Confused!Bond 11+ books,which to buy?

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

There seems to be hoards of them.Diff ages,diff subjects,assessment papers,10 minute tests,multiple choice.....

DS in year 4. Please somebody compile me a list,I'll be tutoring him.

Tia

Have a look on elevenplusforum (google it) which has different forum for each county. On those you'll find recommendations for which books best prepare for your area, and what the tests consist of (subject, multichoice/standard format, paper length). I found Bond useful to get going, but other publishers better for wider range of question types (one that is a three letter acronym - IDS or something like that and Letts and another). Schools may recommend some, and some schools do practice test day in May/June/July - worth checking locally. 10 min tests are really useful for practising a little and often. Assessment ones give you an idea how they go on with full-length papers.

My dd started with age8-9 Bond at end of y4 when she was turning 9, wanted to build her confidence gradually, then moved up age, before widening to other question types. (But dd2 was only 6 and v. jealous so I had to get the 6-7 ones for her birthday! Not hothousing, honest!).

HTH!

Oh thank you,that's really helpful.

I looked inside the non verbal reasoning book on Amazon and have just scared myself.

There seems to be a parent guidebook thankfully,dp can be in charge of that particular area.

Right just looked at that site.

They've mentioned verbal reasoning but no non verbal reasoning.

When they say verbal reasoning,do they mean both?

Step 1: find out which subjects your DS will actually be sitting for his test in your area, and whether the tests are in standard format or multiple choice. Look at your area on the EPE forum and start lurking.

Step 3: work our which topics you need to teach him in each subject. For example, verbal reasoning has 15 types of question in some areas, 21 types in other areas and more than that in a few areas. The EPE forum can help here. Some of the Maths topics will have been covered at school, others won't.

Step 4: teach him one or two topics a week in each subject. For example, one week might be ratios in Maths and compound words questions in verbal reasoning. Give him some practice questions on each topic.

Step 5: once you have covered the syllabus, give him practice questions and papers. Mark them with him, making sure he understands where and how any mistakes were made.

Step 6: Start to teach him exam technique, for example learning to read the question carefully and not spending too long on each question. Start giving him time constraints.

Step 7: in the month before the test, do some mock papers under something approximating exam conditions.

This method worked for us; twice. I only have experience of coaching my children in Maths and verbal reasoning, but in some areas English and non-verbal reasoning are needed too.

There is no step 2! Sorry, my children were distracting me.

I would say step 7 should happen more like from 3 months before exam as it takes time to get good habits of time keeping etc.

Wow thank you that is really helpful.

I have twins in year4. 1 is adamant that he wants to go,he is bright,driven etc so hopefully shouldn't be a problem.

His twin is bright but errr less driven.

I also have a dd in year3.

Simply can't afford tutoring,their primary school is only Satisfactory however I was a primary teacher myself and have been keeping on top of things at home.All avid and very able readers etc,literate,good spellers,boys v good at maths(dtwin2 has been on G&T courses which he loved). Dd not so hot re maths but where she should be(maths will be a focus for her).

It's reassuring to hear self tutoring is possible.That site is great and really useful.

Many thanks.

I agree with happy that learning about timekeeping is one of the most important and hard bits to master!

Where are you, OP? If it says VR then that means VR only. I'd phone your target school and ask, to be sure. Here, we have one school that does 2 VR tests, one standard format (write the answer) and one multiple choice. But the other 13 schools are in a consortium that do a VR paper an a NVR paper, both multiple choice. The latter do a practice day, and the NVR is split into timed sections. The consortium tells 6 types of question that come up, and 5 will, so no point practising any other type!

Three's suggestions are great. My dd didn't really need much teaching, just practised a couple of papers, then we looked at what she wasn't so good at. I also used an incentive programme of 5p per question attempted and 5p per question right - so effort is rewarded regardless of result but result gets more. She was trying to earn enough for an mp3 player.

And ask your questions on the county forum on elevenplusforum, as you'll get tuned answers then re. books and question types.

Devon Found.

Great tips,thanks.

Money always an incentive.

Still not 100% sure but starting to think if we prepare now it won't be such a panic if we all decide to do it come Year6 particularly with tutoring not being an option.

ThreeBee - my eldest is year 4, and I'm planning to help him at home rather than private tutor (despite current fashion around here ).

Did you start with Bond? We're working through verbal reasoning age 9-10 years, and getting around 96%+ in each test. Thought I'd start maths 10-11 years in the summer, as he's already working at a high level.

I do feel like I'm leaping in the dark to some extent. My gut feeling is its right for him, as he's motivated and if anything doesn't need any more pressure. I'm just hoping I judge it right...

So Bond for now okay, do you reckon?

sittinginthesun: if you are talking about the consortium of schools that is local to you and me, then Bond is certainly fine for the Maths. I used nothing else until the three weeks or so before the test, when I introduced a couple of GLA papers for 'exam conditions' experience, which I made DS1 do in the library on New Road! A lot of children score very high in that particular Maths paper, so he needs to be looking at 47/50 or over in order to get a score that is useful for the likes of WBGS.

For verbal reasoning, Bond is also useful, but doesn't quite offer the variety of question types that the consortium's Moray House paper does. If you are really serious about this, then I would get Susan Daughtrey's Technique & Practice books 1-4. You have loads of time, so you could do one question type per week (there are 35). He could still do a little bit of Bond for variety though, maybe the ten-minute tests. Closer to September 2014, I'd recommend Athey and Alpha papers as the best ones for mock exam practice, as children say they are the closest to the ones in the consortium test.

Will he be doing the musical aptitude test too?

I feel that I need to explain to sittinginthesun why I have put more than one of my children through this process when we have a sibling rule in our area.

When I looked around the schools with DS1, I was looking for the best school for him. DS2 has SEN and is completely different, so he had to sit the test in order to have the option of applying to other schools. When we did eventually look around with his needs in mind, it turned out that DS1's school was the best fit, but at the time of the test we didn't yet know that. He was also very keen to do the test.

Thank you, ThreeBee, that is really helpful!

We're still at early stages, and haven't looked around schools yet. I have a feeling he'd prefer stCD, as it's local. I just want to be in a position to keep options open until we look round.

I understand exactly what you say about your second child. Although he's bright, I'm more worried about the pastural care side of things with ds1. He's likely to do well academically anyway, but I'd just like him to enjoy it.

Right been reading that site.

Slightly worried as it says to work through the summer hols before the test so summer hols of year 5. Only thing is we were planning to go to the States for 2 months ie the summer holiday before the start of year 6.

How much do you need to do in the hols before year 6?

In my area the two tests are held in weeks 3 and 4 of September ( ie at the beginning of year 6) The summer holidays are prime tutoring time!

Oh great so that's next summer and the summer after out then,buggar!

He much should they do during said hols?

hi, my ds is in year 5 so we are doing lots of this right now!

the tutors on the site have helpful tutor guides you can use.
For VR, they recommend that you do lots of vocab (vocab lists are given) and ensure maths times tables etc are up to scratch.
Then for VR start with the papers after christmas in year 5.

Don't know the timetable if you are doing maths and english etc.

I'm afraid that a lot of children will be working throughout the summer holidays between Y5 and Y6; I know many that did a paper a day. DS2 did nowhere near this amount and was still successful so I'm not sure how much is necessary. Enough to keep them ticking over, I suppose. The middle of September is a horrible time to have a test that has such long-term consequences.

I had heard rumours that Herts might move to end of year 5...

Well I suppose that will mean the children can enjoy their summer holidays, at least.

I tried to persuade dd to do a 10 minute practice every few days of hols... probably managed it on about 10-15 days, plus a long one every so often to practice speed. Her accuracy was always over 90% of what she completed, was just a matter of getting/keeping speed up - not sticking on a hard question. She did a about 30 questions once a week before that, from about April. Was really bored by the time of the tests - we had them on all 4 Saturdays of Sep due to doing for 2 schools. We tried to do a full paper of the right type in that week - had to have Dad or I do it too to get it done, and boy was it boring, but we'd have got in too :-).
My dd was pretty compliant and was very capable of doing the tests. I'm not sure how you go with a more borderline/less compliant child. My dd2 and dd3 are more competitive than dd1, so am hoping the same approach will work with them...

11+ books!!!

Guys what's the difference between 11+ books for 8-9 years, 9-11 years etc???

Thanks