up from 1-2 hours a week plus five minutes on a maths app each day, to something more like 3 hours a week (so an hour every other day) for the two weeks where we’re on holiday as a family. Will probably try out Atom in August, too, as some of her tests will be online and might be ISEB. I also want to squeeze in a mock test, as she’s never been in exam conditions.

In terms of content, moving on from learning the Y6 maths and how to do NVR, to doing practice papers at the moment. Next thing to work on is speed, but we’re aiming for accuracy first.

We're using Atom Learning to try and boost my youngest's maths up before her exam. I must admit I am worried about how much practice to encourage, I want her to enjoy her summer but know she needs to brush up a bit. Helpful to see other parents with these concerns!

10 mins a day here so far, will start doing some full papers next week. I don’t want DS to feel any stress about it so I’m trying to ignore all the voices telling me that other people are doing hours a day!